Today's Drawing Exercise

Drawing courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright ValocheDesigns 2011. Do not reproduce without permission

Work in Progess - Coffin Island

All images courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright 2011 Valoche Designs

I am posting here work in progress related to my upcoming children's book "Coffin Island" , based on a semi- autobiograpical story devised by me. 

 

Much is left to be done in terms of layout, style, hand lettered typography and reconsidering the story's flow. I also have to work out three more colour spreads.The final spreads will look quite dramatically different in style, espescially the colour ones!

Needless to say, all images are copyrighted and courtesy of Valerie Pezeron.  Any attempt at reproduction or other use without permission will be prosecuted.

 

Drawing for the Day

Drawing courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright Valoche Designs 2011. Do not reproduce without permission

Vampyr

This is a scribble I made while watching the Nosferatu and Vampyr movies back to back during the Halloween week-end. Should have posted them earlier!

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2010. No reproductions without permission.

One Sketch a Day

I am currently working flat out on my book. I am at the moment finding inspiration looking back at Symbolism, Fauvism, Expressionism and the Pont-Aven schools.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2010. No reproductions without permission.

To that end, I a keeping a sketchbook solely dedicated to helping me in my investigations into colour, composition and synthesizing ideas about my dreams and the unconsciousness. Those quick sketches are done in less than five minutes each in front of the TV and using only my imagination. And they are great fun!  

Valoche Murals at Mill 24

All images courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2010. No reproductions without permission.

In April of this year, I exhibited at Mill 24 in Manchester. For me this was the opportunity to paint two murals and adapt my illustrations to a very large format. Even though I have in the past designed large banners for associations or been part of a group working on large installations, this occasion was my very first solo attempt at creating live on such a big scale and I found it quite challenging but ultimately very engrossing and rewarding!

All images courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2010. No reproductions without permission.

What made this one-off event special was its context as many of the works shown at the Islington Mill in Salford were understood to be showcased live over the course of 24 hours and never to be seen again in this manner. Local and international artists within a wide range of media such as installations, performance and time-based media took part.

 My site specific murals were to be painted during the night between the Saturday the 24th and the Sunday the 25th of April 2010 in front of the public in the large bar area. What a great pick of a work space from the curators! Seeing the 2 large walls I did feel pretty special at first...and then it dawned on me I was meant to draw in front of hundreds of art- savvy individuals chilling with a pint of beer. Talk about pressure!

The job was ambitious and I am no shrinking violet so better be organised then! Between my job as a lecturer at the University of East London's School of Visual Arts and this commission, I worked out I had to spread the workload evenly over the course of the week leading to the event if I were to tackle this project successfully. I ended up going back and forth by coach from London where I live and  Manchester crashing at curator Anna Beam's pad and doing several 18 hour days in a row. I have never worked so steadily hard in my life with so little sleep! Because of course one needed to put aside socialising time with new workmates! Ensue plenty of red wine.

 

It's always been my dream to paint grand scale murals and as far back as I can remember I have always depicted sexy girls stranded in a surreal worlds. My idea at first was to have them swimming among fruits and cakes. Or maybe a cowgirl could ride a fish in the grand canyon. In the end, I named this world "Organika" and those two murals are just the starting point for a series of illustrations based on this theme.

The first mural on the right was done over two days all by myself using mix media such as pencils, gouache, marker pens and collage using some of my old lithographs to make interesting details on my subject's swimsuits. Having to go back to London I enrolled my husband to help me as my assistant for the event itself. We ended up working at night in a crowded room with bands blasting weird experimental music. The only valid experiment, it seemed, was how loud those artists turned musicians could go! On the other hand, I enjoyed having people coming to me to comment during the process of painting. Everybody had an opinion and that was always the point- to leave nobody unmoved! All in all it was pretty positive and it was a blast having such feedback!

 It might sound corny but I felt so alive!...until all was done and I crashed for a 48 hour long sleep.
Then I heard the murals would be removed in a fortnight to be used again by another set of artists. I always knew it was temporary but it was a shock nevertheless knowing my girls would not dwell at the Mill permanently. 24 hour is too short a time. But so sweet!