Thanks to all you kind people who take time to visit my blog, I’m happy to say that as of yesterday I have more than 12,000 hits…:)) I missed my blog’s first birthday because I’m a bit of a scatterbrain, but I’d like to use this opportunity to thank you all for taking the time to leave a comment and share your impressions with me! :)
This is the (finally finished) cover for the “Book of Time”, a young readers’ novel by Guillaume Prevost. I’m very happy it’s finished, because I was afraid I was getting totally lost in details. All it takes is some good quality gouache and one of those brushes numbered with a “0″, and I could spend hours working on individual hair strands on a character. Luckily I had a deadline for this one! In reality, it’s not very big, only 17×18cm. There’s also the pencil study for this cover…and I don’t usually do those, I rush straight to the final piece. After all this posting I’m ready for a vacation, and therefore I’ll be away from my computer for the next 3 weeks. Stay happy and inspired!:)

Last Friday, I mailed this illustration to Sarmede, applying for the XXVI Mostra Internazionale dell’Illustrazione per l’Infanzia .
I hope it will pass the selection and be exhibited in Sarmede in October.  The theme of this year’s exhibition is “The call of the ice kingdom, tales from the Arctic Regions”…so this is how I envisioned 2 foxes hunting elk.  Although I’m drawing stuff all the time, I rarely partake in exhibitions and competitions. It’s probably just a bad habit, but I hardly ever find the time to draw/paint something that has nothing to do with work…something that’s not for sale.  I hope to change that habit soon, this is one of my first attempts after a long time.  Keep your fingers crossed for me please :)
This illustration was done (mostly) in acrylic, the size is 30×40 cm.  Some details were lost in scanning (and I really hate what scanners do to original artwork), but luckily I also took some photos of the illustration before I sent it away.  Your comments are welcome!:)

This illustration was started many many years ago, in my early teens, when I discovered The Lord of The Rings.  I wanted to depict a group of elves walking through a forest. After I realized this particular sheet of paper was not very good for watercolor, I dropped the whole idea, and somehow misplaced the sketch.  In the meantime, I grew up, and learned allot about composition and art materials, but it was too late for major changes on this illustration …;)  There was just a couple of brown blotches where the trees were supposed to be, up until 2 weeks ago, and some random elves in faded pencil. When I found it, I felt inexplicably bad about not finishing it, so I decided to do it now.  Some people would say it’s like warming up leftovers, but I’ll let you be the judge of that :)  The illustration here is enlarged, it’s a little bit smaller in reality.
Turns out I’m posting once a month.  I’m feeling a bit bad about that, so I’ll try to change that in days to come.