back from the holidays

Two weeks, and I mean two whole weeks of doing nothing but relax. The place isn't anything exotic or fancy, just the regular family house in the countryside, and old farm really, but I'm grateful for it. I took long walks in the woods, had too many cups of tea and painted a little... now it's hard to think about getting back to work!

Check my Flickr stream in a few days for the scans of the stuff I painted.

16 june 2010

The pens in my pencil case at work this week (sorry for the photo, taken with my mobile)


Fountain pens for work and mechanical pencils with pocket brush pen for sketching ;)

Lamy Safari XF nib filled with a dyi burgundy mix
Pelikan M150 M nib filled with Noodler's Prime of The Commons
Eversharp Skyline XF nib filled with dyi Noodler's olive green mix
Mabie Todd Blackbird (just finished restoring the other day) M nib filled with J Herbin's Bleu Nuit

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen
Pentel F.357 (multi pen with 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7mm leads all in one)
Muji pen/pencil duo

Vacation at last

This year has been pretty difficult at work, adjusting to a new office, new coworkers and duties, so I think I earned myself some vacation time.

I went to Paris!


Made this out of my beloved Muji notebooks and I had quite fun spattering white acrylic paint all over.


I went to the Louvre and did this quick sketch of François-Joseph Bosio's "Hercule combattant Achéloüs métamorphosé en serpent".
I didn't care for Hercules, never liked when I studied at school, but the snake was pretty amazing and I'm not happy I wasn't able to catch the details.
I sat there sketching and people walked by the statue without noticing it, then they wandered around to have a look at my notebook so they thought it must have been special and went back to take a picture of it.


My favourite place in Paris was Luxembourg Gardens, or "Jardin du Luxembourg".
Paris in spring is beautiful and especially the gardens are amazing. The Gardens are alive with people sunning themselves, running or engaging in a game of pétanques.
I did a quick sketch of this bronze statue because the bright green patina was really eye-catching among beautiful tulips and a flowering cherry tree in the background.
I got my palette here in Italy and it's made by Fome which makes many palettes for big brands (I think Sennelier used to have this version), it houses mainly Sennelier's paints and it's small but has lot of space for colours and mixing.