2 bouquins 8 portrait et 1 carte

Time really flies! I've been busy drinking and eating a lot, and dancing and getting into swimming pools and the sea - that was nice! June is worse (better?) than december in terms of social gathering, I think.

Still had time to read, since this is a vital activity!

 

The book on the right was okay. In french, I'd say that "it doesn't breack bricks" (ça ne casse pas des briques") meaning it's okay but not that fabulous. It didn't help that the french translation was horrible.

On the left is Kundera's "the unbearable lightness of being", which I hadn't read yet. I should have read it sooner. I'm lacking words to talk about it, because if I had the words, I'd be Kundera and write 464 pages to explain... He has open eyes about humanity, what makes us love, what makes us follow.
He's not politically correct, he doesn't have pink glasses, but he's not cynical either. It's about love and totalitarism, and what in us make them happen.
I was intimidated with drawing the cover, as the picture is a reproduction of a Picasso painting! (not that you'd guess it now, seeing my version ^^).

Faces! All ofund on the internet. The last one is Katie Melua as seen on the cover of her CD (and for once I'm not too far from the original).

And faces again. The laughing boy was very difficult to draw. He looked very smug on the photo and I wanted to get that on paper. I'm not sure I managed.

And this is a card I made for Father's day. The lady is my father's wife and someone I love too. For the first time I did the drawing without looking at the photo, trying to get the feeling of her face. Copying was too difficult, it came out better with this method. It's not exactly her, but it's in the spirit!
Well, that's all!
I have more time on my hands now, so I'm going to go and enjoy all your blogs!

Books and faces, as usual...

For a change, this week... Books!

On the right is a book by Jean Hatzfeld who has written several books about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In this book are the stories told by the survivors of the massacres and by the killers. They're now all forced to live together by the "reconciliation" political program.

 

I couldn't put this book down and was frustrated when I finished it. It's not a nice read, of course, but it adresses essential questions about being human, living, forgiving, believing (or not)... What's frustrating is that there is no answer, only more stories, more ways of coping, more questions.
On another level, the French spoken by Rwandese people is particularly beautiful, and precise, and I enjoyed that a lot. (not sure how it comes across with the translation). All his books are available at Amazon.com in english. This one is called "the antelope strategy". There are two others about Rwanda, and I intend to read them very soon too.
On the left is a book I read a few years ago (but I didn't want a "fun" book beside the Hatzfeld one). It's a young German officer (Ernst Jünger himself) telling his life during the 14-18 war. No answers here either, but it's a powerful, essential book. There's no judgement and no propaganda there, just noise, fear, and people trying to stay human.

To keep this post very original... portraits!
A young girl from Togo, a boy from Republic Tcheque, and the last one is a girl from Liberia, all copied from photos in the book "Si tous les enfants du monde".  The third girl I saw on "Photo of the year.com" and she was called "Cambodian Princess".

I'll be at my sister's wedding this weekend (providing the airport is open since it was flooded and closed yesterday...). Will I have the courage to draw out my sketchbook and draw in public?
I'll tell you in a few days!

2 books, 12 portraits

 New books, for a change... Actually I have read another one since but haven't had the time to draw it yet.

Those two were fantastic. I'm not sure the first one has been translated in English yet. French title is Battements d'ailes, Ali di Babbo in Italian, from Milena Agus (author from Sardaigne). It's a small book, magical, poetical, funny, strange, with wonderful characters and a very original voice.

 The other one, I couldn't let go, and "ate" very fast : ) ! The third angel, by Alice Hoffman.

 I really want to read all their other books now.

I've been asked how many books I read a month, I don't know, it depends. Four, five, six, not counting those I read very slowly because they make me work, (personnal development books, for example), or the illustrated books... I read fast, and I need to read as much as I need to breath. I read a lot more when I was young - I had four library cards ^^ !

These portraits, I copied from a wonderful book called "Si tous les enfants du monde" (If all the children in the world). The girls are from Espana and Guinée Equatoriale and the boys from Haïti and Malta.

Two more children from the book, little girl from Cambodge, looking up, little boy from Ivory Coast (he's much cuter in reality, I didn't manage to get the cuteness on paper, he's very small, my version looks older...)
Men from Parker Fitzgerald and Arte te tra flickr streams.

A young woman from David Urbanke flickr stream - my version is not as beautiful as she is in the photo... For some reason, my version looks a bit like my grandmother (must be the sad expression and thin neck - my grandmother was from Flanders and not beautiful at all...)
A young girl from Kazakhtan (and I made her look older, once more...)
A woman from Tibet seen on Falsalama flickr stream, and a woman seen on Internet, random search, no name.

I find it very hard to draw the small children, and the women. The more cute and/or beautiful they are, the more difficult.
And, also, people showing their teeth! Much harder!

I haven't had the time to admire anyone's blog but I'm going to get to it now!
 This weekend I had the first year final exam for the course of Sophrology I'm following. I had a little problem with the time, almost didn't manage to finish... But I think it went well.
It's a fantastic course, I'm very glad I'm doing it. Hopefully I'll graduate next year and be able to begin practicing!

Street scene and portraits

So this is the street concert in Collobrières, in color this time! And the reference photo below.

 

 

 Collobrières is a small and lovely village, very isolated, and well known for its production of chestnuts (and chestnut cream, icecream and so on). This was during the chestnut festival in october 2008.

 

This is my dad. I took an old photo and tried to make him look older to match better with him now. The hair is not right  but the rest is him, I think. I offered it to his wife for Mother's day (because she's important to me too) and she loved it.

Those little ones are Maxime and Pauline, my friend's children. This was for her birthday.

 I loved drawing them, I felt the cuteness, it was like being with them. They're all far away and I miss them.

 

And my last series of portraits found on the net!

Man and woman from Milano, seen on The Sartorialist's blog (I think they look like brother and sister), Nat King Cole, and a Japanese young woman with red hair seen also on the Sartorialist's blog (she's my personal favorite!).

I'm off to draw the last book I read!

2 books, 4 faces, 1 street concert

As usual, books! On the left a book by Jacques Salomé, a French author who writes about communication between people with very interesting ideas and views. The other book is a thriller.

 

I usually don't like very much this type of stories with a lot of action, and perfect heroes who are so incredibly intelligent, skilled and beautiful. But James Rollins'stories have something more, despite the clichés, and I enjoy them. The end of this one was awesome, and in complete synchronicity with my current spiritual fumblings, that was amazing (I won't tell, I don't want to spoil it if you want to read the book! - I think the English title must be "the Darwin Bible".)

 Faces again. A girl in Berlin (seen in the Sartorialist's blog). A London portrait from Paul Bence's Flickr stream (great gallery!). A not very good version of Jean Seberg (and it's not the first time I try... - one day, I'll succeed!) . A young teen from Hans Silvester's book about the Omoo people (Ethiopia).

This is from a photo I took last year in a nearby village. I'm going to color it, but I like it in black and white, too, so here it is. The group was playing Tzigane music, and they were so good. The kids were sons of some of the band members and they were really funny to watch!
(You can click on the drawing if you want to see it bigger).

2 bouquins, 1 collage et 12 portraits

I just finished "The elephant vanishes", by Haruki Murakami, and it was fantastic. At first I didn't want to read it because it's short stories - and I usually don't enjoy reading these. But I couldn't find another Murakami at the library that day, so I tried - and was enlighted!

The other one, by David Foenkinos, was great, too. Very orginal, funny, with a lot of unforgettable and delightful moments.

A little collage.  From a set I made on the Polyvore site.

 

Portraits! From photos in my Geo magazines collection, and some from Flickr.

Here, a girl from Logan Jack's flickr stream, Commandant Cousteau, a Svanetian woman (from Georgia), a Japanese man.

 

The first two don't look like the originals at all... The third one is Marguerite Barankitse, a fabulous woman who has saved and helped hundreds of children in Rwanda and Burundi (I made her look a little older than she does in reality : (  - The little girl is from a photo on Rebecca 812 flickr stream.

A young Australian man in a rodeo contest, girl from Yuna's flickr stream, Javanese man.... and Mitchum again (I needed one more drawing to complete the squares...)

I've got the day off and it's not raining. Isn't that great?

Zoziaux, tasses, légumes, portraits.

I've been wanting to try something new and so this is it... I keep seeing beautiful birds everywhere and I had this great magazine about tropical birds, so I copied two of them using color pencils on black craft paper. Then I cut the drawings and glued them on colored cards. (I did three birds but the third one is really horrible).

 

And did the same, while I was at it, with my favorite cups :

And some vegetables I'd just bought :

It's a beginning. I'll try some more, I think.

I've not been doing many portraits, so I had to put an old one I'd already posted to be able to complete the four squares mosaïc...

 Three of them I did from flickr photos (not mine).
The first one  from LightMirror flickr stream, the second one from iam-zin flickr stream, the third one from  Hanjosan flickr stream. The fourth is Robert Mitchum, I hope it shows ?!

OK, enough computer time now. I need paper time!