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’:

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 had 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:
The back or front of the book had a coloured version so I didn’t have to make up colours when I painted it with watercolor. I was quite pleased with the final look:

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 and we received it here.
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:
Using burnt sienna, yellow ochre and lamp black, I painted the golden sky, the ground and vegetation and the thin 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 removed the tape. Here is the resulting painting that occupies some of the 21×13 cm page of a Moleskin watercolor book:

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!