Featuring...

Hey-hooo everybody!
This is my first attempt writing about another artist, someone whose work I really like and enjoy, so have mercy on me and feel free to let me know if I did any mistake or how to improve a “spreading-the-voice-about-a-genius-aka-featuring”.

Her name is Francesca Quatraro and she is the answer to the question: “why wasting paper when we have white walls to use?”
She’s an Italian illustrator I found just by chance (internet is truly amazing sometimes!) and I love the combination of black and white with few coloured touches!

(I tried something similar lately, but it’s not as nicer…I still have to master it!)
But the most appealing feature, the very one that convinced me to write this brief post, is because…as far as I can see…she draws on the walls of her own house (and other’s)!
Isn’t it something that you just did when you where little, or something you still would love to do (That’s me! That’s me! But I don’t think my landlord would quite appreciate it, sigh…) but you don’t dare or don’t feel enough confident about?
She just does it, and it’s amazing!

Here, check her website with the gallery to have something to enjoy today (there is a blog also, but it’s in Italian…sorry folks!)
http://officinamezzaluna.weebly.com

From her bio:
“…To remind things of their own beauty.
Ugliness and bitterness are there, and I know that they are both part of our existence, but in my pictures I choose to tell something else… ”

Please note that all images are covered by copyright and belong to their author.

Haiku 4 Happiness

Hurray!
I got the mail notifying that the e-book I applied for with one of my works has finally come out!
And it’s now on sale!
…
Uhm, I think that that’s quite a confusing opening. Sorry!
I’ll take a step back and explain myself!

Something more than one month ago I happened to see on the internet a note about an e-book to help raising funds for Japan, interested I gave a better look and I discovered this great idea initiated by Stefania Fontecilla, a Spanish illustrator (Italian adopted - here it’s her blog: http://lapiccolaprincipessa.wordpress.com/ ), about asking people to participate with one drawing/painting/etc related to Japan to be posted in her blog handshelpjapan.blogspot.com and lately with the possibility to publish it in an e-book.
The e-book in question is called “Haiku 4 happiness” (for those who don’t know already, haiku is a short poem divided in 3 lines describing a particular moment, an event or an atmosphere, typical japanese) and has been on sale since few days ago at the much reasonable price of €3. The total amount of the sale is being donated to Save The Children Italia Onlus, one of the no profit organizations now helping in the reconstruction after the earthquake disaster .

I saw the great effort everybody on Etsy were putting to help the fund raising and I was feeling sad not to be able to help (I’ve been studying Japanese language and culture for many years so it’s particularly dear to me.) with the sale in my shop, still at zero…so I thought that was going to be my chance to be of some help!!!!!
Until I saw the deadline, which was the day after…ARGH!!!
I’m usually very slow when come up to submissions: I have to find a coherent idea…I have to like it…yes, usually I need to take my time, except there was no time to take at all!
Anyway, to make the long story short I was experimenting with some collage at that time (well, I’m still doing it) – did I already mention how much I love paper? :P – so I put the design together the same night and went for the paper, instead of my usual pencils and watercolours, which resulted to be quicker and I manage to post it on time. The result is the one you can see at the top, It’s called “Moon viewing” from the title of the haiku I was inspired from:

The storehouse burnt down,
There is nothing to obstruct
The moon view






And now it is on sale so I will finally have the satisfactory feeling to be of any use!
Unfortunately the editor website is in Italian and you have to sign up in order to buy it, but if you have any knowledge of Italian (or even Spanish…we’re cousins after all!) please, oh! please, try to purchase the book!
Because it’s actually filled with images so it’s not something that you would need to read.
If I can be of any help (with translations and step by step advises) feel more than free to contact me at any time.
Or if you can, spread the voice as much as you can, to help make the difference! :)

This is the link to the editor’s website Haiku Edizioni: http://www.edizionihaiku.com/haiku4happiness.php

Thank you very much!


Here some of my favourite images among the ones you can find in the e-book!

Giulia Adragna - giuliaadragna.blogspot.com

Daniela Di Gennaro - danieladigennaro.blogspot.com

Patricia Lopez Latour - patricialopezlatour.blogspot.com


Please note that all images belong to their respective authors.

Seal Maiden

The two images you can see here are actually something I was working on almost two years ago(!), on my first svisit to Ireland.
I lived in the deep south of Ireland for six month, in a lovely place called Killarney, in County Kerry and there, while minding two little rascals as au-pair, I fell in love with some traditional fairy-tales I have never heard about before.
For example, everybody is familiar with mermaids, but silkies and seals are not common in Italy, so we don’t have stories about them.

Among the others I had the chance to listen to this musical version of the story, half told half sung, by the beautiful voice of Karan Casey. I really love it, it’s smooth but strong at the same time, it gives atmosphere to the whole story, and in particular to the main protagonist’s songs.

The little seal disobeys her mother and lay on the beach when the thigh turns and so she looses her skin and becomes a seal maiden, trapped in a human body.
A fisherman finds her and helps her to get used to the new odd world. So the year passes and she grows lovely and gets the attention of the boys of the village for her beauty and her fine voice.
She eventually falls in love with one of them, Red Brian, and becomes his wife. The following spring the seal maiden gives birth to a boy, lightly wrapped in a seal skin which she soon hide before anybody can see it.
The baby grows to a fine seven years boy, but one day he accidentally finds his own seal skin, he try it on and for the first time, looking at the image in the mirror, recognises himself. After that he obeys his own nature and run for the waves. When the seal maiden realizes what happened it’s too late.
Red Brian thinks the boy is lost even after the seal maiden has explained to him about the seal skin.
One night the boy miraculously come back to his mother with her own skin and together they run back into the sea, where the seal maiden can finally rejoin her mother and allowing the boy to go back and forward to live with his father when he wants to.

I loved the idea behind the story and, for once, the happy ending is fair, not perfect, but “believable”.
My first idea was to make more images, a project for an eventual book which never saw the light.
As I told you before, I’m a lazy person and my concentration is not very strong either, so after a while I just drift off to something else and left the whole thing on its own.
But the love for the story remains and I’m actually quite satisfied with what came out of it…you never know what the future brings.

Lazyness

Lately I've been so lazy that almost scares me!
But, gladly enough I also had the chance to go and visit Galway. The weather wasn't one of the best, but the place is REALLY cute!
Especially the side on the sea, where you can see, and the coast all along.
If you've never happened to be there, give it a try, even if only for the atmosphere and the people in the pub playing trad until late! You won’t be disappointed!

Have a look at some of the pictures, while I try to figure out how to go back on track and produce something! :P