Merry Christmas / Joyeux Noel!

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Night of the Hunter

Oh Comely magazine

I interviewed animator Julia Pott for Issue Four of Oh Comely magazine now available in selected newsstands all over the UK.

Dear Santa

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

Petiole

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

My Etsy shop is now open and up for business. Thank you to Fabrice in Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean for being my very first customer. You may now purchase A4 and A3 digital prints of my original dolls collection watercolors. 4 Artworks are at the moment up for sale: Petiole, Positively Charged, Grenouille and Protithenai are all currently available as a Christmas gift for your loved ones.

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

Handmade and Bound Winter 2010

All photographs courtesy of Valerie Pezeron 2010.

Hang on, Santa! It's that time of the year again where Christmas markets and festive pop-up shops are sprouting all over the place!

Last Sunday I made my way to the St Alyosius Social Club in Euston for the winter 2010 edition of  Handmade and Bound.

I always look forward to spending time at such events where I can lose track of time perusing interesting self-published books and admire high quality prints. 

Forget about the packed alleys full of eager art and craft enthusiasts! I always arm myself with a great dose of patience and a smile- that usually does the trick! 

 The lovely Karoline Rerrie of the collective "Girls who Draw".


This season's Handmade craft fair was smaller than the one I attended in summer a year ago around Shoreditch... I forget the name of the school.

There was less on display this time around and not much of the edgy comics I remember from last time. There was an anarchy and radical London printers stand and the graphic novel"Diary of a Miscreant" was on sale at the Last Hours table nearby. 

I left with this book, "Revolutionary Women" after I saw Angela Davis was one of the sisters profiled in it. Why not learn more about strong and brave women from very diverse backgrounds and be inspired?!

Updated Sketchbook

I have updated my sketchbook pages with some observational  illustrations. Check it out here

All images courtesy of Valerie Pezeron 2010. No reproductions allowed 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.

Museum Drawings

Some observation drawings at the Hunterian Museum. I love the place for its creepiness!

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

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

And one from the Science Museum.  I love to draw big and on different kind of papers- especially the prospectus from the museum itself!

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

I guess that means you spotty kids at the museum, get outta my way! Or I WILL draw you....Those are from the Imperial War Museum.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 2011. No reproductions without permission.

The Argument

 

 Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron 2010.  No reproductions allowed without permission.

Written Landscape

Image courtesy of Antoine Corbineau

I like Antoine Corbineau's Written Landscapes as I call them and especially this image above. I like the way he combines hand lettering with little naive drawings and textured shapes to create descriptive maps or more imaginary ones. I also think he is a master at colour and a much copied artist.

Cats sleeping

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright protected 201o. No reproductions without permission.

10 minutes quick drawing with pen.

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Phoebe Anna Traquair

Currently working on my own book, I find myself quite inspired by the illustrations of Phoebe Anna Traquair that accompany the lovely texts of  Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese. It can be found  at the National Library of Scotland.

I love the way the text and the images work together- especially the drawn lettering combining image and letter and the way the drawings frame and invade the writing creating a fully composed artwork.   Zooming in on details, the little vignettes really draw one into the poetic narrative.
Lovely work!

http://digital.nls.uk/traquair/index.html

Philistine

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

My handdrawn writing for the week.

Edmund Clarke: Guantanamo- A review

Detail of Interrogator/guard's call button in Camp Five courtesy of Edmund Clarke. Photograph by Valerie Pezeron

Where is the fire in Edmund Clark’s exhibition? Guantanamo: If the Light goes out is a photography exhibition now showing at Flowers galleries in the East End next to all those yummy Vietnamese restaurants. And I was licking my whiskers heading to the opening last Thursday, “This show has great promise to be explosive!”
Edmund Clark’s commercial work for people like Adidas is widely known. He balances advertising assignments with smaller more prestigious gallery projects that garner critical acclaim and his first book was a well-lauded affair. His specialty? Private and personal portraits conveyed through domestic settings and people’s objects.

Ex-detainee's sitting room and original handwritten child's letter courtesy of Edmund Clarke.

Photograph courtesy of Valerie Pezeron

It’s a pity those small vignettes of everyday life were not so successful this time around. What went wrong? For one thing the large scale of the photographs did not serve what should be a highly charged narrative in intimacy. The gallery had a hand in it too with crude choices such as similar frames to tie together the upstairs Clarke exhibition and Nadav Kander’s Yangtzee show downstairs.

Detail of Administrative Review Board Letter courtesy of Edmund Clarke. Photograph courtesy of Valerie Pezeron

Original, handwritten and hand-censored letter to a detainee from his daughter. Photograph courtesy of Valerie Pezeron

I learned of ex-inmates trying to cope with life after Guantanamo while talking to Clarke. These folks had no anger but seemed resigned to their fate and had formed an ex-Guantanamo old-timers community thus a support system. Very touching stuff indeed and the letters brought tears to my eyes. But I struggled to find a sense of broken domesticity in the Clark's own pictures on display and some are more suggestive than others.

Camp One, exercise cage. Camp One, Isolation Unit. Camp Six, mobile force feeding chair. Ex-detainee's sitting room. All Photographs courtesy of Edmund Clarke.

The irony in all of this is, as my fire was never lit Nadav Kander’s sweeping evocative Chinese landscapes gradually pulled me downstairs. Those beautiful pictures of Yangtzee- The Long River merge the great beauty of China with the Chinese government’s attempt at taming it.

Of the two private views at Flowers downstairs was the place to be at. Photographs courtesy of Valerie Pezeron.

This great battle I witnessed first hand when I visited Shenzhen a few years ago and saw for myself the damages on nature and the people living off the land. There the large format suits the visual conflict between the fragility of the daily domestic scenes and the imposing totems of China’s economic success. Think high towers, concrete bridges and family Sunday diners that sit uncomfortably side-by-side by the banks of the Yangtze river.

Photograph courtesy of Valerie Pezeron

Article originally published in Amelia's magazine

Drinks that never tasted so Bitter

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright Valoche designs 2009. Do no t reproduce without permission

These are my best attempt at advertising art. These original drawings I made for an advertising agency's campaign I was hired to work for did not make the cut and I was asked to change the look and feel until my style was unrecognizable and very run of the mill average!

Image courtesy of Valerie Pezeron. Copyright Valoche designs 2009. Do no t reproduce without permission

Food is very challenging a subject and I feel more comfortable with people and objects. I think an illustrator needs to know what s/he is good at and stick to it! But will I ever get caught in this situation again? Nope! I learned a great deal from the experience. Basically this is what happens when account managers get involved in the creative process. These people work for the benefit of their clients and that is that. Get the contract very clear right from the beginning!  I can't complain on the money I earned from it at the time! But  I hated every minute of it and my porfolio/ reputation did not benefit from the experience. And then I got screwed on the licensing...I guess all jobbing creatives have had their fair share of these!

Réglisse

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

The cat is doing his best pose... trying to charm me and it works! Réglisse means liquorice in French. And he is SO sweet!

Man on the Train

10 minutes, that's what it took me to draw this gentleman on the train home from work on the overground. When people keep on moving, well, you just keep on drawing! I think the mistakes make those drawings interesting.

Fat and drunk? girls should know better!

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

Mistaking leggings and tights for trousers is SO unhygienic. Take that! fat girl at London Bridge train station!