Friday, December 27, 2013

Dinosaurs...

Here is a WIP of a little pet triceratops for Bella.
She is head over hills for dinosaurs. We have  a funny pop up book about them and her favorite are triceratops and the T.Rex (lurking in the back). She likes the T. Rex, because of its sharp teeth that chomp chomp chomp...but she does not realize (because we are not telling her yet) that he would sooner dine on triceratops than with it. Ah, blessed ignorance....




Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. We were plague by the flu, but we managed to still have fun... 



Have a great end of the year and may 2014 bring you joy, love, and lots of happy moments!

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Happy Holidays

I like to roam in Home Goods looking for pans, rugs and toys or books for Bella. Sometimes they have interesting frames. The other day I found one that is cute. It's square and powder blue and has a nice ribbon of the same color to hang it. For once, I decided to make a drawing to fit the frame, rather than go crazy  looking for frames that would fit my irregular drawings. It's been snowing and the holidays approach, so I though to make a festive little thing to share here and then add to our Christmas decorations.



It's a 2.5x2.5 inches drawing on my beloved Fabriano watercolor paper done with Copic Markers, watercolor pencils for the tiniest details (like the tree needles), and white gel pen for the highlights.

Of course, the Northern Europe celebration of St. Lucia (December 13) with a procession of children holding candles lead by a girl with a crown of candles is my inspiration for this piece. I have always been fascinated by this tradition. I must have seen it for the first time in some movie long ago. The image of the tiny lights in the darkness and the white little figures walking among pines and firs in the cold winter night has a dream quality that vividly impressed my imagination. That's maybe because in Genova we rarely had snow and Christmas was a rather grey-rainy day most of the times...not vey romantic or magical, really. So, the idea of snow landscapes was very appealing to me.
Needless to say, now that I have plenty of snow here in Illinois, I think longingly of the comparatively warm Decembers of my hometown. It's all a matter of perspective! ;)

I wish you all the sweetest, happiest holidays. May the love of your family and friends keep you warm and cozy this December!

Monday, December 2, 2013

Sub Rosa

It's done! I've been working hard during the holidays to finish it...here it is finally.




For once, there was no drama and everything went pretty smoothly: I added layer after layer of color, fixing things here and there as I went without stressing out too much. True enjoyment!

 Now I have a couple of small drawings in mind for Bella's room plus a new big project work related that I will not probably going to show here, at least at the beginning...but I'll come back to this series as soon as I can (taking advantage of the days off around Christmas).
Talk to you soon!

I hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving (or, for those outside the States a restful weekend ;)).