animaletti

from sketchbook to print:  here's a new illustration I made for society 6. it's also available in tote bag form. hope you like it.

delicious

illustration for delicious magazine, out now in the united kingdom. and would you look at that red velvet beauty on the cover!

a little commission i did for a transport company's christmas cards.

illustrated recipes: september + morocco on film (part I)

this is a really simple little vegetable dish i adapted from 101 cookbooks. i was going to make something more complicated for this morocco post, like a fish tajine or something fancy, but i have had no time because of the craziness of september. i have been roasting vegies all month though, and sometimes you need to spice things up a little.
this illustrated recipe and all others can be bought as prints here. 

i also got back the last batch of film from our trip to morocco in may. this is part one of the photos i'm going to share. it was such a beautiful place. these are from fez and a little bit of the dadès valley in the atlas mountains (with some friends we made). i love not having to photoshop film.

trees and more trees.

it's the new blog's first birthday today! i had a blog for years before this one, but somehow starting over fresh with a clean new space and bigger pictures has really helped me to set objectives and be more consistent. my illustration work has benefited from it i think, and it has somewhat matured. i am finally making things that i am happy of (not ecstatic mind you, but happy).

this is an illustration i'm making as part of a new project that i will show you later on in time, if it manages to come together. i'm working with pencil and watercolour a lot more, two wonderful mediums which were somewhat made for each other. and since we're on the topic of trees, here is a photo i took yesterday. i was helping out these guys with a kids' art workshop and we took 'em all to the park to draw and watercolour trees. it was awesome to watch them. can't get enough of the trees.

here is an old favourite song of mine, to celebrate.

illustrated recipes: august

this month i have a double illustrated recipe for you! greek and perfect for summer and sharing. there's something about the mixing of mint and lemon and garlic that makes anything unbelievably amazing. i'll definitely be making more of it before eggplant season is over. happy weekend!

recipe taken from donna hay's seasons. i got this book as a gift from a wonderful friend and it is dangerous.

(illustrated prints available here)

early morning characters 6: poppy and jackson

were quite the prolific pair.

illustrated recipes: july

it's a beautiful rainy summer morning and the air smells of humid earth and full clouds, a respite from the relentless heat of the past month. it's been a great weekend. watched this really funny french film, went to see bonnie prince billy who was amazing, made gazpacho from the moro cookbook.

In fact, here is the recipe. This is the first illustrated recipe in a new series i'm planning to start here on this blog. monthly and tested.

m is for music.

i have completed my abecedario, soon you will be able to see it, at least in part, on a new webspace i'm making. it's been fun indulging in the beauty of smudgy graphite, but now i have to find some kind of outlet for this. memory cards? posters? who knows.

meanwhile, it's too hot and i've had too little sleep to function properly so i've been getting stuck in that hypnotically dangerous process of digging up old favourite songs on youtube. everything from arrested development to the smashing pumpkins to this amazing, amazing piece of music from the film vengo that i never ever tire of hearing. and then there is this old pearl by mazzy star i heard on a radio a few days ago, and had completely forgotten about for years. I was overwhelmed with good vibes from the late nineties upon relistening to it. sometimes that's all a girl needs on a slow summer morning.

i leave you with this seemingly inconsistent bundle of listening, and with a few images from the abecedario. happy weekend!

eli readers: dickens

a few days ago i received the book i made for ELI readers this year. it's my second collaboration with ELI and it's been wonderful to be a part of this project. For the past 2 years ELI has selected a bunch of great illustrators (I'm honoured to have been a part of that selection) to illustrate literature classics which have been simplified for language learning. Here is my first book, 'La Celestina',  and here is my contribution to Dicken's David Copperfield.

(in)organic

1. illustration i made for a friend's birthday gift. her name starts with a, she has a crazy fro. 2. found this book at a second hand in perth (and am thoroughly enjoying Lawrence's description of australia one hundred odd years ago). 3. garden party. there should be one every sunday.

a drum, an elk

from my ongoing abecedario project.

ordinary people

something i'm working on, which will hopefully, at some point, see the light of day. it's going to be a busy month, and i may be a little absent from this space, but I can't wait to show you more of this little book project.

early morning character 5: Eli

He would always carry some butterscotch crumbs to feed the kookaburras.

i'm going to gradually post my abc project as i get on with it. so far i'm at M. here is a possible colour test, but i will try more. now i need to find the right channel for this.

uppercase magazine

this illustration of mine was selected for inclusion in the next issue of Uppercase magazine, a canadian quarterly publication which i am very much a fan of. you can find out about it here or buy/subscribe here.

The illustration was made with collage from 1950s italian magazines, graphite and pastel and a touch of digital colour. I rarely do collage, because i much prefer to draw, but somehow it seemed fitting for this magazine, and this precise image came to me when i saw their call for works.

issue 13 will come out in april. photo below from uppercase site.

In the meantime, i got an iphone, like everyone else, and, like everyone else, am going crazy with the various photo apps. to make myself feel relieved from the sense of digital photo cheating induced guilt, i've taken a few real rolls of film to develop. can't wait to see what's inside!

Here is a little bit of trastevere and the view from our house.