Not domesticated or cultivated vague or confused in expression or character

Thinking on doing some counter-fables illustrations for Christmas, here’s the first sketch for RedEmption cute and deadly  :)

Fox in the snow

Girl in the snow, where will you go To find someone that will do? To tell someone all the truth before it kills you They listen to your crazy laugh Before you hang a right And disappear from sight What do they know anyway?  Youll read it in a book What do they know anyway? Youll read it in a book tonight

This week

Is  now time to built up my own world, I need characters and I want to define a quicker style to populate my illustrations, I definitely want to keep an eye on compositions and simple geometry ,but  I don’t want to force everything and go too vector style drawing perfectly round heads and squared clouds, I’d like to keep  a bit of figurative drawing, yet the final image should be as simple as graphic design. Apparently I have it all set only.. I’m yet not sure how to actually get there. I started with this character using just a couple of colors, big realistic eyes are banned, but small points for eyes are just too cute for what I’m trying to get, absence of eyes is just about perfect. Although eyes are among my favorite doodling subject I must say I’m going to find out how expressive can a face be with no eyes at all.So far so good. Any suggestion?

This week:

LEARN:
Find the right tool to get what you need in no time. Nowadays there is one for sure, use some time to find it and spend less time realizing what you have in mind. It will always work. and your work will gain slickness with a new fresher approach.

PRODUCE:
I’m setting up a place to stay for the longest period in the last 12 years, is more fun than what I expected, it  also left me no time in front of any laptop or scratch book , then I found  sketchbook app for Iphone, using its mirror tool and the tip of my finger, is like sketching into the air, I totally love it!

This week:

LEARN:
GESTALT mon amour : the visual world is so complex that the mind has developed strategies for coping with the confusion. The mind tries to find the simplest solution to a problem. One of the ways it does this is to form groups of items that have certain characteristics in common. Most of what gestalt studies is concerned with how these groups are formed and what effect they have on perception. The most fascinating principle to me is CLOSURE : starting from the idea  that a complex object is really a group of simple items that the mind puts together as a single entity, giving a few essential elements the mind supplies the missing pieces in a composition.

PRODUCE:
Another piece for Flooded, something about this project is helping me defining a style, I really like mixing texture, colors and organic shapes in a stable composition. I’ve always loved all kind  of watery/sea related creature and as I’m almost going crazy in the attempt to set up a lovely nest for my incredibly fluffy family while actually creating a micro universe mini-me shaped, I developed a certain passion for visual complexity, universal theory and whatever winks at cosmic creation and connection between micro and macro. Well it’s beginning to show

SHARE:

Thank you readers!! Is soo nice to read your impressions, check links and get inspired by the tasty variation of your point of view! First of all any comments caresses my little Ego who’s always screaming for more and calms the beast that would see me retouching to infinity, plus is incredibly interesting and refreshing follow your threads to push the idea a bit further. Honestly I’m sucking at “social hero” this month (but I’m getting quite an ace at ” carpenter/mum/ikea junky.. gosh) so I really couldn’t expect a grate traffic on my blog, so again thank you and stick around for more !!

This week:

LEARN:
Still digging The Principles of Design this week I focused on BALANCE, PROPORTION, DOMINANCE, UNITY, CONTINUANCE, SIMILARITY, PROXIMITY and ALIGNMENT.
Every design manual talks about this principles, but if you feel like reading about it again and you’re running a blog or putting content on the internet  I suggest checking out fivesimplesteps, Designing for the Web : a simple approach to applying graphic design to modern web design. Is a refreshing sleek lovely manual I read earlier this year that will explain theory and practice of this timeless principles in a contemporary context. Hello Mark Boulton, thanks for your writing!

PRODUCE:
After a lovely chat Mr Giovanni Ferrario asked me to illustrate his exquisite naive perception of the internet as a primordial soup in which watery creature were instinctively living and connecting. This is the first canvas for Flooded, a series I’m going to work on trough this Autumn, as I found the theme extremely intriguing and suitable to my illustration style. I’m also going to turn Mr Ferrario’s website 2.0 (yeppie!!)

SHARE:
Hello!! is anyone there??

This week:

LEARN:
I always found FIGURE-GROUND perception very fascinating.

This week I read about it again and decided to try out something.I love drawing sketching and texturing, when I start an illustration I often think of something close to life drawing, but when I check out someone else portfolio what strikes me most is a good piece of graphic. In more than one occasion I found myself admiring a well dispose set of typographic characters rather then a perfectly shaded portrait. As I think many other designer I grown a certain awareness for typography in the last years and I’d like to mix types and organic shapes in my illustration.

PRODUCE:
So figure-ground and types. Nothing better for a gestalt lover

SHARE:
I joined deviantart where I can also publish my journal, hoping to get more feedback and ta-daaah I was also invited to join Behance Network which I’m still filling up.
Let’s see how many critiques I can collect being art of this two major sharing platforms.

Happy to keep posting I’d be happier to produce  a bit more, but have you noticed.. September has very tight weeks!!