I adore when I immerse myself forward into my childhood to warm up my little hands and then I make very unexpected things, CIAO VICTOR CIAO PAOLA ho cinque anni, anzi 3!

Once again, approaching a new work, especially if it is a commission, first my hands decide by themselves to do something totally different, like that first they have to get rid of any previous spot and make sure they are clean and ready to immerse into a new world. At the same time, somehow this way they listen better to what's going on here into my inner seascape, to potentially pick it up as style, technique or mood for the coming work.

This time the new work I'm going to do the front cover for the novel The Grand Tour by Victor Lorandi Iturrieta. This story is part of The Red Universe (“not only one book, but a series of stories told within one existence without barriers” – here also on fb).

The automatic spontaneous and pretty uncontrollable stream of drawings I made to warm up my hands happened on the new sketchbook I just bought. I must say that I'm very happy with these pictures and I love how they show, I believe, how healthy I feel. The way I draw is so much my gauge!

Now I just terribly wish that the way my ritual looked sane and unstoppable will be as happy as the actual working session for Victor and that this preparation will somehow turn useful to my illustration for him. But I know it will (and knowing it, finally knowing how my creative process works, is an extremely huge satisfaction and joy).

See you soon with much more: the cover for Victor and a bunch of other things exploding in my hard disk and in my room!

Cheerio

Etita

PS. The way I matched the colours here comes from what my body learnt in Iceland the past year. What impressed me the most has definitely been the new way I could see the colours there: the strength of some pastel colous and the elegance they can have next to some acid shades. The greens and the light yellows and the way pink is not a gender symbol but perhaps a psychedelic liquid echo. Oh yes. And how beautiful to find myself buys again with wax pastels?! That's a news of this fall, it was ages I wasn't using them this way. Like seven years ago, during my dinosaur obsession making flyers for Sydrojé (scroll till the bottom here to see)! How fun.

PPS. AAAAND… Happy Birthday, Victor! ;)

(Guessing Epicity)

October is one of my favourite month because it celebrates brownish colours.

I'm glad to inaugurate this October with some portraits I made of Victor Lorandi, since he likes them too.

Furthermore, October has been the month of the first sketch and photographs I made of him, three years ago.

That time, the only thing I understood about Victor was his clear passion for writing; I never seen anyone else keep writing that much in a pub or anywhere else. This time, I enjoyed the honour of a very long conversation about his (and mine) artistic process and it has been very lovely to let grow the ideas I had of him from that time to our present (whatever "present" could mean): I saw in one bigger picture the same guy was bent on his pen now telling me his trip through the inspiration and how a pen or a keyboard can call him.

But there is a specific cerebral joy I appreciate in conversations: when we actually define concepts, concepts I can grab and use as guide or reminder, concepts can shape a cloud of thoughts and inspire new branches.

I know I'll keep some of his helpful and inspiring thoughts up on my mental board, so I'm very thankful; I'm thankful for the concepts themselves, for this satisfying sensation of bringing a peculiar sense to a night and for the satisfaction of reaching some conclusions (a lot of the people, instead, is used to blab to postpone the solution and wallow in the grief: thoughts with a goal make the difference).

Last but not least, I'm thankful for the laughs!

⁂  These pictures

have been taken with a lot ot love

for a special lady living to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, rather in the South…

Working Summer 2013, My Healthy Delirium

Please, have a trip::::       • 

The method. Just being a student, one can feel how much it should matter. It is potentially important for any task. If you are an artist, fitting your creative process with a method will be one of the harder goal of your growth.

During my artistic high school, I've always been told that I had to find a method.

I learnt that being a genius means tough work.

Also, that the "inspiration" is a shitty excuse for losers.

I never stopped to know by my experience that the inspiration is fuckin' real, but I demanded from myself to be able to create even in the eventual complete absence of inspiration, learning also the rules to follow when you are not just dragged by other strange powerful energies.

So, ok, all of this is pretty right, but what if you're inspired most of the times? And your inspiration goes where it wants, although you had different plans? Often my problem is not the absence of the inspiration, but the presence of a strong inspiration which asks you to make a thing exactly when you're doing something else (hey, ask Tom Waits about that). If you have a "regular life" or you're busy, well, many wishes with finding a way to keep that inspired thing still so inspired even if you'll take care of it later. But currently I'm living in a parenthesis of life much free and my duties are now flexible enough to let me follow my own rhythm.

My own rhythm, actually, totally looks arrhythmic. Not only about this damned creative stuff, but even about my biologic melted clock (my ovaries can tell). So, the healthy path would make people wake with the sun and sleep with the darkness, instead my body always drifted in very different lands (though I madly love the Sun and the dawn too, but that's a different story).

When I try to force myself in a regular timetable, even when it works, anyway I feel that just out of the furrow I had a hidden treasure.

delirium (n.) 

1590s, from Latin delirium "madness," from deliriare "be crazy, rave," literally "go off the furrow," a plowing metaphor, from phrase de lire, from de "off, away" (see de-) + lira "furrow, earth thrown up between two furrows," from PIE *leis- "track, furrow."

This awareness is not new at all for me, but I always felt a sort of guilt or wrongness in following my spontaneous way, since it's so much desynchronized. But I see that exactly this way brings me to my best results. It's true, it does it.

In effect, after the discussion of my thesis and after eight years of artistic studies, my mentor – one who also always considered the technique so necessary – finally told me that, hey, the artists have this thing… the so-called inspiration… and it will bring you at the best of your work.

So, ok, it's tricky, because you shouldn't/couldn't/must-not totally abandon the society (meh…), but on the other hand even the society itself will enjoy better the result of your delirium, if you do it right.

Bushes, not ladders: there is not only one best way in the evolution, there are many option sand it's up to you to understand what fits you better.

So, I accurately erased any sense of guilt from my skin land, from my skin mountains and my hill lungs and I'm inking that piece of mind that just exits here from my elbows and my wrists.

As far as I don't have to respect someone else's needs, I drink the mine of my own delirium goblet.

I wish that floating now as more as I can by my freedom thirst, I'll have learnt many secrets more about my way for the day I'll have to be back in a socially acceptable timetable.

My sleeves are rolled up, I'm ready.

Obviously, this illustration (which personally strongly satisfied me) is the result of one of these deliriums: I had to do something else (which now I'll enjoy much more), but I suddenly started to draw hunched on my desk or on my knees, without neither pull a chair, carpe diem.

On the long view, I actually hope to feed a true method, yes, but one deeply aware of the presence of the inspiration: a very strict and planned method, with also some fluffy holes to donate space to the eccentricity.

(And this is one of the reason that made me love The Netherlands: here, to me, looks like that craziness is everywhere and welcome. But the system works well anyway.)

I'm very curious to know anyone's opinion about all this and the creative process, so, please, feel free to leave a comment (you can do it also as anonymous, you don't need an account).

PS. E, mi raccomando.

Orphan Chapter

The great season of the idea's triumph is came back. Each step on the stairs of the railway station generates new tales. But I'm trying to focusing on some projects, so I must send far away the other attractive ideas. This is one of them. No novel for this story. Only this picture, like a memory of what didn't happen (in a way – 'cause in the other way it always happens).

Rêveries

Quando ho disegnato su questa pagina del mio carnet, ero in volo per Utrecht, dove ho vissuto in una di quelle deliziose casette della zona residenziale, poco fuori dal centro.

La deliziosa casetta è abitata da un pugno di musicisti.

Il pugno di musicisti ha la terribile tendenza a generare compulsivamente groove estremamente gustoso per il mio stomaco auricolare. Le chitarre dal piano di sotto, il pianoforte al primo piano, la batteria nella mansarda dove stavo io, dal pomeriggio alla notte, c'era sempre della musica! Tranne la batteria, quando si faceva troppo tardi. Per i vicini. Ma in compenso c'erano decine di geniali vinili progressive, progressive, progressive! (E non solo, ovviamente, avevo perfino iniziato a elencarli, ma metà della lista è rimasta là...)

Il brano che ho sentito io provare più e più volte a Felipe (batteria) e Roel (chitarra) (hi, Ro!!!) è ancora work in progress, ma posso farvi comunque godere un altro pezzo fresco in cui suonano loro due, nei Siggy & The Smokers.

   Siggy & The Smokers - Killing Floor by EchoBlue

Ora indovinate un po' cosa facevo io mentre Felipe e Roel provavano...

 

 

Naturalmente, non ho disegnato e fotografato solo durante le prove, ormai sono una voyeure esperta!

 

Non badate a Mucha, per favore, guardate sull'angolo del davanzale...

... questo coso... WTF!!!

Una volta, mentre suonavano, Ro (qui su) mi ha chiesto perché mai fotografavo il casino della casa (qui giù), haha! In effetti, devo essere parsa un po' buffa a dare le spalle a loro, tutta concentrata a guardare il muro!

Questo, invece, è il frutto di una bella pedalata in solitaria.

Aneddoto scemo e psicorealista.

Deformazione professionale è: Eta che per un istante, davanti a un locale a luci rosse, pensa: «Toh, una performance!»

Dalla Domplein (la piazza del Duomo)

(Andrea Longhi è un carnettist d'assalto, ecco il perché della mia citazione dispettosa!)

Ancora dalla Domplein

Aneddoto cronachistico. 

Il momento in cui ho steso quel blu è stato il momento in cui ho appreso delle dimissioni di Berlusconi - quando Giulia me l'ha annunciato stavano per saltarmi a terra gli acquerelli, tanta era l'euforia!

Dopodichè, io, lei, Felipe e Caio siamo andati all'ACU, dove altri italiani erano sintonizzati sulla notizia a dita incrociate.

L'ACU è un centro culturale dove vengono fatti parecchi concerti. Un paio di volte alla settimana ci sono anche le serate del Flying Carpet, che sono delle jam session aperte. Ce ne sono tante in Olanda!

(quasi) Caio

Giulia e Caio

Credo che Giulia abbia un sole, sotto il cranio, quella ragazza è letteralmente radiosa!

E Caio, con quella barba e quei baffi supremi, è oggettivamente nato disegnato!

(Ciao, ragazzi!!)

Un pomeriggio, io e Felipe siamo entrati nella piccola foresta poco distante da casa sua.

Ha fatto buio presto, per cui sono riuscita a scattare solo un paio di foto bucoliche che di alberoso hanno ben poco, ma che in compenso mi hanno fatto sentire inconfutabilmente più stormthorgerson di Mr. Storm Thorgerson!

Prima di accorgerci che ci eravamo persi del tutto, abbiamo trovato un povero tronco spezzato.
Il povero tronco spezzato è diventato un divano a mezz'aria per metterci a disegnare.

Sia sul divano a mezz'aria che nella mansarda, abbiamo provato a ritrarci moltissime volte.

Qui non c'è tutto, anche perché molti disegni sono sul quaderno di Felipe.

 

Felipe è funambolo del ritmo... e forse non altrettanto funambolo della linea. Ma benché i miei disegni fossero più "corretti", credo che nei ritratti che mi ha fatto ci sia molto di vero. Ha colto ciò che io rincorrevo (e io rincorrevo il coglierlo).

 

Questo viaggio è stato un carburante inesauribile di ispirazione ed energie per creare; anche per questo ultimamente sto disegnando tanto. Ma adesso devo disegnare ancora di più, ho un progettone in pentola e tante collaborazioni stimolanti che bussano alla porta. Per cui ora rinnoverò la carburazione con il penultimo stroopwafel rimasto (sigh!). E buona carburazione anche a Felipe, anche lui ha tante vibrazioni in pentola, dietro le pelli.

 Create! Create! Create!

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