Art(ist) that inspires me

 

Am gonna start with the easy one. Mostly because I have a drawing for it.This is a challenge posted by my dear friend Diane aka Very Chic List.One of my favourite artists ever is Egon Schiele. At that time I was drawing a lot. It was hot and humid time, as only London summers can get.I discovered as there was an exhibition which included his works at the Welcome collection, on Euston road, where I would pass on my way to work. His work was instantly hypnotising: it is twisted and heavy but strangely attractive. Schiele was a marvellous and skilled artist: he left an enormous body of work, specially considering he died when he was only 28. Since the age of 16, when he decided to be a painter, he worked tirelessly like only egotist and narcissist can, to the day he died (Spanish influenza).A lot of his work was, at a time, considered (and some would be even now) pornographic. He certainly wasn't shy of full frontal vagina (or penis for that matter. Specially his.).What I love about his work is strong expressive lines, use of colour and above all, genius composition. He was completely liberated and owned every inch of paper. Now I don't want to hold an art history class here so am gonna stop, but do check him out when you can (and keep an open mind: I never said he wasn't bit on the perverse side).My drawing you see here is just a little sketch that somehow survived all that time and space (specially when you know my love of travelling light). It's off course not even near his drawing genius but it is directly influenced by him.

moreless

How I love to draw

 

I drew this lady and was looking at her and I just thought to myself how much I love to draw. You know those designer typography freaks who love letters? Well am the same, just with lines. I tell you, sometimes there is a line so perfect I keep an entire paper just because of it ( and you know how I love to recycle). So I'd like to give you a quote from a famous 18 century Chinese painter, Hokusai, which I think is the most perfect and accurate thing ever said on painting and drawing (there is also one Matisse saying but I don't have it on me now). I am curious what will the drawing ones among you think, but I think people who don't will appreciate it as well:

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.

moreless

Tell me what to do

 

As you might have noticed am a bit strapped for words lately. Nothing serious but a bit annoying. So I thought the best way to deal with it would be a new series of challenge me posts. Yap.There are two weeks left in May and I think 10 posts is a realistic expectation. So I'd like to ask you lovelies, both girls and boys, to challenge me by giving me "assignments". So if you have and idea please write it into comments and first 10 are going to be my posts for the rest of the month. I loved how the February challenge went, it really pushed me out f my comfort zone of writing only about things I feel at the moment. I think I grow so so so much more in this way .So knock yourself out, am all yours. :-)p.s. Sorry for the uninspired drawing. It'll get better I promise.

moreless

The one where I admit I was wrong

 

I am reading Jane Eyre. Yes, my judgemental prejudiced head decided to give it a go before the film comes out (two words: Michael. Fassbender.) and, as usual, proved me wrong. Charlotte Bronte is such a great, skilled writer that when I read her I go into complete feminist you-go-girl mode. I love the way she paints the characters, her psychological observations and the wonderful flawed Jane. I love how the writer never idealises her nor anyone else in the book and this makes everyone so beautifully fragile and sympathetic.I almost don't want to see the film now, if it were not for the two words mentioned above.So now I officially admit that I was wrong to look down on romanticism. Well... live and learn, right!?!

 

moreless

Afternoon quckie

 

Just a 5 minute sketch. Am done with work and waiting for my ride home. It is basically a skinny version of what I wear. And yes I wear this colours together. :-)

moreless

Acts of kindness and love are never forgotten

There is a girl... or better a woman, who used to be my friend for many many years. It is not the case anymore, as we have grown apart. I can't say I have the same admiration or love for her as I used to and it is probably the case the other way around.But there is something she did I will never ever forget or be any less thankful for it till the end of my days. For my sixteenth or seventeenth birthday she gave me a notebook filled with wonderful quotes and messages of love and respect for me. It didn't cost money: but in time and patience it was worth millions. Here I was, a fragile (if happy) and insecure teenager, with an entire notebook of love dedicated to me. You can not imagine how wonderful this felt, and in times where I felt my lowest I would think; " It can't be that bad, there it is in the notebook, black on white, saying I am special!"The point I am trying to make, I guess, is that kindness and love never ever go to waste. And I am not talking about just your everyday being nice and civil to people, I am talking about active acts of love. I am not saying this will return to you in any way, or that you might be happier for it or that world will be a better place. All this might or might not happen. But you will definitely change someones life, even if that person doesn't know it than.

moreless

TigerTiger

 

I have nothing to write. Seriously. Nothing!

I refuse to moan.I am too superstitious to write about the good stuff.A few things worry me but this is my hobbyThe serious stuff are not for sharing.The fluff is only fluff and why waste time on it.So today nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero.Btw I think this is a wounded tiger in the pic. But tiger none the less.

moreless