The Italian Job 00

Just back from my sketching trip to Italy, mainly focussed on Tuscany, 7 weeks altogether in our box on wheels (The Boomobile, our motorhome), started in Turre (our home in the north of Andalusia, Spain) on the 29th of march 2011. Yesterday afternoon, 15th of May, we arrived safely home after a 5000 kilometres journey through Spain, France and Italy. Some days before, in fact the day of my birthday, we had been told about the earthquake in Lorca (located about 70 kilometres from Turre) a big shock, having to travel through Lorca quite often. Not exactly the kind of birthday present I wished! Anyway, we were happy to find all our paintings and posters still hanging on the walls, and our beloved mugs on their shelves! Living so close to Lorca, it could have been much worse…

In Italy I sketched a lot -well, this of course was the aim of the trip- although I must say that I could not sketch outdoors on the site as much as I wanted: much too many people around, no chance to get the peace and concentration I needed. Also I had the intention to paint more with gouache than with watercolour this time, but I soon noticed that it is much too complicated to deal with all the tubes and palettes and brushes, much too messy too for the motorhome. So very soon I went back to my usual technique in watercolour and ink. I did what I could, loads of the sketches having been done simply from memory some hours after having been on the site, or done from inside our Boomobile looking out of the window and imagining what I could not really see….. This might have the advantage of rendering all these well-know places in a more personal way.

I had been in Italy before, a long long time ago, when painting was not my main activity. It is very different to visit a country with the eyes of an artist, and also in company of the man one loves. Being shared, all the impressions and feelings are much deeper, intensified. Also, in this special case of Italy, there was an additional strong emotional component as our artist friend from the USA, Pamela Allegretto-Franz, of Italian origin, had helped me to choose the travel route. We followed step by step her advice, went to most of the places she had recommended to us. It was very emotional to think that she had been there before herself, especially because we have never met in person! At least we can say now that we have been at exactly the same spots, just not at the same time. Being such dear friends as we are, this alone means a lot! 

Now I guess I will spend the next few months revisiting Italy,  working on all these sketches and painting material, of course, publishing it, in the form of paintings, sketches and blog posts. Suddenly the net will be infected with Miki’s Italy stuff, but I hope some people will find pleasure in them, and perhaps be reminded of their own holidays in that marvellous country, or their native country, or their family history.

First blog post with first Italy sketches coming soon… fasten your seatbelts please!  

Miki sketching in Italy

Photo taken by Kev Moore as I started sketching, somewhere between Rapallo and Portofino… judging by the white paper, I hadn’t done much yet! 

And please take a moment to admire my wonderful; bag, bought in the Sierra Nevada last year to carry my sketching material, , and used in Italy for the first time! So far it had been used as a model for the following still life

Miki's art bag

Mind Your Head

Not meant to be an art piece really. I just fancied doing it.

We have at home a wood sculpture of The Thinker by Rodin, and in front of him, we have put one of these stickers with “Mind your head” written on it, which one normally finds above low doorways. I just find it hilarious!

Available somewhere as T-Shirt if somebody thinks he/she needs such a thing to be reminded of taking care of his/her head… ME for example!

Apart from that, I am still busy with the bulls…. I have by the way created a small Bullfighting art site in Spanish, in case this might be the reason why I sell my bullfight paintings everywhere…. except in Spain! 

Well, it is not finished yet… and I had no much choice for the design, and above all i haven’t got a clue how to get rid of the bloody advertising on the top of the page!

www.artecorrida.com

Serpa – 3 – (Travel Sketches Portugal 2009)

After I had spent 2 or 3 days in Serpa sketching all kind of buildings, I got quite bored, and needed to sketch something else. This is why, on the  7th of July (2009), I sat with kevin at a cafe outside, and made sketches of the people sitting there. I liked the faces I saw, and had quite a nice time doing that. As always my sketches tend to be caricatures, I just can’t help it… but I swear that I have warm and sympathetic feelings towards all these people I sketch, my intention is really not to make them look silly or ridiculous or whatever negative… I am sorry if some recognise themselves (what i doubt in fcat as I am not really searching for a good likeness) and feel offended… 

********

********

********

These are some of the people I sketched that day. if you wnat to see more, go please to my Flickr account

Keith Richards

Some days ago I felt the need to go back to the world of portraits… this always happens to me after an intenive time of painting/sketching landscapes, which is right now the case with my travel sketches of Portugal and Spain.

This is a portarit of Keith Richards, you know, from the Rolling Stones…

how he looks like nowadays, a fascinating face to me.

This portrait is pure digital art, using my old Wacom tablet and the digital pen, of which I had forgotten the existence and in fact hardly used in the past. I can’t believe that I missed this tool all these years, as I enjoyed it so much! Now the tablet is definitely installed on my desk, and I will certainly use it more than once, for portraits or other kind of digital art. I must confess that I love digital art, one of the main reasons being  that… it is soooo clean!

Keith Richards 02 - by Miki

 

These paintings are available directly online as Giclee prints in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widgets below to access my FAA store

And more generally you can see all the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”

Cádiz (Travel Sketches Spain 2009)

In my previous entry I wrote about my intention to work on my travel sketch series Summer 2009 and to publish them. However I was interrupted by an awful event which took place in our town and all around, one day after our arrival: a huge fire went all over the places, over an extend of more than 10 kilometres, and we really thought we would lose everything we have, including, of course, all my paintings!

But the wind blew the fire away in another direction and we lost nothing, except, perhaps, the wonderful feeling of being safe at home  !

But really, what a trauma to assist to such a fire, one deeply realises how powerless we are against Nature…

So, after all these emotions, I am trying to come back to work now. After the short stop in Gibtaltar, we spent our first days in Cadiz, Andalucia, on the Atlantic South Coast of Spain. I knew Cadiz already, but to rediscover it with Kevin was wonderful and we both fell in love with that town. Great architecture, great atmosphere, great beaches, great street cafes, great people… one told us later though, that sometimes el viento de Levante (the Levante Wind) blows there for a long time and makes people get crazy… I am glad that it was not the case as we were there, first because we are already crazy enough, and then because we had parked our Boomobile at the outskirts from the town in front of the sea, and rode everyday bicyvle to the down. I love to ride bicycle, but certainly not against a strong wind!

I made quite a lot of sketches in Cadiz, this is the first of them…

Romance online

I have recently started to work for an ecard company online. I am still represented at Plaxo with my work, but this now is another company, which asked me to join some time ago. Unfortunately I had no time for this kind of activity, but the people there persevered asking me, so I thought:

“well, they think to really want me!”

I liked this attitude (who could resist to be so badly wanted!    !  ), so I simply joined,  just in time before Mother’s day. Somehow it was sweet for me to see, that on that day, my ecards were sent to many Mothers all around the world. It is really a touching feeling.

Although I live quite like a recluse, I knew somehow that it was Mother’s day… although, to be honest, I have no idea it was Mother’s day in France, where my own Mother lives right now… shame on me, I didn’t even check!

Anyway, from my little corner of the universe I am discovering now an an incredible amount of events structuring our calendar. Did you know for example, that we are in the middle of the “Romance Online Week”?

So, my dear readers, if you are in love online,  I have designed a few ecards for that occasion. Here is one. The 2 others can be found  here

Sweet Marc

(by Miki)

“My name is Marc and I play Guitar and vocals for BC Sweet as well as managing the day to day affairs of the band. I’m a lucky guy. Many have said it, many more have thought it and I never forget it for one single day.

I am part of a fantastic band that rocks crowds across Europe. If someone had shown me a video of the BC Sweet of today compared to a few years ago, I would never have believed it. That statement is in NO WAY disrespectful to the wonderful people I have worked with in the band since I joined in 2000. It’s simply that today I have the best of all worlds, the best musicians as well as a wonderful chemistry on stage that is allowing the show to evolve and grow in a way I could never have hoped for.

I always wanted a band that the great Brian Connolly himself would have been proud of. I think, finally, I have that. BC Sweet is a solid and exciting unit performing the greatest hits of Sweet, keeping the songs alive for generations to come.

A BC Sweet show of today features all the hits of Sweet from the early bubblegum hits right through to the later more AOR type songs such as “Love Is Like Oxygen”. To all of you who spend your hard earned money travelling hundreds of miles sometimes, to come to our shows, or taking time to drop us emails and letters, we never take it for granted. Thanks for supporting BC Sweet, we love ya loads.”

Marc Pearson

Count Down for the Commons People

I haven’t been around much these last few weeks., but this does not mean that I was doing nothing. One perhaps tends to forget nowadays that there is a creative life in the outside world…  I don’t remember if I mentioned it in this blog, but I have been very busy with a CD design and production.

Not really “any” CD – It is a very special product, called “Fan Fayre for The Commons People” and done especially in honour of Derby County Football Club. In short: Kev Moore re-wrote the lyrics and music of some famous songs, adapting them to the story of DCFC in a very modern and humorous manner. Some of the songs are his owns, all written for and dedicated to, the club, the players and the fans.

Don’t think twice, it is not only a football CD. It is simply a great, funny and powerful collection of songs which as well as football, simply celebrate life. You can’t really listen to it without at once wanting to jump around and sing the hell out of your head, even if you have nothing to do with football or DCFC.

If you are interested in hearing some of the songs which are featured in the CD, please go to Moore Music and browse around or contact me and I will tell you where to find them.

Anyway! It was great to work with Kev on this project, from the very beginning as the idea arose, until the end, the launching of the CD on the market. An exhausting work too, but well, it was worth it.

A piece of artwork I did for this CD, featuring a Ram against a Red Dog and which is included in the “Red Dog Limited  Edition” got so much interest  that I have had the idea for a new project related to the club. I will produce a calendar for the football season 2009/2010, presenting a piece of Art each month  in the style of the “Red Dog” but featuring in an humorous (and impartial way as I am a Derby Fan now!!!) other teams who will have to fight against the Rams (Derby’s Nickname)

Again a hell of a lot of work, but I do love this idea, and if I can make the fans happy with it, then it is worthwhile!

The calendar will exist in 2 formats, like my other calendars. The “Slim Line” and the A3 Line.

Here is the cover for the Slim Line edition.

Some explanations for the outsiders: The figure on the top is The Ram, my symbol of the Derby rams now since Kev has written all the wonderful songs .

The Black&white striped scarf is a  timeless Derby football fan symbol …

Red Dog Edition

DCFC Edition

For those who are interested, here is my work on the CD sleeve.

No, my works.

In fact, my works. I had to design 2 sleeves, as DCFC themselves wanted their own design… showing their official logo, and matching their general product lines.

And above all: not showing the Enemy!

Love me!

Over the last days, there was much love pain in the air around me…

no, not me neither Kevin suffering, but somebody very close to me…

it hurts a lot!

A quiet moment on the balcony

A short time ago we  finished watching the American series

“Boston legal”

and I must say that it is one of my favourite series all time, perhaps even THE favourite.

I love the humour in it, and more than anything I love the friendship between the two male main characters, “Alan Shore” and “Denny Crane”.

As the series was finished, it was really sad for me, as if I was losing some friends of mine…

So, the best way to get them back now is to spend some time with them, making their portraits. I wanted to catch them both in this wonderful moment they were spending on their balcony, smoking a cigar, at the end of each episode, and sharing wise thoughts about themselves and the world. I started with Alan, Denny will follow soon.

My God, how I miss these

quiet moments on their balcony!