Riviera Sketchbook

Pour Stephane, félicitations et bonne chance pour le meilleur semaine de ta vie!

The famous Negresco hotel in Nice is the grandest hotel on the Cote d'Azur. Infamously in 1927 dancer & party animal Isadora Duncan died just outside when her scarf caught in the wheel of her sports car strangling her to death!









Nice has a magnificent Russian Cathedral, the largest of its kind outside Russia.



Les passant de Nice.





Rooftops in the Old Town





Airport people.




Another alley in the Old Town.



A different view of parc Albert 1er towards the Promenade with the Med in the background.





Thi is the first drawing I made when I got to Nice. The central parc Albert 1er is shaded by beautiful twisted trees & palms.





Rue Centrale in the Old Town, Nice. I swapped this drawing for a pair of new sunglasses!

Antoine Antin. . .

. . . so good they named him twice (almost)! My colleague likes 2-D animation, strawberry milk-shakes & sleeping. But most of all he likes to draw the cute girls on the beach!
Check out his great sketches at his site & don't miss his superb animation line-tests.

A day in the life. . .

A typical day during the making of an animated film on the Cote d'Azur. These images won't be appearing on any DVD 'making of' documentaries!


Here is Mr Bibo bergeron, director of 'UN MONSTER A PARIS'. A snappy dresser but look at the state of his desk!




This is Antoine, he is big but his drawings are tiny. His desk is tidy.





Here's Sei. When she's not running around the studio she sometimes sits at her desk to work.




Antoine works so hard he actually fell asleep during one of his own pitches!




The lift smells of poo.




Lunch on the beach. Alex is amused at Sei trying to hide a burp.





After lunch Bibo & Pascal pose for a photo-session for Rolling Stone magazine.




Can anyone identify Antoine in this photo?




In the evening we retire to the nearest brasserie for a board meeting. Pascal is chairman of the board.





Onto Paddy's Bar in the Old Town. My special spectral imaging camera reveals Habib & Alex each have TWO heads!




We round off the evening with a spot of 10 pin bowling.




Then it's back to Pascal's for early morning poker. Is that Antoine's poker face or is he sleeping again?

Talking Heads

When I first came down to Nice back in October the studio wasn't quite ready so I worked at home on thumbnail boards. To warm up in the morning I'd draw from the TV. CNN is a great source of interesting faces & head shapes.

TGV

Musée d'histoire Naturelle, Paris

The Jardin des Plantes is bordered by three interesting places. The Menagerie, the vast Grand Galerie de Evolution & the antiquated Musée d'histoire Naturelle. The third contains thousands of excellent skeletal displays but is hotter than a green house in summer. I managed to make some quick sketches before I passed out!

Hidden in the back in dusty old jars I found these freaky specimens!

Cyclops Piglet

Two-faced pigeon

Cyclops Kitten

Double-headed duckling

Back in the autumn of 2005 I first encountered the sculpture of Emmanuel Fremiét at the Henri Rousseau exhibition, Tate Modern. On a subsequent trip to Paris I found another of his powerful animal sculptures outside the Musée D'Orsay. When I moved to the city last summer I figured I could find more examples of his work.

I came across this OrangUtan Attack! in the entrance hall of the Musée d'histoire Naturelle.

Then I found this one close by in the Jardin des Plantes.

In the basement of the Grand Galerie de Evolution there was a special exhibition on dragons. It was disappointing. This guy was the most interesting exhibit.

Le cimetière animalier d'Asnières

In his book on Paris Miroslav Sasek tells of a cemetary for DOGS! Having never seen a pet cemetary before I was impressed by how much care & attention the French lavish on their pets even after death!
Most of the graves have a photo of the deceased on the tombstones & sometimes sculpted tributes to the cherished pooch. Often the name doesn't seem to quite match the photo! My favourite is Ulysees the poodle pup!

Fur Box

On the Rue de Rosiers where I lived in Paris last year there was a groovy little second hand clothes shop that we'd sometimes peruse. I found a neat corduroy jacket while Raja tried on the furs. To me it looked like a box of roadkill but she somehow managed to look chic!

Paris Sketchbook part 2

One hot weekend last August we took a day trip to Chantilly, outside Paris. The chateau itself is remarkable but it was too hot that day to sit outside & draw it. We sought solace from the sun in the shaded gardens & after eating ice-cream with real chantilly cream found these petit maison normande.


Gare de Lyon. The last place I saw in Paris before I boarded the TGV train to the South.

Musée du Panthéon Bouddique displays the Asian Arts collection that established Musée Guimet around the corner. Hidden at the rear of this little known museum is a wonderful Japanese garden.

More quick sketches of people in the streets & on the Metro. These were each drawn in probably 10 seconds or less.

Sculptures de Rodin et d' Henry Moore à l'exterieur du musée de l'Orangerie.

People I sketched while travelling to & from work on the Paris Metro.

A skinny French house!

Out of Picture publisher Paquet put on a party for the Blue Sky boys at a club on the Left Bank. This is the band that played. I seem to remember they were quite good but it was very late & a copious amount of punch had been consumed.





Opera Garniér

Metro Champs Elysées Clemenceau sortie sur le Rond Point des Champs Elysées, en face L'Hotel Dassault.




The Louvre is so vast & intimidating I avoided it for the whole summer. Before I left Paris I spent a couple weekends visiting & decided to concentrate on just ONE section. I chose the new department devoted to the tribal art of Africa, Asia & Oceania.







BHV is a big department store on the Rue de Rivoli, across the road from the Hotel de Ville.






This is the Brasserie de L'Est, opposite Gare de L'Est. The station has trains coming in from the East of France & Germany so this restaurant is popular with arriving Germans. Sauerkraut & huge plates piled high with sausages & meat are the house specialty.