(Bubble Boy – 1 -) (Bubble Boy – 8 -)
I have started to publish Bubble Boy, my illustrated tale for Children (small children and big children…) in Cafe Literati. I will post here the illustrations, twice the week, Mondays and Thursdays, with a link to the texts in Cafe Literati.
Quite regularly I go to a Cafe by the Beach, and sketch people spending their time there. It is a great way for me to practise live sketching. Well, people are quite still sitting on a Cafe terrace in the sun, but they still move quite a lot and it is a wonderful (but sometimes frustrating too!) exercise to try to catch them in some position or expression. I much more prefer this way than to go to some figure painting meeting, where the models stand still, almost dead… this does not inspire me at all, and neither does their nakedness I must admit! I much more love to draw the stuff which people put on, sometimes they are such a funny mirror of their souls… no funny clothing on this one though. In this case it was the contrast between the Macho with the black hair and the other people which inspired me…
Anyway, this is the last one I drew, some days ago… I normally don’t put these sketches here, because I have created a special site for portraits and caricature art,
some months ago. I just wanted to remind you that it exists. You might like to go there, if you enjoy this kind of art…
(Bubble Boy – 1 -) (Bubble Boy – 7 -)
I have started to publish Bubble Boy, my illustrated tale for Children (small children and big children…) in Cafe Literati. I will post here the illustrations, twice the week, Mondays and Thursdays, with a link to the texts in Cafe Literati.
Pastel & Coloured Pencils, 50 x 65 cm – 2009
Finished it today.
I wanted to emphasize the impression of light, and this is why I didn’t put too many details.
Concerning children:
we have just opened
in Cafe Crem. It is about our children, their art, their words and their dreams. You are all invited to take a drink there and have a look!
Most of my paintings can now be sent as ecards!
Working on ecards designs for Plaxo over the last few months, I noticed that I really enjoy doing this kind of work. They also told me there that my ecards are very well received by the public and often sent. This gave me the idea and motivated me to create my own ecard gallery, and, to allow you and your friends to enjoy my art, I now offer you all this service for free.
As I said, I have already created for Plaxo some special designs for special events (until now Christmas, New Year, Birthdays). I will regularly create new ones according to the time of the year and special themes.
Right now I am working on a Valentine series.
You will find these special designs in my ecard gallery under the gallery title
“Special Events”
But as I said, all other paintings which you will find there in the different galleries can also be sent as ecards!
I will explain here, step by step, how you have to proceed. Just follow the instructions written at the bottom of the images shown below
Go to my eCard Gallery online.
Click on "Artworks" at the bottom of the page, under the picture (here highlighted in blue)
Scroll down and choose a gallery. Click on the space under the gallery title.
Click on the thumbnail of the painting you want to send
Click on "send it by email to a friend" on the top right hand corner.
Fill all the required fields: your name, email, recipeints's mail, your text
(Bubble Boy – 1 -) (Bubble Boy – 6 -)
I have started to publish Bubble Boy, my illustrated tale for Children (small children and big children…) in Cafe Literati. I will post here the illustrations, twice the week, Mondays and Thursdays, with a link to the texts in Cafe Literati.
Following on from the interview by Anastasia, I said that I would publish some stories related to my sport paintings. Here is the first one. The painting above is the painting involved in the story.
…
One day I had made a sport painting exhibition and a little boy came to me and asked me how much the football painting was.I told him the price and he went away. The next day he came back, alone. He told me that he had just broken his money saving box . He opened his hand, which contained his entire savings (many little coins), and he asked, very seriously:
“Is it enough?”
I could see on his face how scared he was that it was not enough. I took the money, started to count it, very seriously, and at the end, I said to him;
“Yes, it is exactly enough!”
and gave him the painting. I tell you, his face was worth thousands of dollars for me! Needless to say that he paid about 15 euros for the painting…
But the story goes on. The next day he came back, with his parents… and the painting! The parents forced him to give it back to me, thinking that he had stolen it. I told them that he had bought it, tried to convince them that their little boy had paid a very adequate price, but to no avail. The little boy was in such tears as they left that it really broke my heart!
…
(Bubble Boy – 1 -) (Bubble Boy – 5 -)
I have started to publish Bubble Boy, my illustrated tale for Children (small children and big children…) in Cafe Literati. I will post here the illustrations, twice the week, Mondays and Thursdays, with a link to the texts in Cafe Literati.
(me diving in 1975)
In my last post, I mentioned that I made much scuba diving in the past. Versions Célestes -one of the very few magical writers I have ever read, still don’t know if IT is a he or a she though 
) wrote in the comments thread
“… would like to read about your scuba diving experiences. All those feelings and sensations…”
I decided to jump on this occasion to tell you about my former life under the sea, as it is one of the most exciting times of my past. Shortly: I was totally addicted to diving and spent 2 summers under the sea, around the years 1975/1976. I was down there every morning, every afternoon, and even in the night sometimes!
I was a mathematics/physics student in Germany at that time, and I had had the immense luck that a physics student, who spent his holidays as a diving teacher, in Spain and in Thailand, had a sweet tooth (no, not a sharks’ tooth!) for me. Needless to say that I was allowed to dive in Spain as much as I wanted, for free. Of course, as a student, I could have never offered it to myself as a single dive already cost a lot of money.
In these 2 summers, I made about 300 dives if I remember well. The learning phase was short, I was used to water since I was a baby and felt extremely comfortable in that element, even deep under the surface. In fact, I will find out, with each new dive, the deeper the better! Much better than on the earth’s surface anyway! One of the reasons being that at that time I was quite a wild thing, and I especially hated to speak, or at least I hated the mundane conversations (I haven’t changed much on this point, I must admit, but I am more ready to do compromises…). The language we used underwater, with the hand signs, was totally adapted to the situations and to my character. No superficial or useless or empty words, no lies, I loved it!
As I said, I spent all my time under water. And while I was under water I learnt very fast not to breathe too much, to avoid consuming too much air and be forced to come back to the surface . I really started to breathe as little as possible, and was of course always the last, with my diving teacher, to come back to the boat. I had the chance not to know panic underwater, and I was well able to control my emotions (which were big!), which mean that the quantity of air available to me in these little bottles lasted for almost an hour every time.. where most of the divers had to come up after half an hour down.
Yes, it was a great life down there. I loved to watch the fishes, I loved the vegetation, I loved the bubbles, I loved the silence, I loved the deep blue. I was never confronted with what they call the depth ivresse – Nitrogen Narcosis - although I reached the 50 meters depth. I loved the adventure, the water all around, the feeling to live something very special, not granted to many people, and certainly not at my age. I have wonderful memories of that time, but the most impressive are from the night diving. I remember the very first one… I was so incredibly excited. We left the town about midnight on the boat, about 10 creatures all in black walking across the beach to the boat… we must have looked weird, really! It was thundering that night, and I remember seeing my parents, on their balcony of their seafront apartment on the 9th floor, watching the boat leaving the coast and disappearing in the night under the thunder and lightning, and loaded with these sea riders.. I knew they were scared to death… I was not!
I will tell you what happened then. I think it as the first time I really felt fear underwater. As we reached the reef where we normally dived, about 3 kilometres from the coast, we somersaulted backwards into the dark water, I swam vertically down to the point where I should meet the 2 other divers of my group, as we would all be tied to each other with ropes for the duration of the dive, to avoid the danger of losing each other, as we would most of the time dive in total darkness, saving the lamp batteries so that they could last a certain time and be available in case of immediate danger.
As I arrived at the meeting point, about 25 meters under water, I suddenly noticed that my air regulator did not work. Instead of air I got water in my mouth! I carefully tried again to aspire some air, and again I got water. Now you must imagine, in the middle of the night, in the total darkness under water, at 25 meters, for the first time in my life, no air in my lungs and a mouth full of water! Yes, I felt fear, but at least I didn’t panic and I guess this saved my life. I rapidly swam up and arrived at the surface totally out of breath, ready to die! But well, I had some tiny little air reserves somewhere and I survived! I spent the rest of the time alone on the boat, in the middle of the sea under the storm, waiting for the divers to come up, and more than anything, totally frustrated that I could not dive!
But well, one week later, the club organised another night dive, and this time, everything went well and I could explore, fascinated, the night life of the sea, which in fact, was totally different and certainly much more active than the daily life!
and the best was: the lumumba (hot chocolate and cognac!) after the diving, at 2 in the night, on a Café terrace!
Because one thing I can tell you I didn’t like at all by diving: I was always freezing!!! I was not very big, and it was not easy to find a diving suit to fit me. Often I had to dive with 2 suits, one on top of the other, and I was still freezing!!!
And if you ask me why I stopped diving: my teacher lost his sweet tooth… or was it me?
PS: in case somebody here is moaning that it is supposed to be a blog about Art and sport is taking the upper hand, I will post the only painting I ever did from underwater… it is called “Nemo”.
(Selfportrait, golfing – 2004)
Some days ago I received following mail:
“Dear Miki
I came across your art in a search for some inspiration for my own piece of work, and honestly, I just love your style, it’s so full of life and energy! Also I noticed that you like drawing with watercolour and so do I. :]
Let me introduce myself; my name is Anastasia ,I’m 17 years old, and I’m doing my art AS exam this year in school on a little island in the Mediterranean, called Cyprus. And I absolutely ADORE art!:D
I would love to use your works, if you don’t mind, for my reference. You are one of the artists who influences my final art work. At the moment I’m planning my piece on sports, in particular gymnastics. I need to write your biography, but I’m having some difficulties finding it. So would you please tell me a little bit more about yourself and your style, if you have time or could you give me a site where I would read more about you? I will be really grateful if you reply!
Thank you in advance.
Sincerely yours
Anastasia”
As Anastasia says, it is not easy to find my biography on the net, the reason being that there is none (at least as far as I am aware!). I am not even sure that I have a biography, having some troubles in imagining myself in the past, this being one of the reasons why I can’t really write a biography. To avoid this problem, I suggested to Anastasia that she make an interview, asking me what she needed to know about me.
And now, thinking that other people also want to know who I am (or was!), here is the interview…
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(15.01.2009)
Could you please tell me when you were born and where?
I was born in 1955 in the French Pyrenees, in a town called Tarbes. But due to the profession of my father, we moved around France a lot as I was a child.
At 18 I left France to go and study Mathematics and Physics in Germany, where I remained until about 5 years ago. Then I moved to Spain, having chosen this country partly because of the weather which allows me to paint outside all year round.
Where did you study art?
I am mostly self taught. But I had a correspondence course in design with a University in Switzerland while I was working as a mathematician in the north of Germany. Through my mathematical skills I have learnt to recognise, analyse and lose problems, in which ever field of life they may be. This which means that I was always able to judge my paintings, correct and better them according to my visions (and not according to some art teacher’s vision!)
Was there anyone who influenced you to become an artist or was it your personal decision?
As I was a child, I had been totally driven from art by an Art teacher. She had not believed that a painting which we had been given to do as home work was done by myself. She thought I had it made by a grownup painter. I was so disgusted that I swore to myself: never art again!
I held fast to my promise until my first husband gave me a tiny little watercolour paints box for my birthday, as I was about 25 years old. As soon as I had put some colours on the paper, the passion arose… and I never stopped again to paint! But I always paid attention to keep my distance from art teachers, you might understand why now!
What else inspired you for your art work?
My own passions, of course, inspire my work: I paint what I love. But I receive much inspiration too from life and nature, from things which happen. The tiniest event might give me some idea of one painting, I start at once, follow the thread until I get totally bored and most of the time I end up having a whole series!
This explains why my work is so diverse: I just follow the winds… and there are many of them and in many directions!
Do you have favourite artists that also inspire you?
No, not really. I have to admit that my art education is very poor. I rarely go to museums, or galleries. I rarely look at art books. First of all because I fear that looking too close at other artists’ works could influence my style too much, and the most important thing for me, in painting, is to keep my natural, spontaneous style.
But also I kind of need a private connection to the artist to really get interested and appreciate their artworks. This means that 90% of the paintings I look at and love nowadays are done by Artist friends and acquaintances. We sometimes inspire each other too. My series „Fantascapes” for example was created based on an idea from my American friend Susan Cornelis, a wonderful artist and art teacher, we worked in parallel on the theme and published our works simultaneously on our blogs. It was a great moment of mutual inspiration and motivation.
But having said that, I have indeed a favourite, classical artist: Van Gogh.
What art media do you like using the most and why?
I like everything except oil (too slow, too smelly, too messy, too much preparation to start with…)!
Which media I actually prefer depends on my mood. But one can say that I generally prefer fast media, like watercolour, as I am a very spontaneous and impatient painter.
In watercolour I especially love the transparency, the freshness and the exciting, almost mystical feeling of catching a single point of the Time Space. A well-done watercolour painting has something divine, somehow. I also like the fact that it is not a forgiving medium, it must work at once, or it won’t. I like that, even if it can be very frustrating!
For some special aims like portraits I also love colour pencils. In connection with pastel, they can give a lot of depth and life to a portrait.
What do you aim to show in your works?
Oh, never thought about that! I think I don’t have a special aim when I paint, I just love the process of painting. It is a wonderful way of enjoying life and myself in all aspects!
What inspired your sport paintings? How do you manage to show all the energy and movement of a particular event in your painting?
I simply love sports, and I was, and still am myself a quite active sportwoman (daily swimming, much scuba diving in the past, skiing, tennis, much golf, windsurfing , skateboarding, cycling, kick boxing). I love and need movement, and this is why sport is a basic component of my life. Whatever I paint, even when I paint a still life like a simple coffee cup, it always strikes with movement… yes, especially my coffee cups love to dance on the paper!
When I paint sport, because I know so much about it and my body and brain are so used to movement, I suppose that movement and energy are automatically transmitted in my paintings. I don’t do it consciously.
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PS: In the following days I will publish 2 entries connected to 2 of my sport paintings, each one having a nice personal story…
