The Art Of Urban Sketching, the book!

My first time published! I'm very pleased to be part of this book put together by Gabi Campanario, a collection of sketches from his Urban Sketchers website.
My old friend and favorite Welshman Matt Jones is featured in the book too.

(You can get the book on Amazon at a great price)

Here's a better look at my work in the book.

'Jessssshhh' Papa!

'Jessssh' is what Magnus says to me all the time, understand 'Yes' here. The 'Dado' sticker on his helmet refers to his favorite show 'SamSam', he calls it 'Dado', go figure.

'Fancy' video.

I tried something new this evening, at least new to me. I painted first with water (not easy when you can't really see what you are doing), then dropped some ink on the marks I've made and let the ink spread naturally.
I need more practice, but I like the technic. Next time I'll let the ink dry and not remove the excess with paper towel, it gives a texture I do not like

'One Fancy a Day'

I just started a blog dedicated to our dog Fancy, where i'm posting all the drawings I do of her every evenings since November 21st. Since we found out she has cancer.
Each drawing is different obviously, depending on the mood or how late in the evening i did draw her, or what tool I had on hand.
You can browse through them, a month worth so far, here.

Happy Holidays!

I thought I'd share the concepts too; I wanted to do a short story first with Magnus, but the final image works on its own.

Concepts

A 'Fancy' Sketchbook.

Our dog 'Fancy' has been diagnosed with cancer 3 weeks ago, so I decided to do a drawing of her every evening from that day onward, in a sketchbook dedicated to her. One "Fancy' a day.

This is the first drawing I did of Fancy, the day we found out she is sick.

Los Feliz.

A very enjoyable sketching session with Matt in Los Feliz over the weekend. It was great to go around drawing with him again, we haven't done it for a very long time, it's very inspiring. He's currently painting some superb gouache of California in his little sketchbook, they are beautiful!

Magnus vs. Sam Sam.

Magnus LOVES Sam Sam! Thanks to my friend Sylvain (Deboissy), Magnus and I got introduced to Sam Sam, and now it became a morning ritual to watch an episode; Magnus goes through a full array of expressions while watching it, so cute!

He always says "Mine!" when he sees Sam Sam in his little spaceship, hence the short story below.

Here is an episode of Sam Sam.

Hollywood Bowl-Tribute to Serge Gainsbourg

French composer, arranger and longtime Serge Gainsbourg collaborator Jean Claude Vannier, was playing the legendary concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson live, in full with orchestra and guests, at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday evening.

Jean Claude kindly invited me to join him for the day, at the Hollywood Bowl, to sketch the Artists and the musicians backstage, and on stage, during rehearsal and during the concert in the evening.

It was an amazing experience; this was my first time at the Hollywood Bowl, and to enter this venue, through the Artist entrance at the back and go straight on stage facing the sea of empty seats, it was very impressive to say the least. The stage was filled with a full orchestra, a choir and many very talented and famous artists rehearsing the songs. Needless to say that when I started to sketch I was very nervous. It took me a while to realize I was on stage at the Hollywood Bowl.

I met Jean Claude again Monday evening at the CineFamily (the silent movie theatre) in Hollywood, for a retrospective of his work, presented on stage by Andy Votel; this gave me the opportunity to finish the sketchbook I started Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl and cover his 2 days in L.A.

Thanks to Jean Claude Vannier for this unforgettable experience! 

Full list of Artists here. ('M'-Matthieu Chedid, was also performing on stage).

I also sketched Jean Claude Vannier's performance at The Barbican in London in 2006, you can check it here. This is how we first got in touch.

Petite Maison.

This is a little house on my Mum's property in France. She is going to sell it soon as it needs a lot of work inside, it is very old and charming, but she decided to part with it. I drew it whilst i visited her last month; it is nothing really, but i do like this house.

I will probably color it later, traditionally or digitally, at different time of the day and night, as an exercise. 

2011 San Diego Comicon-part 2.

San Diego Comicon 2011

I was kindly invited this year by MacLife magazine, to sketch live at their booth on an iPad, the crowd passing by at Comicon. It was exciting and also stressful as the iPad i used was connected to a giant screen, between WB and G4; every mistakes i would made would be seen from far say. But I had fun, I did two 2 hours sessions, and some of the people passing by were very surprised to see themselves being drawn on the screen as they were watching.

Thanks a lot to Florence Ion from MacLife who invited me to be part of Comicon this year.

Work in progress shot one of the drawing I made live.

A photo from underneath the massive screen!

And the final piece.

Few more sketches below from the 2 live sessions.

A Very Nice Time Off.

I was away for almost 3 weeks In England and France; apart from 2 days of work in London, I did nothing but enjoying life, catching up with old friends, and a bit of drawing in the lovely French countryside.

At The Genius Bar.

I was drawing on an Apple device at the Apple Store this morning while this guy was fixing other people Apple devices.

Pixar Podcast.

Derrick Clements at "The Pixar Podcast" interviewed me last week. If you would like to know a bit more about my day job and have 1 hour to kill, head to The Pixar Podcast website!

Below a short clip of the interview.

Thanks DisneyLiving for the video!

 Here are some of the Cars 2 character art I'm talking about during the interview.

I'm very fortunate to work with fantastic artists in my team that would make my concepts and roughs look so good in the final artwork.