Italy 2002. These were some fun and small exercises for a course in illustration. They are basically meant as rhetorical images, examples on the various "tools" and means for communication through illustration. From left to right and from top to bottom, they translate or mean roughly: repetition, meta, "the part for all", "change of weight", periphrasis, "change of color", paradox, antithesis, ossomoro(couldn't translate that), similarity, hyperbola/excess.

I'm quite sure I didn't get them all spot on due to some difficulties in understanding but looking at them now I think I got most of them right :)

A couple of new croquis. Not the best of days but these qualified for a post, as if I would have a really tight criteria here ;)

It's 2002 Italy sketchbook again. We used to go into this same café always after school to drink some cappuccino and hang out for a moment. This drawing appeared into my sketchbook during one of those sessions.

Made some time ago a sketch that I liked and colored.

A few quick croquis from today. I went with some ink drawings too.

Sketchbook, Italy 2002.

Since I didn't hear any objections, I'm gonna continue with my "2002 Italy sketchbook" material, muahahahaa. This time there is actually a common factor in these pictures. They are all comics that got randomly created straight with a pen to the book. All of them seem to imply that this isn't the end (one has even page 1 marked in it) but...They also are not particularly well thought out. I just couldn't resist putting the penguin bit in since in recent years they have seemed to be the stock cute/funny character in animations etc. It's too bad I didn't make him do some kind of dance moves just that I could then have him killed. To put it straight the only great animated penguin I've seen was the one in the excellent Wallace&Gromit animation "The Wrong Trousers".

From the year 2002 same stuff as here. The gentleman on the top right is my teacher (not much of a caricature, I suck at them) from the history of italian illustration class. I can't remember his name just now. It was quite an experience when after a couple of months or so I just realized at some point in his class that I actually understood almost everything he said. I guess my italian just clicked on eventually. Before that I had just been smiling and nodding my head when my name was mentioned...

This is part of the same series of "comic's character art" as this.

Croquis time again! Not the best day today but these two came out ok. I tried a pen with a brush like tip on the second one. It feels nice but it's merciless. I think both are 5 minute poses.

The year is '05 again. These are just a couple of the sketches to a project still in hibernation.

Couple of pictures with quite different moods from '05 sketchbook.

From around year 2000. This was part of an idea to present comic book heroes with a traditional art form and a printmaking exercise. Batman is definitely one of my favorite characters. The technique here was drypoint and aquatint.

These are from a sketchbook (2005) that usually travels with me in my bag. It helps the passing of time in planes, trains and automobiles. Drawings here have in common a some kind of depicted scenery but not necessarily a real one but more of the mind (even though there isn't any nude ladies :) .

At one point I also added to the sketches some pieces of an old halftone pattern sheet that was lying around. Oldskool yea!

Decided to post more of the same stuff as here. This thing is probably gonna be on hold for a moment but I will finish it at some point, that's for sure.

Yesterday I started to clean up papers under my desk and ran into old sketchbooks. There was this one book that I had in the year 2002 while living in Turin, Italy for a half a year. That seemed to be an inspiring period 'cause it had a nice amount of decent sketches and that's rare when looking into your 5-year old sketchbooks...
So this post is from that stuff. (actually these are from the same book) I sometimes like to draw these tiny figures out of my head doing poses. I think drawing them is a great and quick exercise. Sometimes I even manage to get some personality in them as a happy accident :) The others are done with a regular pen and the others with ink and brush.