new painting and other bits of life

updating this blog has not been easy, but here is a big mix of life in the past few weeks. first, a painting i recently finished for a friend, 60x80cm, acrylics on canvas.

then there has been (among sporadic and futile attempts to finish two book projects and an animated video):
a lot of wondering around with friends old and new from around the globe, wine drinking on terraces, an amazing exhibition, copious amounts of fried zucchini flowers, a weekend trip to florence as we celebrated one year. spring is being kind.

illustrated recipes: april (with design sponge)

Well, this month's recipe comes a little late because it was waiting around for anzac day to make its appearance on design sponge, where i had the honour to be featured this week.
lamingtons are a bit of an aussie icon, but do require a bit of baking skill, and a bit of delicate rolling in chocolate and coconut at the end. because neatness and baking are not my forte, it was design sponge's lovely food and drink editor Kristina Gill who braved the task of actually making them! You can see the post here.

So here you go. cheers to the Anzacs, cheers to design sponge, and cheers to the ol' lamington.

this print can be bought here as usual.

and here are Kristina's lamingtons. yum!

sketchbook

thinking about hair, thinking about textures, thinking i need to spend more time free-drawing.

market finds

the sun is finally out and, as redundant as it it to speak of the weather online, it appears that the world is a happier place because of it.

my dear friend vk is visiting us for a few days and sunday morning we took a walk through portaportese, where vk found a french silk tie (a gentleman of leisure never has enough) and i found this amazing piece of children's literature from 1945. it's a pop up book! 

also bought a tin box with those big eyed slightly disturbing 70s  drawings of children on top, to add to my collection. these are great for pencil storage.

new work and bologna book fair

some new work that hopefully will become a book project at some stage. you can see more images on my website, which was recently updated.

last week i went to the international children's book fair in bologna. an intensely colourful and slightly daunting event which allows one to see everything that's happening in the word of storytelling and picturemaking for children and, often, for adults.

the entrance and the central square, where i listened to an interesting interview to members of the swedish society of illustrators (sweden was guest of honour this year) on representations of children in swedish illustration.

an image from it's raining elephants' exhibition based on their publication about william tell. i absolutely love these ladies' work, and the way they work together almost symbiotically.
this video about them was shown at the exhibition and it is amazing.

this was one of my favourite works from the illustrators' exhibition, by iranian artist Alireza Goldouzian.

below, lorenzo painting a brick and susanna at a couple of little post-fair parties/exhibits. she has a new book out and she is probably my favourite children's storyteller ever. second only to maybe gianni rodari.

i came home plenty inspired and with a few books by pablo auladell, elena odriozola, and a little gem by portuguese publisher planeta tangerina.

walking through the stalls and looking at the different books published in the various countries it always strikes me how much of an abyss there is in the type of literature/illustration published for children in europe and in english speaking countries like the UK, australia and the US. why don't you ever see books like the ones by planeta tangerina or auladell in australian bookshops' kids sections? why do you only ever see stories about possums and other native animals? ok, i'm exaggerating slightly but not far from the truth either.
this is, however, another story for another time. 

naples

a little break from lines and drawings.

picked up some rolls of film and among them were photos from a little trip to naples we took a few weeks ago. i had never been to naples and i loved it. we spent most of the time eating what i like to call hearty southern comfort food, as the windy weather was not kind the first day.

the kids in the middle photo had been playing soccer and they stopped to pose. they couldn't understand why i couldn't show them the photo immediately, and made me promise to put it on facebook where i would add one of them as friend, giovanni was his name i think.

had to include the postcard view at the end (last two photos with trusty iphone). it was a nice parentheses to a busy month.

also: a beautiful video i can't stop watching.
 a nick cave favourite i've been relistening to on repeat.

illustrated recipes: march

what better way to celebrate the beginning of spring in rome than to take advantage of the explosion of globe artichokes that overflows on market stalls around every corner?

My mama has always cooked a lot of artichokes, this round, typically roman variety when we lived here, and other varieties in australia, but i never really appreciated them until i got a little bit older, and i never had the patience to learn how to clean them and cook them. until i figured out it wasn't so hard at all.

artichokes / carciofi are beautiful to draw too. now, because this is not a cooking blog and the illustrated recipes give importance to drawings rather than precise methods and culinary perfection, i recommend you head over to rachel's artichoke post if you want clear instructions on cleaning and prepping the chokes, other than this, it's super simple and delicious.

took me a while to post this as i needed to finish the roll of film on the canon A1. bear with me!

the print for this and other recipes can be bought here.

"..and the sweet

artichoke
there in the garden,
was dressed as a warrior,
burnished
like a grenade and proud,
and one day
assembled with its fellows
in large wicker baskets,
it walked
through the market
to make its dream of
soldiery
come true."

from Ode to the Artichoke
  - pablo neruda

paper cosmos

our universe right now looks pretty much like this.
some days i work from g's studio space, which is nice. look at all that plasticine at the bottom!

and speaking of stop motion and cosmos, have a look at this amazing video made for bat for lashes.
it too reminds me of watching late eighties movies in the late eighties. must be a form of escapism for me right now.

 

red bearded man comes to life

it's been a while because, well, i've been working on a few things, the most time consuming and fun of these being a music video. i have been drawing and cutting the different components and luca will stop motion them into life. it's been fun to have complete creative control over it, and i've quite enjoyed bringing back old eli as the main character for the video. i can't wait to see how it turns out. here are some iphone pictures taken during the process.

also, a song i can't stop listening to, which somehow reminds me of watching late eighties movies in the late eighties, and thus makes me happy.