En route to Pinewood Studios

Over the weekend, I decided to go to the "Pinewood Studios" outside of London, famous film studios (James Bond, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...) in beautiful English countryside (Buckinghamshire). The only thing I managed to see is the big high fence and some huge warehouses. Anyway, here are the little watercolour I did there, I parked on the side of a beautiful road (you can see my scooter in front of the cars) and tried to cacth the beautiful light through the leaves.
Back in London, I came accross this rather strange "traffic light tree" in Canary Wharf. Crazy metal tree, with probably 50 traffic lights on it, in the middle of a roundabout, I liked the fact that it was next to an actual organic tree... and that I didn't understand when I was allowed to go through!
A sketch of the Thames Barrier, it looks like a sci-fi movie, there are 8 or 9 huge concrete with metal roof constructions on the river, amazing!

Pets

Here are few animal designs. One of my best friend in Paris, an amazing sculptor, wants to do some poses in clay of this pig, quite a challenge with those tiny legs, but we are working on it. I wanted to keep the design as simple as possible, a bean shape, wich basically works in 2D, on this side view, but as soon as I started to do the turnaround, he didn't look as cute anymore. I'm sure we'll work it out, I'll show you the result!

Boston, last ones

My last sketches and watercolours from Boston. That was amazing, I really enjoyed sketching over there, so beautiful, the architecture, the little streets, such a nice city to walk around.
The lighthouse is a watercolour study from my watercolour class in Maine. After my class, I started to use stronger values in my watercolours, trying to find an abstract pattern as well as being free and loose.
Another sketch in the bus on the way back from Rockland to Boston, this time using my pen brush, and even more wobbly than the previous one!

Maine

2 sketches from my trip to Maine last month, I went to a watercolour course over there. First sketch was during my long bus journey from Boston to Rockland (5 hours), quite a challenge to draw while the bus is moving, but very interesting, I've done that in a taxi in Tokyo before, and the other one is a telephone post I fell in love with in a litlle village called Spruce Head. I love telephone posts and all the cables attached to them, there is a kind of abstract pattern to them that I really enjoy drawing, I did almost the same one in Tokyo actually few months ago.
I'll have more from Maine soon.

He's here!

Do you remember Matt? This incredibly talented Artist and friend I was talking to you about last week, the one who did the little drawing of me in my profile... he finally started a Blog! Check it out! it's really worth it. He already put some of his best work online, and he was very generous...7 posts just today!
His art is beautiful!!!
Link under Friends (Matt Cruickshank's blog).

King Kong

Here is an illustration I did for the King Kong theme. We are a bunch of Artists in London from different studios doing a little contest every 2 weeks or so, we call it the "Eurovision Art Challenge" , we have a theme and everybody has to come up with an image in any media. The winner choose the new theme. Cartoonbrew just did a little article about it this afternoon, thanks to them. Check out the "eurovision art challenge" website, just here!
Coming back to my illustration, I did it all digitally, on photoshop, and try to achieve this collage, cut out feeling, like a pop-up, I had a lot of fun with the cars, giving them a bit of personality.
I've done more digital collage, so much much to scan different fabrics and play with them, I'll post more soon!

More from Boston

A little watercolour, detail of a beautiful roof in Copley Square in the evening, Boston is such an amazing city! Shame I just stayed 3 days there, so many things to sketch!
The other one was a guy sitting next to me before I took the plane to Boston at London Heathrow airport.

A great new blog!

My friend Gerbeen has just started a new blog, there are a lot of great stuff already on it, very talented guy! check it out!!! ( Link Gerben under Friends)

London

Some sketches from Neal's Yard in Covent Garden on Saturday afternoon. Again, difficult to draw people without being noticed, so 3 of them are back view and the only front view is the girl with the fringe as she couldn't see me. I did the colour of the guy in the green t-shirt on photoshop, the other ones are just pen brush and markers on Fabriano paper.

Boston

2 sketches from my trip to Boston and Maine 2 weeks ago (see Watercolour Class in recent posts). I drew the guy at the airport, this is a great place to sketch people, and the woman was standing in front of me while I was having dinner in a bar.

First illustration

Even if it's a sketch blog, I'll start to post some of my illustration work as well. So here is the first one, done on photoshop, I usually scan my rough drawing and then do the colour digitally, but I also love traditional technics, acrylics, gouache, watercolours, collage... or all mixed together. Please feel free to comment.

Björk

A tree I drew at our friend's place on new year's eve in Sweden, just outside Göteborg, the light was beautiful, it was a late afternoon (Björk is the name of the tree in Swedish).
Have a lovely weekend!

London

This is a sketch of a guy I did in Cafe Nero, in Covent Garden, the guy looked so sad... It's quite difficult to sketch people sometimes, as soon as they notice that you are sketching them, they feel embarassed or move away, but this guy didn't and let me take my time. I'll post more sketches of people soon!

Matt

I really wanted to share with you the full drawing of me I used in my profile, my very good friend Matt Cruickshank did it, he is one of the most talented Artist I know! He's so productive!...I know, we work together. He'll have a blog soon with all his terrific drawings, sketches, sculptures, comic strips, illustrations... and more. I'll let you know.






And here are 3 sketches I did of him in Germany few month ago while he was sleeping...that's the only time he doesn't draw!

Tokyo (last ones)

Here are more sketches from Tokyo, airport, bars, fish market (amazing place by the way, the biggest fish market in the world I believe) and people. The last sketch is an another example of the crazy cables and wiring that you can see pretty much everywhere around Tokyo. I did this one in Shinjuku.
I've had a lot fun copying the Japanese writing, I say copying as unfortunately I don't read or write Japanese, I just wanted to use my newly bought Japanese pen brushes as much as possible. The fire hydrant sign (red with blue characters) has a very funny big red letter on it, looks like a kind of monster.
Hope you'll enjoy!
I'll post some illustrations, sculptures... soon, and sketches from other countries.




















I've been to the Ghibli Museum as well in Mitaka, it was amazing! There was a fantastic Pixar exhibition at the time!
Here is the beautiful Museum's ticket.