Day: June 6, 2018

Reproduction of Moebius’ ‘Cavalcadeur à sept pattes’

‘La faune de Mars’ by Moebius is full of wonderful creatures. I am fond of one in particular: ‘Cavalcadeur à sept pattes’:
Reference illustration showing a seven-legged animal that looks like a mix of a dinosaur, a camel and a lizard. It is mounted by a man that looks really small in comparison. The landscape is like a desert.
By the look of the book, I am pretty sure the artist’s original book was a Canson One Art Book. Hardbound, 10,2 x 15,2 cm, 98 sheets. Exactly like the one I have, which still has a few blank pages. So I sketched the cavalcadeur (this invented word translates as ‘stampeder’) and marked the outline with a thin (0.05 or 0.1 mm) Uni-ball Pin pen:
Outline in thin black ink of my version
The back of the book has a coloured version of it so I didn’t have to make up colours when I painted it with watercolor. I was quite pleased with the final look:
Watercolour applied

Masai Mara Antelopes at sunset

Vladimir went to Kenya a few years ago and took many beautiful pictures. I came across this one last December, as he had included it in a book he had made as a Christmas gift for Adrien.
The reference photo: four antelopes on bare flat ground against a big low sun

It looked both so graphically appealing and simple that I wanted to try me hand on it. I sketched it and prepared a round shape in masking tape:
Very rough pencil sketch and masking tape around the sheet and a round piece of masking tap in the middle

Using burnt sienna, yellow ochre and lamp black, I painted the golden sky, the ground and vegetation and the thin clouds:
Ground and weeds painted with burnt sienna, yellow ochre and lamp black, yellow ochre for the golden sky, and some burnt sienna for the clouds

For the antelopes and to darken further the ground and vegetation, I added black to my palette (apparently I botched the thicket on the left in the process, and had to turn it into a mound):
I darkened the ground and painted the antelopes silhouettes with burnt sienna and black

I removed the tape. Here is the resulting painting that occupies some of the 21×13 cm page of a Moleskin watercolor book:
Masking tape removed, date and signature applied in think black letters

I learned that the paper of this book isn’t thick enough for too much paint/water, and that it was too ambitious to render the light on the ground and around the animal immediately under the sun. At least, it’s still graphically appealing!