Sotavento Beach Club

The hotel right at the beach...

above some rocks:

Pool and Amphitheater:
No. 5, our apartment:
Behind the apartment:

Fuerteventura

What a wonderful island Fuerteventura is.
The airport is next to the sea and gives a great first impression when you step out of the plane. It is situated close to the capital Puerto del Rosario.

Our view in Costa Calma in the evening:
Our view in the morning:

Off to the beach!

© by chamicu

We´ve gone fishing to Costa Calma, Fuerteventura from May 22 to June 2. See you when we´re back!

A Real Rama Hughes

Right in time before I´m leaving on vacation I received a package by mail from Rama Hughes. As I won one of the Portrait Party contests I am now the proud owner of a

REAL RAMA HUGHES!!!

You can´t imagine how happy I am to be holding this in my hand. Actually I would never put up a portrait of myself. But this one will get a special place in our home office. Thanks Rama. A huge and warm hug to you.

Szaza´s Moly_x_24

After staying up two night until 5:30 am to draw the cover of a book, I spent another night till 5:30 am to get all three Moleskines for the Moly_x done and sent off today. I needed to do them at once because we are leaving on vacation tomorrow morning. That will be another night without sleep. But then we can finally relax at the beach.

Done for Moleskine Exchange group 24.





Another Moleskine I would love to keep. First I did not really know how to continue the work, but suddenly the lady became a mermaid.

David´s Moly_x_6

Done for Moleskine Exchange group 6.

Yes Yes
Charles Bukowski

when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.

Son´s Moly_x_19

Done for Moleskine Exchange group 19.





I stayed with the theme and also drew a Phoenix with a Poem into Son´s book.

When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.

[John Keats (1795-1821)]

Book Cover Design

Monday night (actually at 5:30 am in the morning) I completed my first commissioned work since having the kids. (And that is a long time after 5.5 years.) I was asked to draw a cover for a book called "Krötenkarneval" by Markus A. Hediger. He is a Swiss author who emigrated to Brazil with his family a few months ago. Unfortunately the book is not available in English (yet?). The stories are fantastic and lovely to read. It will be available from Juli 1, 2008 at Edition Neue Moderne.
I enjoyed doing the cover and it made me happy and proud that the two publishers and the author of the book are as content with it as me. Anybody else needs a cover to a book? ;)

Lisa´s Moleskine Of Selfportraits

Finally I´m done with Lisa´s Moleskine.
I always have difficulties with (self) portraits showing teeth, and additionally I don´t know how to use pencils for drawing (except for outlines). And the biggest difficulty: Lisa had left out the first set of pages by mistake (She drew the angel with the fantastic wings). I filled them up, but I can tell you it was really hard for me to fill the page with the borders of the next artwork on the right side. It is much easier when the border is on the left side and you just continue drawing it. I was very unhappy with it, but now I added some paint, some glitter and paper and now it is okay and can be sent off to the next artist.

Bukowski Tattoo

I like text tattoos and this one looks very nice. It is part of a text by Charles Bukowski.
The Norwegian jazz composer and vocalist Kristin Asbjørnsen with her band Dadafon sings this subtle and graceful solo piano piece "I Wish to Weep" for the movie Factotum. The words for the song were taken from a Bukowski poem found in his book "What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire".

Here´s another video of Kristin Asbjørnsen.

City Link Magazine - Anybody from South Florida?

Remember the portrait I drew of Rama, the founder of the Portrait Party? I just read at the Portrait Party, that the portrait is featured along with an article in the current web tech section of the City Link magazine*.
Is there anybody living in South Florida*, who could pick up an issue for me? Reward included!!! ;) Rack locations!

* "City Link is South Florida's premier youth culture magazine, with a weekly readership of more than 140,000 readers spread from West Palm Beach to North Dade County."

Moleskine Exchange Group 19

This is my first contribution to another artist´s Moleskine for the Moleskine Exchange group 19. Actually I like it more than the one I had done for my own moleskine. Steve, want to change Moleskines? ;)

Almost the whole first page of this scan shows Steve´s work. Somehow you can´t really see where I started my own work. I´m not sure how much my work should blend into the former artwork. Anyway, I really, really like it and Steve´s work is very inspiring to work on.

Secrets Sent Off!

The two postcards shown here are not mine, but today I sent off 9 secrets to PostSecret. It´s my favorite blog and I wait for the new post eagerly every Sunday. I´m curious whether any of my secrets are interesting enough to be posted at PostSecret. I know that Frank Warren gets around 1000 secrets every week and he posts 20 of them every Sunday. So chances are pretty small that one of mine will be posted. We´ll see!

Moleskine Exchange #4: "Japan"

I was crazy enough to start and lead 4 of the Moleskine exchange groups. I´ve completed the pages of the last group and now I can start working on the moleskines of the other participants. It does take some time, but I´m having a lot of fun. The greatest thing about it is, that you get to see other artists´work and draw in their books. And in the end you get to keep your own Moleskine including the work of others.

Maybe someone can help me out with these pages: I left some parts of the page without color. It looks good on the fish, but somehow the face and hands look really empty. Any suggestions? I don´t have any Sharpie which is lighter colored than the ones I already used.