Victorian Garden Romances

I've always had a weak spot for the romantic painters of the 19th (and early 20th) century. I guess it's partly because my mother has a small collection of books about Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, Mucha etc. I especially like the garden scenes, mostly showing young women reading a letter or embroidering amongst the roses. Or young couples sitting across of each other, looking sad. Why do people look sad, or at the very least really melancholic, on a lot Victorian paintings? It has something to do with the ''romantic spirit'' I guess. Anyways, here's two beautiful garden scenes for you to enjoy!

Edmund Blair Leighton: ''The Ticket'' (year: ?)
















Marcus Stone: ''In Love'' (1888)

Art Deco and Henry VIII

Gorgeous Art Deco / Roaring Twenties inspired tattoo. Again; couldn't find the tattooist's name unfortunately. Anyway, I love how the tattooist used a minimal variety of colours (mainly black, white, grey and gold/yellow). The colours fit the design so well!
The second picture is an amazing 16th century / Henry VIII inspired painting made by London-based Italian tattoo artist Claudia de Sabe. How I wish I could get tattooed by her some day..!

Crossing Borders

Here's another of my (many) favourite pics. It shows androgynous model Andrej Pejic and model Rick Genest (a.k.a. Zombie Boy) photographed by Colin Singer.
What I like about the pic is probably the slight sense of absurdism, which is overshadowed by some kind of serenity and some kind of... I don't know what it's called in English, but it feels like even though it's a bit absurd everything in the picture seems right, you know. It just works.

David Sylvian

Just love this picture of singer David Sylvian (Japan, Nine Horses). I don't know why. Don't know who the photographer is either by the way.

Roaring Twenties #2

Here's a drawing I did after a tattoo I found on the internet. Unfortunately I couldn't find the tattooist's name. I'd love to see more of his/her work, so if anyone knows who made this design, please let me know! ;)
The colours of the actual tattoo are much darker than the ones in my drawing, because skin's darker than white paper - obviously. The colours in my drawing are darker than in the pic by the way. I took the picture in our kitchen and the light there is really... pale.

Fashion

''Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.'' (Oscar Wilde)

Roaring Twenties #1

Hi everybody! I haven't published anything for about a month, sorry about that! I've been quite busy the last couple of weeks, so I haven't really had time to draw. However I did do a traditional tattoo inspired drawing of a ''roaring twenties'' girl. As you can see I tried to keep everything as bold and minimalistic as possible (well, the colours at least). I want the hair to stay white, but I still don't know what colour to give to the hair ornaments. I kind of like it this way, but it seems a bit too white. Like I forgot to colour it or something... Ideas? Opinions? Please let me know!

(P.S. I know the quality of the picture isn't too great, with the tile floor showing and all. Plus, you can hardly see her skin colour (light pink). When it's finished I'll make a better pic..!)

Ballet colouring pictures for ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' #2

Both colouring pictures for ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' are done! They're not my best work, but they were a good exercise in tracing and drawing steady lines in different widths (which I still cannot unfortunately). I said I'd post a picture of them when I'd finished but I forgot to take one, and now I've already handed them in. So you're going to have to wait till I get them back! ;)

Ballet colouring pictures for ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory''

So today I finished the sketches for two colouring pictures for the young kids that dance in our version of ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory''. During big performances like this there's a lot of waiting going on, which - for most young children - is extremely boring because they don't really know how to amuse themselves without annoying everybody else. That's why our ballet school's director asked me to draw up two colouring pictures to keep the kids quiet. All I've got to do now is trace the sketches with a black fineliner.
Might post the finished drawings on here.

M.C. Escher & Ozplasmic: Bella Italia

Just found this amazing photomanipulation of M.C. Escher's lithograph ''Castrovalva'' from 1930. It was coloured by deviantart user Ozplasmic (http://ozplasmic.deviantart.com/). It's so mesmerizing, I immediately made it my desktop background!