Merry Christmas..Joyeux Noel!

Feathery wishes for my blogger friends....

....so I draw angels

...things are not going well in my country...so I draw angels..
and I wish you to see one...

On holiday to Galapagos

I presented this illustration in a competition for 130th Anniversary of the first publication of Pinocchio. I wanted to show the room of grown up Pinocchio...but where is Pinocchio?
It is rumoured he is on holiday to Galapagos ... he is thinking of writing the true story of his life...

Stormy Ink

I love to speak by images because, in a few traits, there are many ideas to read.....


FEW WORDS, MANY ARROWS...
WORK PUBLISHED ON NEW MAGAZINE IMPERIA , 2011

Not a Good Teacher

This is my studio during a watercolour lesson. I started to form groups in 2008, when, opening my art study, I had to find money to pay the rent. Everything started when a friend almost forced me to give her lessons.
I have always worked as a teacher of literary topics and, as an artist, I was invited in elementary schools to talk about my experience and draw with children.
But teaching to adults...this is another thing! They are very demanding! They have an intellectual approach, and I have had to prepare "proper" lessons". They most of the time do not like experimenting: they want to know "everything about"!!
It was a good challenge for me: I went back to study (and consequently to planning and fixing)...just to understand that most of the time you do a better job when you get rid of everything!
But I think that this is a good starting point. You have to learn grammar rules and so on when studying a language (you can see I come from literary studies...!) and then you can become a writer or use a language for whatever you like, ...the other way round is reserved to children and...artists...but here we open a neverending debate!!!!
So I teach my students and do exercise with them...beacause I am a lifelong student and I love learning new aspects of the same things...



Here you can see two of my students: we work on different subjects alternitively: still life, portrait, landscape, book illlustrations using different techniques...
The woman who drew the portrait on the left was a beginner (would you believe it?) The other has been with me for two years now.
There is one important thing I have been learning in these years' experience: I can easily pass my knowledge, but pass my love, my art, my way of working, my doubts too, this I can't: I become shy.
Sometimes I am asked questions I cannot answer .. Last monday while explaining how to draw shades, a student asked me how one could geometrically calculate the end of the shadow, with a given direction of light. I anwered, "I do it by the eye, by practical obsevation!"...I realized it was not a good answer, they wanted the Rule, and I underestimated this bit!...so once I got home I went back to study.. . only to conclude it was interesting to know it but quite useless when drawing!
I don't need the Rule to make a good drawing, this I will tell them next monday...just after having told them the geometrical bit!!!

A view of Paris

J'ai visité Paris au début de septembre. Meme si je l'avais déjà visité je me suis aperçue d'avoir manqué beaucoup de choses la première fois. Tout était une découverte, les affiches dans le Métro, les décorations des magasins, les "graffitis" sur les murs, les marchés, les patisseries, les gens!!!!
Je vous propose quelques photos choisies parmi le 600 que j'ai faites: je n'y resistais, partout je voyais quelquechose à photographer... ma famille n'en pouvait plus!
J'ai vu ce Spock tout près de mon appartement à Belleville e la skelette ...je l'ai vue lors de notre vaguebondage près du Musée d'Orsay



A Paris je ne pouvais manquer visiter le Musèe de l'Orangerie, ou sont le Nymphéas de Claude Monet, dans la salle ovale qu'il a faite construire exprès.



Les anges sur l'entrée de Notre Dame de Paris ont frappé mon imagination: ils semblent tous regarder quelque part...est-ce peut-etre un visiteur inattendu, un étranger bruyant?



Ici je suis au Musée des Arts et Métiers, dans l'Eglise Saint Martin, où se trouve le pendule de Foucault.



Par une curiosité un peu masochiste j'ai entrainé ma famille visiter le Musée des Egouts ...l'odeur était terrible...



Rentrée chez moi j'ai eu l'idée d'un système hydrique qui puisse récuperer les eaux perdues....




J'en ai fait 5 tables que j'ai envoyées à l' Exhibition des Illustrateurs de Bologna pour le Salon du Livre de la Jeunesse qui se tiendra en mars 2012.

p.s. j'ai publié d'autres photos sur mon profil FB, voue etes inviter ler voir!!

A bientot!

Ligurian Ikebana

When August arrives I flee from my town, Sanremo. I prefer to look at my sea from above.



Mid-August week is the most terrible: chaotic and crowded. But just few kilometers inland everything changes. You can still see the light blue sea at the horizon: it does not seem so far (people born by the sea never cut this "umbilical" bond)
This year, thank to abundant rains, wild flowers are beautiful: I bring a book with me to learn their names: Dianthus, Convolvolus, Campanula, Arnica....



Stroke a lavender bush gently and breathe deeply...wonderful aromatherapy!



It is time to pick origan and thyme, I bring some home and dry it to season my winter food.




In the green underwood you can often find orchids like this one (Cephalanthera rubra, one of the commonest)...



Small villages on the mountains are undiscovered precious stones.



A fig tree has grown on the bell tower of a Santuario in the wood.
Here a gorgeous vine has grown on a small balcony in a village



Some time ago I had this strange thought after one of these walks : a Ligurian Ikebana

An unreadable book

Hurricane Book

Inspired by Quino

The idea of this illustration came from Quino...his is far better, of course, but I could not resist to drawing this falling cherub..
I tried to make some changes though : in fact I changed the old character (Quino's was an old man) into a lively Perpetua holding a modern sprayer (also the window and benches are different)....
I myself prefer Quino's, but while drawing it I experienced Quino'o artistic attitude, so precious for me...

FLYING THOUGHTS

Apricot chair
( one day the wood of a chair got fed up with being a chair)

FLYING THOUGHTS

Libro farfalla e sue crisalidi
Butterfly book and its chrysalids

cover for New Magazine Imperia, June 2009, for Imperia's Bookfair
(una delle versioni realizzate per la cover del New Magazine Imperia , numero di giugno 2009, per la Fiera del Libro di Imperia).

A Wave Poem...

Parfois J'aimerais bien pouvoir mettre dans une jolie boite un petit morceau de mer ...seulement une toute petite vague! Je la saisirais dans le moment où elle est plus vive et la garderais sur ma table de travail..

I wish I could put a sea wave in a box, just a little one.. .I would capture her while it rises from water and put her on my desk.




Une bien gentille vague, qui salue un cailloux...

A gentle little wave greeting a stone...

FUNNY ORESTE

Dear Friends,
I have realized I haven't posted anything since last December! I was silent but working!
I would like to show you some drawing that I have created for a book project (I'll be a bit mysterious until I have not finished!!)
This is Oreste...
Oreste is a very clever bird. He loves reading and studying very much...



As you can see he loves sittting under a tree to read. Sometimes he falls asleep..



He knows a lot of things but he doesn't like to show off, like a friend of his...



He likes crime stories, though he is scared...



Oreste has a lot of friends...



He lives in a funny happy world, not far from ours.....