Jaime "El Canche" Guapo

This is Jaime, Pequeña Muerte's colourful and trusted manager. This character was suggested by a friend of mine and I may or may not have gone slightly overboard with his back story. I am thinking about doing either a comic book or a series of comic strips on both Pequeña Muerte (PM) and Jaime. I'm still not sure where things are going to go from there but I have a few design ideas already. All I need is something to tie everything together!...

Bird Bath

How do crows retain their shiny black feathers? By taking Guinness baths, of course!

Lucha Libre

I recently went through a period of stress, anxiety, anger and frustration and a friend of mine found a way to inspire me and make me see things in a more positive way. I need to take my life in my hands and be as fearless as a fighter in the legendary Lucha Libre... So I present to you... La Pequeña Muerte!!!!

Of course, every seasoned fighter needs a manager and La Pequeña Muerte is no different than the others. I present you, this time, her manager extraordinaire... Jaime Guapo!!!!

Time to get in the ring and exert my revenge...

Photograph borrowed from the Huffington Post and doctored by me.

W.I.P. = Wolf In Progress

Recently, a friend of mine visited a wolf sanctuary and took stunning pictures of a few wolves he met out there and one in particular got my creative motors running. It was a stunning white wolf with triangular black eyes. Today, I couldn't resist it any longer and I just took my favourite picture and started sketching him. And here is the work in progress:

Lu Lu in France

During our holiday in France, we met Lu Lu! We took her with us to the South of France to take some surfing lessons.

Mermaid Madness

At the moment I'm obsessing over mermaids. It's very likely because I miss seeing the ocean everyday and I need something to remind me of it.

One of my favourite artists, Melissa Ballesteros Parada, has got a really cute way of drawing pin-up girls. They don't really look as intimidating as most pin-up girls and they still look very pretty and the best thing is: they come in all shapes and sizes!

I have come up with a mermaid inspired by her style of drawing and this is what it looks like:

Frida Kahlo

Today would have been the 108th birthday of Frida Kahlo. To celebrate, I am posting this portrait I did of Frida as a penguin.

¡Que calor!

It is seriously hot at the moment. It's barely breathable...

Here's a scan of my journal for the past 2 days. I use a Hobonichi diary and I completely love it! I had discovered it all last year and I could see how it was used by everyone who had one and I had to have one of my own. Before getting it, I thought it was just a simple day-to-a-page planner but it is much more than that... It has a monthly diary on top of the daily diary. The most interesting thing about it for me is the paper they used: Tomoe River paper. It is extremely thin paper but that can withstand the use of fountain pens without bleeding at the back of the page. I am completely in love with it and I use it as my daily journal. I have made it my mission to draw at least once a day and I always do my daily drawing in my Hobonichi.

For more info, here are a few links of interest:

- Facebook page
- Official shop

Lu Lu's Holiday

A very dear friend of mine, Robert Barber has created this amazing character called Lu Lu. Lu Lu happens to be a blue flamingo. She has a sparkly personality and is not afraid to be herself.

A few weeks ago, she started a tour across Europe and sent some postcards to Bob. Here are a few of them. She has so far visited Germany and Italy.

For more information on Lu Lu (and Bob!), you can check out her blog as well as her Facebook page.

To Do Lists

I have just finished to create some To Do lists for my traveler's notebook. I have drawn them and used watercolour to colour them. I will scan them, tweak them lightly with Gimp. Once this is done, I will create a document and compile all 3 variations in one page and print them as I need them.

Labels for my notebooks

A couple of labels I just made for the new notebooks I also made this morning.

'Captain' Jack Sparrow

For a few months now, I have been feeding the birds in my garden every morning. It gets really entertaining sometimes and I can see how different species of birds interact with each other.

This past week, I have noticed one particular bird, a sparrow that looked slightly different from the others. After observing it for a little while, I discovered that it was missing a leg and was using his wing to help itself during feeding.

I was imagining how we could catch the bird and fit in a prosthesis although, as my father pointed out, legs were not as important for a bird as they are for people. One thought then led to another and I ultimately came up with this:

My very own garden variety Jack Sparrow!

New Projects!

I have recently been commissioned to work on a few jobs for a couple of friends of mine.

The first project involves an illustration of a short story. Two of my friends, Mel Skubic and Stevie Conradi have been working on a series of short stories to be published as an anthology and I was lucky enough to have been picked to work on one of the stories. The proceeds of the sale for the anthology will go to BipolarUK. Among the other artists involved in the project are Jordan Christopher Diamant and Aubrey Diamant. You can find more information about them right here.

The second project I am working on is also for Mel and Stevie. I was asked to donate a sketch or painting that will be sold in an auction and the proceeds will also go towards BipolarUK. I have already created 2, which I need to send out.

I have also been requested by my daughter's kindergarten to prepare a banner for this coming Sunday as a header to a proposal they intend to make to gain more funds for the school. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture before it left the house. It's going to be a joint artistic effort between me (I wrote the words and some illustrations) and the children of the school (they will be colouring the letters).

I will soon post links to all these projects I'm involved in for anyone who will want to take part in it.

In the meantime, here's a teaser picture I composed (tweaked by Mel) for the anthology.

Nebulae and Galaxies

For many months, I have been obsessed with painting a nebula. This is what motivated me to finally buy some acrylic paint. I've tried 5 times already and I'm not close to making something convincing. It just looks like a few colourful stains on a black background.

I think I have finally found a good video tutorial to use:

Bookmarking this for later!...

Electronic Art

While I was looking for the best way to colour my drawings and failing miserably to find the right markers, I spoke with a fellow artist (Facebook page and shop) who does a lot of electronic art using Adobe Photoshop. After looking at his wonderful designs and getting a few tips, I opened my Photoshop wannabes (Gimp and Inkscape) and watched a few tutorials online and got started. It's worth noting that both Gimp and Inkscape combined are a very good replacement for Photoshop. It's not Photoshop, but it's still very close and you can still do some really good designs with it.

At the time, I was obsessed with (recapturing my youth) the imagery of My Little Pony (or MLP for the Bronies out there) and I started designing a few ponies of my own.

Pagan Pony

Hippy Pony

Punk Pony

With time, I managed to get the hang of it although I still, for the life of me, can't manage to do some decent shading work so for now, it's going to be bold two-dimensional designs.

I have phases when I'm all about electronic art and other times when I go back to being 'old-school' and feel contented with just using pen and paper.

Here are a few non-MLP electronic drawings:

I love skulls and crochet, so why not both?

Done as a way to motivate my daughter to eat more veggies!

My ever present raven

How magpies are made

Hooded Crow

The difference between a crow and a hooded crow

Tools of the trade

When I started drawing regularly, I used what was in hand: felt tip markers and colouring pencils. These can be found in any good supermarket worth its salt. Over here in Germany, the most popular brands are Stabilo and the more upmarket Faber Castell.

I tried colouring pencils first and I then soon switched to markers because I was looking for a bolder effect. Being colourblind, some shades are not as easy to distinguished as others so markers were the way to go as far as I was concerned.

I came to the point where I discovered that markers are excellent to colour smaller areas but not so much for bigger surfaces as they leave marks and stripes. I then started to look into all available options and through a friend of mine, I came across bigger, 'juicier' markers, like the Posca markers.

I ended up deciding against it because it had more to do with paint than with markers, so instead I turned towards Edding markers and so far, I haven't looked back. They have a really wide range of markers for all occasions (even markers for clothes!). I remember first hearing of them when we were building our house and my husband asked me to get some in the shop. I couldn't believe the wide range of choice there was but I finally found what I was looking for.

Maybe the slight downside of Edding markers is that it's difficult to find markers with a tip smaller than 1.5mm. I sometimes need to do very small drawings and I need to use a different brand of marker that is not always waterproof. Maybe I need to continue my search and go to bigger shops in bigger cities.

While I have found a good brand of markers, I still felt the need to continue to explore my options and I then started to look into painting. The first type of paint I wanted to try was watercolour and I completely fell in love with it! It can be tricky to use but it gives the most beautiful effect. The brand of watercolour paint I use is Lukas. This is the most widely available brand in my area and it's very easy to refill (I use pans instead of tubes).

After getting excited with watercolour, I kept getting the advice to try acrylics. So after a while, I caved in and I bought a basic set from Lukas. I have to say that even though I was looking forward to it, I was disappointed. It may be versatile but it's not as intuitive to use as water colours. After trying it out a few times, I still feel I haven't gone past the skill level of a 4 year old... So I'm not quite sure what to do now, if I should continue my (seemingly vain) efforts or if I should just give up and master watercolours instead. So far, I have been leaning towards the latter but only time will tell!...

Still, I'm having a lot of fun trying out new media. There are still a few that I haven't tried yet and I'm looking forward to trying them out when the time comes.

(The now defunct) Lunch Box Project (November 4th, 2013 - March 16th, 2015)

A while ago, while looking for some inspiration, I came across an article about a Dad who was a professional illustrator and who was doing a drawing every day on his son's lunch bag. I thought this was a brilliant idea and I decided to do the same. Only over here, we don't really use lunch bags but lunch boxes and so I had to improvise. Instead, I drew on a small piece of paper and put this piece of paper into my daughter's lunch box. Everything was well and good until one day, not too long ago, the ink of the drawing leaked on a piece of apple that was in the lunch box... A friend of my daughter told her that she would get poisoned if she ate the apple, so she didn't and asked me to stop putting in the pictures... I felt like the evil stepmother in Snow White...

"QueenSnowWhite" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:QueenSnowWhite.png#/media/File:QueenSnowWhite.png

In order to view the pictures I took of those drawings, follow this link.

Birds! Birds! Birds!

Since my daughter started to get interested in flamingos, she kept asking me to draw her as many flamingos as humanly possible. Here are a few ones I managed to keep:

Flamingo Pirate! Invitation for my daughter's birthday

Picture I did for a colouring book

Failed attempt at painting a nebula...

While the flamingo is my daughter's favourite bird, mine are the crow and the raven...

Very first attempt at drawing a crow/raven

Done for a writer friend of mine

Done on the computer using Gimp

Earlier crows

Hamlet crow (I did some extensive research on Renaissance ruffs. I am now an expert!)

Prehistoric crow

In my futile quest to attract crows, I have attracted all sorts of smaller birds (wrens, mostly) by throwing seeds every day to feed them. Unfortunately, things have gone out of hand!...

First comic strip!