The Frogs arrive in Kowalski

On the night of 17th June my Frogs arrived in Kowalski.

The drawing of Winter Ekaterinburg was hung on the wall by the nice staircase that leads down to my favourite room, the one with couches and armchairs, where the party to celebrate this arrival took place.

The Kowalski staff was ready with the nail that was stuck in the chosen place, where I had the pleasure to finally put the blue-framed picture (a copy in size 1: 1 of the original watercolour).

Because of a recent fever, I wasn’t feeling at my best, and I tried to nurse my condition by means of the amazing Kowalski’s Moscow Mule. The result of the therapy, although in the long term it was successful, in the short term was questionable, as some people noticed.

The audience was very nice and interactive and some of them asked me for a few specifically dedicated drawings that I drew live. Like Eda, who was going to have the exam for her motorbike license the day after. Other guests were also portrayed as frogs, unlike Anna, who was portrayed as a human.

I want to thank Pier and the whole Kowalski, and all the people who came during the evening, also the ones who are not in the photos!

Now if you walk by Kowalski in via dei Giustiniani 3R – Genova from 19.00 to 1.00, don’t forget to enter and have a look at this illustration!

 

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Astrofrog in Unimediamodern

New adventures in space.

My “Astrofrog” has landed in Unimediamodern Genova, gallery of contemporary art, in the so-called “Room of the Lunatics” a side exhibition that accompanies the current main exhibition White Noise by Jean-Paul Charles, and that shows the works of other artists dealing with the moon and the outer space.

White noise opened monday 10th June, with the special presence of Jade Dellinger director of the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in Fort Myers (Florida) who presented The Moon Museum in my Pocket and a performance by Philip Corner e Phoebe Neville entitled Here and there on the moon.

It will be open through the whole summer.

«That’s one small hop for a frog, one giant leap for frogkind»

Frogs in Cyrillic

 

The drawing from the previous blogpost was shown in an article by a local journalist from Ekaterinburg, together with a quick interview about my working process and my frogs.

The consequences of this was a cascade of appearances on a series of Russian media.

This illustration, sometimes linked to my face, my other frog drawings and short passages from the blogpost, bounced on a number of websites in Russia, from local tourism pages about the city, to radio/tv channels, up to federal news channels.

Surprisingly, a friend from Ukraine living here in Genova, who knew almost nothing about this drawing (and about my drawings in general), in the morning texted me that she had found me on a Russian news webpage.

The funny thing is that I cannot speak Russian, nor I can read Cyrillic alphabet, so most of these pages that I opened on my phone were totally obscure to me, until – after a couple of days – I could finally open one by one all these pages with Google Translator and find what these texts were saying. Even my name was not immediately recognizable!

Here is a list of those websites.

A federal website:

https://www.the-village.ru/village/city/news-city/343507-frogburg

A popular website about tourism:

https://www.tourister.ru/news/18175

Radiostation Echo Moscow:

https://www.echoekb.ru/news/2019/03/06/76012/

The most popular website in Ekaterinburg:

Frogs in Ekaterinburg

Frogs have arrived in the city of Ekaterinburg.

It’s been a bit of an effort. Since I have known some friends from this city (the fourth of Russia!),  I started to be attracted by the challenge: illustrate this place – where I’ve never been – filling it with my typical green Frog, that you have started to know. The Frogs have already been in many places, times, and situations (you will remember), so let’s move on, to Winter Ekaterinburg.

PERFIDDIARIO @ Unimediamodern

Now that it’s over, I’ve resolved that it’s time to post something… ***

(*** the exhibition has now been extended until the end of March)

From the 24/11/2018 to the 20/1/2019 – and now extended until the end of March! –  my work PERFIDDIARIO has been visible in the exhibition Declinando il libro d’artista in the gallery Unimediamodern Genova.

The Perfiddiario is, like 29 other similar works realized by just as many artists that composed a section of this exhibition, a leporello, namely an accordion book, with 12 pages on each side, that I’ve painted till the very last bit.

It focuses on the character of Perfiddi, and it contains his summer memories and hallucinations. From his everyday boring working life to some more exotic and dreamlike adventures.

The first side has got 12 single scenes flanked by quotes taken from mostly ancient literary works, while the second part consists of 2 long panoramic scenes (consisting of 5 and of 6 pages each) set in in Pisa and in the Minoan Crete.

Here are some pictures of it:

 

And here are some shots from the opening day of the exhibition, which took place on the 24th November.

HB Christmas Beer Stein

Here we come to the next Santa Claus. You can see him laughing on a beer stein.

The Birreria HB Genova (the biggest HB beer pub in Europe outside Germany) asked me for an illustration to make the Christmas Beer Stein of the year 2018.

And here it is.

Who wouldn’t be happy with a fountain overflowing with Bavarian beer?

In fact on the back of our old man you’ll be able to see the Piazza De Ferrari, the most central square in Genova, with its fountain, and the most characteristic building surrounding it: Palazzo della Borsa (the old Stock Exchange), where the HB pub itself is located.

Frohe Weihnachten and Prost!

Happy Santa Card

In these days I’ve been drawing a lot of Christmas , so it’s time to give some evidence.

***

To begin, here’s my new Christmas card.

Printed in 50 copies so far, has (un)fortunately almost run out.
As you can see, Santa looks pretty happy.
No gifts, no ribbons, no trees, no lights – some might say.
But love is in the air, and may that be enough!

What you might also ask is, where is Santa’s hat?
If you wait until next episode, you’ll discover something.

La sQuola di Sofia

Sofia is a 13-years-old girl who won last year’s edition of the literary prize Ninin Festival, held in Bogliasco, near Genova, and got her story published by La Bottega delle Favole. 

Her story is a theatrical text full of humour about her everyday relationship with School. She draws quick and memorable portraits of her professors, her schoolmates, their parents, and other figures moving in this place, that has the possibility to be a pleasant one, but sometimes becomes a living hell.

I was asked to illustrate the text, and I found myself at ease having to draw characters that are real and average people, yet have some strong feature that lets them come out of the lines very clearly, and makes them easy to represent as cartoons.

The result is an e-book (which became a printed book on the occasion of its presentation). There is also an audio version of the story, read by the actress Sara Pesca. Both versions can be downloaded for free in this page (it’s a purchase for free). I highly recommend you to download the PDF version of the book, so you can enjoy all of my illustrations.

The book was presented on 6 July 2018 at the new edition of Ninin Festival, a festival of the duration of 3 days, focused on children and kids. New winners for the literary prize were rewarded, also with a copy of  “La sQuola di Sofia”.

 

 

 

Perfiddi @ Bologna Children Book Fair

It was a busy and challenging week for everyone at the Bologna Children Book Fair.

Perfiddi (a character beloved for its odiousness) didn’t waste an opportunity to show his true self. Here is the Bologna collection.

Needless to say, all the cartoons are based on, or inspired by, real situations, even if reinterpreted in the typic Perfiddi’s style.

To my great sorrow I lost my ink brush during the fair, so Perfiddi’s look had to change due to the different supports and techniques he went through.

Perfiddi in the Bologna Children’s Book Fair only cares for buffets.

Perfiddi downs the aperitivos

Perfiddi has decided to get engaged in intercontinental relations by stealing New Zealander books

Perfiddi is playing battleships on the precious ink of his graphic friend Rudy