ASTERIX

ASTERIX & THE VIKINGS is released in France in April & the posters are already on the Paris Metro. But WHO had to draw all those characters? Boris . . .

Life Drawing January 24th

Baby condor nest

Small painting inspired by a scene I recently storyboarded.

More life drawing!

At last, after a gap of over 2 years the London chapter of the Animation Blogging Community have found a new, regular life drawing class to attend! Monday & Tuesday nights at the CANDID Arts Centre, Islington - behind Angel tube station. Here's what I did in the first session.

Merry Christmas!

A little late maybe but here's what Santa brought me for Xmas! An original drawing by Uli Meyer that appeared on his (now sadly deceased) blog (RIP). The other original drawing is master caricaturist Ric Machin's rough drawing for a painting he made of DeNiro as Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER. Interesting article on Ric & his art here:
http://www.gkrkarate.org/pages/people/machinf.html

What iceberg?

TERRIBLE TIM

One episode of TERRIBLE TIM which I designed & directed is now online at www.ulimeyer.com
If you head to the Flash section of the website you'll find the relevant page.

X-Rated Searle

As a Ronald Searle/Ralph Steadman fan I often trawl the second-hand bookshops of Charing X Road looking for old or out of print editions. I recently found 'Ronald Searle's Secret Sketchbook'. It's a small volume of very rough & loose pen drawings that Searle made in the red light district of Hamburg. An American magazine sent him there on assignment to document the colourful 'night-life' & the results are rapidly executed sketches of strippers, prostitutes, johns & punters. The book's jacket says 'this sketchbookis an observer's notebook, not a participator's, and was never intended originally to be seen in print'.

London Exhibitions

Over the holiday break I managed to get to a couple of the big art shows in London. CHINA: The 3 Emperors at The Royal Academy is packed with exquisitely crafted objects & hand painted scrolls.

RUBENS: A Master In The Making at the National Gallery shows all his major early works. 8 years studying the Renaissance Masters in Italy transformed from from a struggling artist's pupil in Antwerp into the most successful painter of his day.
Incredibly dynamic work on display, the highlight is his version of St.George vanquishing the Dragon.

The 'ecorche' figures on show are miniature wax works (by Willem van tetrode 1562) of flayed human bodies in dynamic action which Rubens had copied endlessly from every angle while studying anatomy. The figures are displayed next to Rubens drawings of them.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to you all . . .

Merry Christmas!

I wish the whole animation blogging community a Happy Xmas & New Year. Thank you everyone who checked out my blog this year & all who left comments, my Xmas present to you is a brand new blog dedicated to my favourite British caricaturist GARY. Check it out at garycatures.blogspot.com

Korper welten

Been meaning to post this for a while, since Drazen posted his sketche from the BODYWORLDS exhibition. Here's my version.

Recent sketches

Some sketches from & inspired by the colourful population of London town.

Voutch

My girlfriend took me to a gallery solely dedicated to Voutch which she had found on a street in the north west of the city. It's a small space but they sell many of his original paintings none of which I could afford to buy (they start at 900 euros) but it's great to see them for real. They're quite small too, most no bigger than A4. They also sell his books of course & posters & postcards too. Voutch heaven! The gallery is on Rue Guersant, Metro:Ternes.

Bestiaire Medieval

There seems to be a never ending amount of interesting exhibitions in Paris. Le Bestiaire Medieval at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France is marvellous. Dozens of ancient illuminated volumes from the library's archives are on show focusing on the way animals & mythological creatures were depicted in the middle-ages. The intricate, hand written/illustrated pages are mind-blowing and the way the animals are intepreted is often hilarious.

The Bibliotheque-musee de l'Opera currently stages an exhibition of designs & costumes from past operas curated by Christian Lacroix. The theme here is 'rouge' and Lacroix has basically selected every drawing & costume from the archives that is red.
It's great to see so many different drawings, styles & designs by such varied artists & fashion designers.