Back to the old black lines ;)

The countdown begins!
Monday we are leaving on vacation!!! We are heading to Akumal and then to Xcalac- a tiny town at the border with Belice. I'm pretty excited about this. We'll be diving and relaxing at the beach!! Sorry if I'm making you jealous!

But anyway, I have decided to make a challenge for myself: one drawing per day! until we get back to Merida... That will be interesting! :P

Last weekend my boyfriend and I celebrated 2 years together :) we were planning on going to get a romantic lunch, visit a museum and then get a beer. But as always, nothing went as planned. The coffee place was closed, we had breakfast at another venue, the tropical storm started and the museum was being used for an event so it was closed for the public as well.. so we ended up drinking beer at an Irish Pub watching the euro cup at 2pm haha. We then went to the city centre to have dinner, but somehow we weren't feeling that great. Back at home we collapsed in bed feeling swollen and took a nap. It wasn't until 11pm or something that we were feeling normal again and watched a series... so yeah a pretty romantic sunday ;)

My other drawing is just some crazy idea I got. After drawing it I guess it has a bit of Alice in Wonderland feeling, so I wrote a quote of the book in her dress. I decided to bring colour onto it, and I guess i'm pleased about the result! I'm also working on a baby-card project, but of course I can't disclose those pictures until baby is born :)

A bit of everything

Hello everyone,

How are you doing?

This post is a bit of everything. First two sketches are some pages of my new Moleskine :) one has the recipes my cousin sends to me every now and then whole the other is a sketch done from our hotel view in Ria Lagartos (beautiful place!).

I have found a good art shop and bought linoleum sheets and made my dad bring my craving kit ;) so i started with some reptiles. An example are these frogs. I bought water based paint, i have not really worked with it, i have always worked with oil based. So I still dont' have a good print to show.

And the final drawing I'm sharing is also one of the reasons it has taken me a bit long to update. Mexico is going to have presidential elections in July and its becoming a very exciting and a very scary happening. Students started a few months back a movement, called "yo soy 132" against televisions that are favoring one candidate and keeping us in the dark about important information. A dirty war has started from right winged candidates agains the left and I really don't know what will happen if any of the two main men win... well we'll just have to wait and see.

Water colours and sketches

Hello dear friends & readers!

Firstly thank you for the batik tips ;) i have found the wax and a pot to smelt it in. I have done some experiments but still a bit unsure if i should share them haha, a birthday gift went horribly wrong last week :P

But I would like to share my continuation of experimenting with water colours. Actually I'm using chinese ink and water colour pencils. I forgot my water colours you see.. but I think it's working fine. I did this bird and i hope you can give me some tips or suggestions.

On my more comfortable zone of drawing I had this urge to draw Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl, well a god found in most Mexican pre hispanic cultures. Its a feathered snake, which I think is totally cool. The heads you tend to find are like the one I sketched, and well the little guy is the personification or warrior. In Maya they believed you were born with an animal protector (like horoscope) and of course emperors were normally if not always Jaguars or Eagles, so they had to look the part and they would deform their bodies in order to appear like the animal. Hence the idea.

Next (yeah sorry for the whole legend talks) just a portrait of my boyfriend. Trying to get a grip in the skill of faces, his neck was too long and i think i should do this more often to  train it.

A little adventure

Hello hello!

We've been visiting pyramids the last few weekends here in Yucatan. Mayan piramids. They're incredible, so if you ever have the chance you should visit them :)

On our trips we tend to leave Merida quite early in order to be there before the crowds and it has worked pretty well. Pictures without tourists and many animals that come out in the cool of the morning. Also you get the idea of being a real explorer. This was the inspiration for my drawing today!

I have also been watching a dutch series called O'Hanlons Helden (O'Hanlons Heroe's) which is a serie-documentary about a english man who knows so much about history and biology and all those amazing subjects. In the series he follows the foot-steps of his heroes who where the men that "discovered" gorillas or dinosaurs or Mongolia. It is truly fascinating, funny and in English, if you would like to see it (you can go to VPRO.nl)

So I drew a small explorer. I have to say that many explorers where actually more barbaric than the cultures they discovered. Here in Mexico many pyramids where blown up, libraries burnt and treasures stolen, but I guess it's all part of history. Lets just say that this is a friendly modern explorer like Dora the Explorer hahaha totally harmless!

The last sketch follows my new trauma with cactus and a probable design for my batik experiment (when i find a pot to melt the wax.. any suggestions?)

Please keep commenting, i really do read them all and they make me tons of happy! I didn't reply to last ones (don't want to discriminate some since all i can think about saying is: thank you) but if you have any ideas suggestions or whatever I will! :)

Toh Bird

Hello dear visitors!

First of all, THANK YOU to all your kind comments on last post. It has motivated me to keep on working on the new journal! :)
I seriously think that Blogger should have an easier way to reply to comments. I also notice that if you get a reply you never know.. you have to go back to check it. Or is it just me?

But anyway, today I just have one drawing I want to show you, still part of the old sketchbook (don't want to leave it 1/4 blank) and it's a typical bird from this Maya region and they call it Toh. Its quite beautiful bird, and I was lucky enough to see it casually at some forest ruins.

And now I also want to you some small hand craft proyect I decided to take upon myself. I really want to learn to do Batik, but since its been hard to find the wax i decided to first just play around with some materials and see what I could come up with. I made a small foto series to show you the process. The end product is a funny bean bag, i guess to decorate you table or umm to stop papers flowing away on a windy day... hahaha yeah still have to decide its use.

NEW JOURNAL!

Thanks to the encouraging comments on last post, i decided to pull up my trousers and begin my new sketch journal!

So here i present to you my 1st Moleskine journal! I still have to finish my recycled paper one, but I think i'll be working happily on both.

OK so i know the foto is not very sharp, but it is still a WIP ;) I decided to decorate it with the two countries I feel most at home and where I've been traveling back and forth for almost my whole life.
Since sometimes I do get a drawing block, i decided to use the EDM list of drawings! So in every 8-10 pages i decided to put a challenge:

Next the first 2 skecthes! Yay!

Many journals i have seen have inspired me allot and since I love food I decided to follow the food-journals for now. I might want to add some real stories on my pictures, but i just don't know if my handwritting would ruin everything.. well that's just me rambling about. 

Lets move on! The first drawing is of my breakfast at my local market here in Merida :) and the second one was made at my favourite lunch place: Cafe Creme (calle 41) its just amazing place! The owner is a very nice french man called Eric and he makes the most delicious salads! (its strange how with so many vegetables and ingredients, you can never find decent salads in Mexico)

Below are the coloured versions. I used water colours and maybe for the quiche drawing i will add some more things. That's what happens with colours.. suddendly white is really WHITE haha. I don't know if colour is my thing, but i guess it does give more life to these food entries ;)

Trying to get inspiration

Hello hello!

Today I'm not totally thrilled with my drawings. I thought I would be doing much more, but there seems to be so many different things going on. Even if I do stay a whole day at home.

So the first part of this post is to show you a working in progress of a project for my friend Star who asked me to design a tree which its branches form birds... quite a challenge, since I'm not that good with trees or birds hahaha! So here is my first sketch, of course, its just a study to see where I'm heading to.

Next i my favourite of last week, I did it while enjoying the breeze at the English Language Library here in Merida. Apparently the house we're living in does not have the best positioning (East to West instead of North to South) and that's why even the garden is quite warm. We have a Nopal, or cactus, in teh garden between all the tropical plants. So I decided to use my old characters of other drawings- owl kid and wild cat kid- The detail on the nopal leaves was quite time consuming as well, hence why it took long to update.

Finally, one day I did go outside to draw and cover myself in sweat. I did some plants but didn't like them, so I turned the page and started a face. This is a bit of the result.
I have found art classes, but I haven't really decided if I want to go because I might be working with a ecotourism project at the local university.. I feel I have to take a quick decision but then I try to relax and think that we've been here just for 2 weeks and not everything has to be resolved.

And umm yeah, still working on the old sketch book.. haven't found the courage to start a the new one with fears it will be ruined haha. But I know I should get over it!

Thank you guys for commenting! I hope you enjoy the drawings!