One day as I was working late, I turned my head to the right and saw the Oli’s machine in action. It made me think. But it’s cool I love this music :)

This mouth can’t speak.

If it does he will crunch the beauty inside.

This ear can’t hear.

If it does he will swallow the beauty outside.

This head can’t think.

And I can’t write.

The idea of mashing up my passions for both Gypsy Jazz and illustration could have been obvious but only popup in my mind a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t take me long to let myself inspired by Mr Django Reinhardt for a sketch I started last Sunday.

I then realised that Le Quecumbar – UK temple of Django’s music – was about to celebrate it’s 7th birthday on Wednesday and this ongoing piece will problably fit very well there. So, for the first time I decided to illustrate for an external purpose. I really love Le Quecumbar since I moved to London three years ago and the idea of adding my two cents to this magic place excited and motivated me as never before. The deadline was a bit tight tight – two days (well… nights) – to finish the drawing and colorize it.

It’s been exhausting but very rewarding and helped me out to evaluate how long I need to do something like this. Moreover Sylvia Rushbrooke – Le Quecumbar owner – and her super friendly staff gave me a very warm feedback on this. Thanks a lot to all of you; not to say that the night and the music (and the wine) was thrilling as usual :).

Following my previous illustration resolutions I’ve been very careful at using a limited desaturated colour palette. In my opinion it helps to highlight the line and fits the vintage theme pretty well.

Following are some of the key steps I followed, from scribbling to framing:

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 ;)

Well, I fooled myself on this one: it was late and I mix up the french idiomatic expression “faire un paté” (means to vomit) with “faire un flan” which means making a big deal out of something insignificant. So this guy’s been a bit sick and generate a proper “Flamby“… I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s been another reason to draw something and there might be some hidden meaning in there… who knows…

As a start for the most exciting year of all time (until next year) I’ve been walking in Greenwich park and, suddendly, I overheard a mum “optimising” her kids resistance to the artic cold by giving them orders like “put your hood”, “close you coat”, etc… How funny! My mum still tell me the same! But I’m not a kid anymore, except for mum.

So I draw, and here, it is. Happy new year.

Here’s my Illustration Friday submission of the week (I’ve said that before but I’m going to try to submit every week from… now… hopefully) for: Crunchy!

With 2009 nearly done I illustrated what has been the crunchiest topic of the year: the credit (crunch, yes). I initiated a style a bit more realistic this time and not as colourful as usual with, eventually, something a bit more meaningful.

After I had fun drawing faces from biscuits’ fat stains on my note book, I draw several random shapes and let me inspired by them to get the result above.

For adding the colours I experimented the use of vectors instead of my standard bitmap approach. I don’t understand why I haven’t done this before as it’s fast, clean, flexible and fun to play with.

Of course this is still a weirdo illustration of nothing in particular but it’s cool to me, I love exprimentation!

Here’s a 1am inspiration triggered by Illustration Friday‘s topic of the week: “Entangled” or the art of making things complicated. Sounds like an universal topic to me.