Broadening My Horizons

When I created this blog, I had in mind to just share pictures of the drawings and paintings I did, just so that it would be easier for me to show people who might be interested to see what I can do and have everything gathered in one place. It started as a very bird centric blog and then I expanded it to people once I completed the 29 Faces Challenge.

At this point, I decided that a change of name and image was in order. I'm not incredibly gifted when it comes to web designing (although back in the 90's I was able to make a really kitschy website with lots of flashing icons in my sleep). These times have changed and I now rely heavily on whatever tools Blogger has at hand to make this electronically suitable for this day and age.

The changes were made and then I started adding links to my favourite pages and shops. I have 'met' all of these people and I have formed some good relationships with them. Make sure to check them out on the left hand column.

The first person I added was Ray Hendrix from R.M. Noble Designs who does professional logos for companies, clubs, t-shirts. He even designed the logo for my translation company and I am forever grateful for that. He managed to capture what I was about while still maintaining a strong professional appearance.

The second link is for Morgan LeFae's Trinkets. Monique is the maker of stunning traveller’s notebooks. The trend started with the company Midori that was making some minimalistic leather covers that could house several notebooks at once. Monique took the style further and now creates true works of art. Check out her shop and web page on the left hand side to have an idea of what her creations look like and how versatile they are.

The last link (for now) is of a publishing company called Creativia. They have released some really great novels in many genres on Amazon, many of which have gone on to become best sellers. It's definitely worth the detour to discover some new favourite authors (my favourite novel so far is Apparition Lake by Doug and Daniel D. Lamoreux).

I have therefore decided to not only publish my latest artworks but to also share book reviews and talk about my ever-lasting love of traveller's notebooks. So expect to see a lot of variation in the next few posts!

Catching up on the #29faces challenge!

I am way behind on updating the blog and I am missing days 20 to 22, so here they are:

Day 20:

Day 21:

Day 22:

Days 18 and 19: #29faces challenge

Here are my offerings for days 18 and 19 of the #29faces challenge:

Spontaneous fountain pen drawing

Gimp and Inkscape collaboration

The Deadpool Traveler's Notebook Project - Part 1

Before going to see the Deadpool movie and since discovering that you can actually use markers on leather, I had been thinking about making myself a traveller's notebook (TN for short) in red with some Deadpool illustrations. I wanted to do one in large Moleskine size (LMC) and so I started to take some measurements. I already have one TN in LMC size from Morgan LeFae'sTrinkets and I really love how the size is so portable and still big enough to doodle, paint and write. When I measured my TN it was slightly bigger than A4 size by half a centimetre. The difference was too big to just wing it with an A4 piece of leather and I definitely needed something bigger. So I looked for the next size, which is A3 and once I did some calculations, I figured out I could definitely pull off an LMC TN as well as an A6 one!

I went to all the textile and furniture shops that I could find in my town and the general answer I got was that it was difficult to find the thickness of leather I needed for my project.

So I turned to eBay and found what I was looking for.

I ordered my leather and when it arrived, I noticed that the 'inside' of the leather was not suede, like I usually see on other pieces of leather and discovered later that the top side was also treated and polished.

My project isn't finished yet but I wanted to post a few pictures of what it's looking like so far.

Back side of the piece of leather. Completely waxed!

Right side, looking really bright!

The 2 A6's

After the drawing

Both the A6 (top) and the LMC (bottom)

I guess I should have known that the top side was waxed but the penny didn't drop until I started drawing on it and that the marker started to go all funny and stopped working all together. I finished the drawing with some China ink and this morning it's looking slightly sticky. I would love to do a little Deadpool logo in the back of the leather and maybe also write Deadpool above the main drawing but first, I'm going to have to test on the leftover bits of leather.

I'm planning on cleaning the leather with some acetone and then using a file to make it a bit rough. I wonder how it's going to look once I finish to use the file... I hope the paint is not going to leave the drawing. But if it gives it an edgy style, I might try it on the LMC...

Watch this space for more updates!

Days 16 and 17 of the #29faces challenge

Here are my two sketches for days 16 and 17.

Day 9 - #29faces challenge

This is a face I picked from a Panini sticker album about an anime series I used to love back when I was 11 about football (soccer). It's called Captain Tsubasa. Every now and again, I see either manga books or DVD box sets popping up again so the series still seems to be relevant even today.

This was not one of the major characters but one that had a distinctive face so I picked him for today. I may go back and pick one (or two!) of the main characters, for old time's sake. To be honest, I don't know which name he got either in the original Japanese or in the English version. In the French version he was called Bruce.

Days 7 and 8 - #29faces challenge

Here is my offering for Day 7:

This is a portrait of John Constantine from the Hellblazer series. It was bound to happen as I like this character a lot. This was not the picture I had originally intended to draw but my muse decided otherwise and this was the picture I ended up with. If I remember correctly, it's the latest incarnation of Constantine that is being shown in the new comic series of Constantine. I wasn't too fond of his hair so I just skipped it!... I really like how rough his face still looks like.

Day 8:

This was something I doodled while watching TV with no clear idea of where I was going. I had started with Harry Potter and the others came along.

When I was spending my semester abroad at the University of Wolverhampton, England, I met plenty of people and since I'm not that good with remembering faces, I decided to draw a cheat sheet for myself that I carried along. In it, I would draw each person I met with their name and nationality (there were many nationalities and I also needed to differentiate the Germans from the Austrians) and their characteristic that made them unique. It really helped me a lot and it looked a lot like the Harry Potter drawing I did above.

#29faces challenge - Days 5 & 6

It seems I have forgotten to post the last few #29faces challenge pictures for the past couple of days so here they are:

Day 5:

In case you didn't guess who this is, it is Neil Degrasse Tyson. I have only recently been made aware of how awesome he is and I thought he would make an excellent subject for the challenge. I used markers mainly with 2 different shades of grey and black.

Day 6:

This is a sketch of one of my favourite comic book characters called Nemi by Norwegian artist Lise Myhre. You can follow her on her Facebook page.

Day 2 - #29faces

Day 2 - Bruce Wayne, Bruce Timm style

This is my offering for Day 2 of the 29 Faces challenge. I chose this picture of Bruce Wayne because this square jaw is simply stunning. Even though it looks very strong, it still fits in very nicely with the character. After all, it's the only element of the masked hero that isn't hidden by a mask.

2015 Hobonichi

This past year, I challenged myself to do a sketch or a painting everyday and in order to track my progress I have chosen to do so on a Hobonichi planner. I wasn't quite sure that the super thin pages would cope but they did and they did so beautifully well.

This year, I have decided to not do this particular challenge but instead, I will take part in any monthly art challenge that I can find. In February, I am going to take part in the #29faces challenge that consists in drawing/painting/sketching one face per day. This is going to be even more of a challenge for me since I'm not that good at drawing (human) faces. I'm really hoping to learn from this and to improve my skills.

For now, here are quite a few pictures of the best sketches I did in my Hobonichi this past year.

You can get your very own Hobonichi here!

First post!

During the next few weeks (and months and years if I remain optimistic and focused), I will be posting a few of my past drawings and various illustrations. I have a lot of catching up to do so there will be a lot of posts today and tons of pictures too.