Fluffy & Aki

My 4-year old nephew made up a girl named Fluffy (don't know how he came up with this name, because he doesn't speak english ;-)) and a sea-gull named Aki. Don't know where that came from either, except for the fact that we were on the beach and he saw a sea-gull, but I found it funny. This is how Fluffy and Aki look like in my imigination ;-).

Red and White Wine

It's been a week!
These are the two winelabels I wrote about in my last blog. I have family in Portugal. My mothers sister was married to a Portuguese man, he passed away last year. The family owns an old vineyard, with red and white grapes. Now that my oncle passed away, my cousin tries to keep the wine harvest going. She lives in the Netherlands but flies over to Portugal as much as she can. There are so much things to do overthere. The old house needs fixing for example and there's the grapes that need to be picked every year. Before, my oncle used do all the things in and around the land, but now he's gone, my cousin tries to organize things. It's a lot of work! Especially since my aunt (her mother) recently had heartsurgery. Luckily, they got a lot of lovely people over there to take care of things around the house and to look after the land.

This year the grapes were picked by a lot of local people. I offered to design a wine label for the red and white wine from 2012. This seemed to me like a very fun thing to do! The idea of winebottles with a label made by me, gives me a good feeling! My work for people to see, and to hopefully, enjoy for a moment when they look at it.

My oncle who passed away last year was named "Fausto" and my cousin came up with the idea to name the wine "Fausto Tinto" (the red wine) and "Fausto Branco"(the white wine). "Moita de Alvorninha" is the name of the mountain the vineyard is on.

These are the results of the lables I came up with. A lot of trying out....It's a little collage, drawing, painting and writing in indian ink, watercolour and coloured ink. And drawing pen.

The white wine label (Fausto Branco), I'm not completely happy with yet. Work in progress! ;-).

I still, and I say this almost in every blog I write, have to buy myself either a good scanner or a better camera. This is the sharpest I can get the pictures, even with some adjustments in Iphoto and Photoshop. I haven't got the best camera. Still haven't decided if I should spend my money on a camera or on a scanner....Suggestions?

An addition, writing this sunday the 7th: second picture made with a good Nikon camera! Such a difference!

New and Old

Changed the look of this blog a bit. I needed a little change. :-)
Here's a drawing I did a couple of months ago with a little paper-collage piece in it. Can you see what's the paper-part? ;-)
My approach in this drawing was: Just draw what I want to draw, not with a specific idea about what I want to express. "Thinking about what to do" is a line I added afterwards; words to match the feeling that appeared  in the drawing.

A Rose

A rose in coloured pencil and Artist Pitt Pen on tinted paper. First the drawing was on a larger size tinted paper. While writing the words in Indian Ink, I made a stain. I decided to cut out the rose, wrote the text again and glued the drawing on a another piece of paper.
I like Emily Bronte's words:
'But he that dares not grasp the thorn
should never crave the rose.'
My interpretation: if you really want something you're passionate about, you have to deal with the risks and the possibility of getting hurt. But it's worth it!
A lovely reminder to keep in mind in life to always follow your heart, even if you're scared.

Lily's Magic Books

A while ago I finished a class that I followed: Visual Journaling. I followed this course at http://camp.pikaland.com/. The assignments were about character and idea development and as a result I came up with Lily, a 7 year old girl, living in the seventies, with her parents and cat Peppermint above the bookstore they own in Amsterdam. (If you would like to read about earlier posts about this, click on the tag/label 'visual journal' on the left side of the page.)
These are my final results. The assignment was to pick one scene and draw different versions of this; in black and white, two colors, and an abstract one. As the story also takes place in New York, where Lily magicly goes when she opens a book one night, we had to draw food related to the story and place.
I should finish the complete story because I have the idea in my head. Now I only have to follow through...;-).

My Cup of Tea

I bought a watercolour sketchbook yesterday, and some waterolour paint. When I see other peoples work in watercolour, I like the effect you can achieve with it. I'm not experienced in working with it, but I thought: let's give it a try. And it's always so much fun to go to the art-supplies store and buy some new stuff to experiment with.
So this is yesterday's watercolours result! I must say I like how it worked out. It's done in watercolour, Chinese Ink for the text and some coloured pencil and Faber-Castell Artist Pitt pen.

Drawing a man

I love drawing people. I almost always draw women. I don't know why. Somehow I like drawing women more, maybe because I find this easier and because when I ocassionaly try to draw a man, they end up looking like a woman, or something in between ;-) after all.
But I like men, so I want to be able to draw them! Here is my latest attempt to draw a man. I'm satisfied with the result, he looks like a man...but....I still see something feminine in it! I can't really point my finger at what it is. But my maybe that's just my own imagination ;-).
I need to do some ear-drawing-exercise too by the way.
I did this in Chinese Ink and a FaberCastell Pitt artist pen and I used a magazine picture as reference.

Green Dress

Yesterday I wrote something about not feeling like drawing for a couple of days. Felt really sad about a love-thing. Still I decided to buy a green dress I saw, I just felt I had to do that. Somehow it became a sort of symbol for me for choosing the things in life that I want and most importantly, that the choices I"ll make will be about enjoying and loving life. And share those feelings with other people too, not only keeping them to myself too much ;-). And the dress wasn't even expensive:-D.
Since the dress became a little symbol, I decided to draw it. It's a brighter green in reality, but that's the artists freedom;-).
It's done in coloured pencil, regular pencil and a Copic multiliner in brown.

Two new butterfly drawings in my little moleskine sketchbook.

Yesterdays post was about a few nature drawings I started in a little moleskine sketchbook.
Today some pictures of the old biologybooks my father gave me, which I used as inspiration. I like those old-fashioned drawings.
So I somewhat copied the drawings I showed you yesterday. The yellow butterfly I saw on a postcard of which I like the illustration style a lot. Sometimes I feel guilty when I copy someone else style : " I should have my own style, and invent a style of my own!" But then I think of a quote from Leonardo da Vinci: " If one knows how to copy, one knows how to do it."  Practice, practice, practice, and your own style will develop eventually!
This quote I read in a book from Carla Sonheim with 52 drawing exercises to make drawing fun. This book really is fun! To loosen up and make you think of drawing in a fun and different way!

Started a series of nature drawings in a little moleskine sketchbook.  For some drawings I used an old biologybook my father gave me as a reference.

This drawing kind of represents how I feel today. And no, it's no earache..:-)...
Still working on the correlation between the bodyparts. Arms little too short/ head to big. Hand should have been placed more over the cheek, now it actually could be someone with ear-aching...;-)....

A slice of new York Cheesecake. An assignment for visual journalings class.
I might actually make a cake like this soon, I got in the mood by drawing this one! :-D

Two new ones in ink and pen! :-D Still working on my ink/ecoline skills..! :-)
I used magazine-pictures as references. The text in the first one is a few lines fom a songtext  from Gavin DeGraw ('Dancing Shoes') that kind of describes the feeling of this drawing for me.
The second one I'm not completly satisfied with. But I decided to also post the drawings I'm not completly happy with. All part of the process...;-). In this one the shape of the guitar, and maybe, the right leg is too short in this perspective, seems like a bit of a handicapped leg.... But hey, those kind of legs exist too...! :-) I still like the cool, relaxed "I'm playing my guitar on a sunday afternoon in the backyard- vibe..." :-)

Yesterday evening inspiration came by! :-D I started with the one in brown and blue in pencil. I wasn't happy about the body, the arms are too long. So I started a new drawing. This resulted in the one in black and grey. There was still something about the first one I liked and I finished this one too. These both drawings are done in ecoline ink and drawing pen.
The woman in the brown and blue has a kind of flirty, more outgoing expression than the second one, who is more introverted, in my vision. Funny that a little variation in expression can make such a difference.
By the way, I think the one in black and grey is a bit skinny....:-)...