I’m pretty sure this is a ridiculously bold statement but, – really -,  time is flying like ducks are swimming and those three little guys I met the other day are certainly right. Wait or you’ll get wet. Do you see what I mean? Never mind, they do.

My dear blog hasn’t been fed for over a month, shame on me, so I had to find a quick way to fix this before I disconnect from the little world I know (=holidays!).

This is it for now and as a famous duck said, “better to wait, than being wet”. Sorry, I can’t remember his name (it’s in duck anyway).

She likes hats, she doesn’t have any but she’s got a cat.

I could eventually turn this into a “song” but I’m playing safe with a little sketch for now.

Also, I got bored.

Bored of my “style”, my “technique” and since the beginning of this year my internals have been refusing to do the same as 2010 illustration-wise (and everything-wise actually).

I don’t have any reasons to complain about last year as it’s been just amazing to finally find a personal sketching style that could be developed. But, I think I’ve been slightly fooled (over-excited?) to think that this style and this technique were mature enough to be “locked” for my next pieces. And I must admit that I somehow struggled to have fun while sketching the last one.

Old. Style.

New. Year.

Re. Set.

Not completely but I need to have fun again. Spend more time on paper, less on computer. Using a black ball-point pen – challenging but really interesting (and fun). Scanning in black & white 600 dpi to finally have “pure black” and “pure white” is a relief from the grey look and feel of the previous babies (but I still like you guys!!). And a sharp shade instead of 20538 shades is infinitely more fun to spread while painting with pixels.

Voila, I wanted to make things clear so my hair grow in the right direction. I’m starving for more.

At least! I thought this one will never end but it finally did tonight after a good couple of months of thinking, thinking, drawing, drawing again, then drawing something else, then refining, refining more, and colouring, and again, ….

I tried to keep it fun thought but it really started with the funny will to do a new illustration without a theme that inspires me. So I tried to think about what inspires me, how I get inspired and I realized it is a mess. But I finally end up with a brief: exploring my brain.

It didn’t happen overnight so here are some of the key moments of my introspection:

1. an initial play with words and concept drawings

2. trying to (badly) draw the main character

3. a more advanced scene brainstorm

4. I really struggle to draw waves that looks ok, so I worked on waves too

5. a non-refined drawing

6. the final drawing

7. six of many colour schemes (19); there must be a quicker way..

8. my new webcam, a hand-made paper star, and my last mission, complete.

Cycles, life cycles, activity cycles, it’s all very circular and this is not the first time I hear myself thinking I want to go back sketching on paper rather than on my old and scratchy Nintendo DS screen. I had enough and, during my last Eurostar trip, I’ve started enjoying my new Moleskine and fine Bic more than I expected.

Again, I love you paper, so much.

Back in April I submitted my first entry for an illustration competition: London Cloud Ride for the Cycling in London Competition.

Yesterday I delivered the pictured framed artwork to the Association of illustrators as it will be part of the Cycling in London exhibition at the London Transport Museum from the 5th of July to the 22nd of August 2010.

It was unexpected and it feels just amazing to have a first professional recognition about my illustration work as well as serving a sustainable cause.

Again, Thank you.

After 21 months of sketching, wondering, blogging, doubting and learning, a lot, I’m more than happy to announce the launch of my first online illustration portfolio.

It might sounds (smell?) cheesy but I really want to thanks everyone who supported me during the past couple of years: family, friends, colleagues and even people I don’t know :) So you know, I’m excited to go ahead.

Thank you.

The last few weeks have been very exciting for my little illustration world. I pushed myself a bit more than usual in order to trigger my main 2010′s resolution: showing off my work further than my bedroom, family & friends.

It has been a great mix of meeting real people (creation-related Meetup; professional illustrator Mr Bingo) and receiving feedback on my illustrations on the French art forum Café Salé (thanks to Antoine for the link :) ). All of this has been very inspiring and helped me to build up confidence in what I do. The critics I received from the Café Salé community have been great to take a proper step back on my work. Here is what I’ve considered for this new illustration:

• be careful with colour choice and saturation
• working on a meaning before the drawing’s done
• pushing myself more than usual to avoid the syndrome of a “polished half-way done illustration”

The second point is still my main worry as I really use to start drawing from scratch (no idea, no brief) and, to be honest, this is what I’ve done for this one but I finally added something meaningful – the lamps – before I finish the drawing. Half a victory then!

Also, it might be cheating but I just spotted that this week Illustration Friday topic – Focused – kind of matches what I’ve ended up with. So I’m also sharing with you IF people ;)

Depuis que j’ai lancé “Julien’s 2″ j’ai essentiellement alimenté la machine à coup d’illustrations (merci Illustration Friday) et… c’est à peu près tout. Je suis assez fier d’avoir pondu une dizaine de nouveaux dessins en un peu plus d’un mois et, recevoir des feedbacks d’inconnus, m’a fait à la fois bizarre (première fois) et extrêmement plaisir (au point de rester scotché des journées sur mon webmail à l’affut de nouveaux commentaires…).

Je conçois toujours ce blog comme “catégories-free” et le trip illustration, même s’il est toujours d’actualité, m’a permit de démarrer ce projet et de tenir plus de deux semaines sans abandonner. Grande première. Toutefois j’ai bien envie d’élargir les sujets et de ne pas poster seulement quand j’ai fini une nouvelle illustration. C’est un peu la raison pour laquelle je n’ai rien posté depuis un moment: très occupé par des projets personnels et professionnels, une moustache à faire pousser, des anniversaires et un Noël à anticiper, et quelques dessins commencés mais jamais terminés.

Conséquence de cette volonté d’élargissement: Je viens de retirer la page “Portfolio” car, en plus d’être vide et inutile, elle aurait plus sa place si ce site était un site d’illustrateur avec un Portfolio. Ce n’est pour le moment pas le cas et si ça arrive un jour je devrais être le premier au courant!

Voilà tout ça pour dire pas grand chose mais au moins je remet le compteur du dernier post sur mon blog à zéro et sa suffit à me soulager. Au moins pour les fêtes!

…quelques illustrations et une moustache-story devraient débarquer bientot, normalement!

Il y a 2 mois, Aurore (mon indispensable moitié), m’a conseillé d’essayer la méthode de Nick Williams pour – littéralement -  “devenir un entrepreneur inspiré”. Traduction: trouver le boulot pour lequel on est fait. Passé le côté business-oriented/cheesy/chaotique du site qui m’a d’abord repoussé, j’ai commencé à suivre le programme régulièrement (établi sur 9 jours/étapes) et à moins de m’être fait laver le cerveau j’ai trouvé les arguments et la façon d’aborder le problème de Nick Williams très pertinente et honnête.

J’ai déduit de cette expérience que “le travail que je suis née pour faire” serait Illustrateur. Pas de surprises, j’ai toujours dessiné et pris énormément de plaisir à la faire. Mais je n’ai jamais osé considérer sérieusement l’illustration comme un potentiel avenir professionnel. Trop risqué et trop original surement. Pourtant je n’ai pas arrêté d’y penser c’est 10 dernières années et, merci Nick, je pense aujourd’hui concrétiser cette idée.

Je me suit donc remis à dessiner et à m’intéresser à l’illustration professionnelle depuis cette prise de conscience et ce blog est une des premières actions concrètes que j’ai décidé d’entreprendre.

Focaliser sur des objectifs à long terme ça me fait personnellement peur, donc je me concentre sur de petits accomplissements rassurant pour éviter de perdre ma motivation. Le premier est de me créer une bonne excuse pour dessiner: les présenter sur mon blog; ça devrait me suffire pour l’instant.

Pour le titre je suis désolé, j’ai un humour particulier y parait, mais pour une fois, ça a du sens.