Sunday, February 10, 2008

Angoulême 2008 International Comics Festival

Some weeks ago I attended to one of the most important festivals about comics in the world, the festival of Angoulême, a beautiful city close to Bourdeaux. I went with some friends from the Basque Country, which with I share the same passion. If I remember right I introduced them in a previous post. In fact we are starting a new blog where we will show our future meetings (you can find it at http://drawjam-session.blogspot.com/). We also met some other friends at the festival who were trying to sell their work to the attending editors and publishers. I have plenty of pictures to show so I won't bore you with more speech.

Of course, I took my harmonica with me and played it all the time. I think my friends must hate me for that! Anyway, that was a nice shot, wasn't it?

These are two sketches that we did on a restaurant. I made a portrait that resembles Richard Stallman, the father of the Software Libre movement, because I saw him (or at least it was someone very similar) when we first arrived at the city. The other sketch was drawn by Alberto Muriel and it is based after a character called Lone Wolf, by Kazuo Koike.

We used to do draw-sessions in every local we visited. No matter if we were having dinner or lunch, we had the need to draw!

Vanesa printed these two pictures for us in a nearby shop. The first one was taken in a moment were we were chilling out and laughing a lot.

Mikel (alias "MAWEE"), Ruben and "Faerika" were trying to show their work to the publishers and get their feedback.

Vanesa, with Martini-like sunglasses, Alberto, watching the French women passing by hehe and Yvon, working hard!.

There was a stand were proffesionals gave some talks and classes. It was very nice because the table was proyected into a screen so you could see them drawing.

This is one of the drawings I did in a restaurant.

One night we ended up having dinner in a Japanese restaurant (they didnt understand Japanese nor Mandarin though, only French, damn! haha). We had a good time there, especially when Yvon accepted a bet that I did, so he would have to eat a big portion of Wasabi in one shot. Since then, we call him "Hulk"! (Wasabi is a green and strong substance that Japanese people put in raw fish or sushi for example)

After having dinner at this italian restaurant we had a nice draw-session again.

Zalduna drawing a Colosus for Castelló, another friend that wasn't able to come.

As a conclusion I would say that It was a very well organised event and we enjoyed it a lot. So, I think it was worth the effort when we the window of Yvon's car got broken and we had to do all the journey back home with the window open (it was freezing!! haha).

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Liérganes - Pozos de Noja

This saturday I went to do an easy but beautiful route with my brazilian friends Felipe and Vanessa. This is the google earth file describing the route in case you are interested: lierganes.kmz


We were very lucky to have a great weather with a beautiful blue sky. I took the opportunity to get some panoramic photos of the views.


Some "aggresive attitude" pictures with my black hat, hehe. I have more like that with a sticks but i thought they were too strong! haha!


A funny child with some animals of her farm (goats, pigs).


We arrived at Liérganes quite late, it was getting dark!! I think this is a nice sunset picture showing the route we did, isn't it!?

Friday, January 18, 2008

Nusense in Spain!

Last weekend, I spent a nice time with my favourite Londoner, Debbie (alias Nusense) who was kind enough to visit me in my town, Santander (listen to the song I made about her in my previous post!!). Despite her nickname comes from the pronunciation for the English word "nuisance", she wasn't that nuisance at all, haha!!


Nusense is a very talented rapper. You can hear some of her great songs in her website and also videos of her rap battles in youtube (google them!!). As an example, this is part of the lyrics of one of her best songs (in my opinion)


SIT THE FUCK DOWN

"...
i aint jokin around so tell me now do i look like a clown (hahahahahaha)
real people stand up haters sit da fuk down (haters sit da fuck down)
and i aint fuckin around so whats the weather like on the ground
real people stand up haters sit da fuk down (haters sit da fuck down)
..."



I was astonished when she used to start making rhymes on the fly (called free-style rapping). I tried to make some as well but I failed to make a single one, hehe. Her songs, like many other rap songs, have aggresive lyrics that show the living hell where they have been grown up (i.e: some suburbs of London).


Any self-respected hip-hop singer or rapper must appear to be very tough, hehe, so that's why we look so dangerous in our pics. Actually, she is a very good person who is always thinking about her friends (Lee, Mysta, ...).


Although we were going to do some hiking in the hills, the weather was quite bad and I decided to guide her to do a walk along the cost so she could see some beautiful views from Santander. I think we will come accross in future adventures so keep updated!! :)

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Mum, I want to be an artist!

This is not about a new trip or something like that. It's about the year 2007 coming to an end, and me wanting to start doing new things. So I tidyed up my room and converted it into my new art studio!!


I have new ambitious plans to be a comic artist and also to be able to create my own songs. First I need a lot of practice of course. I put here some links of the first songs I have made with the help of my harmonica, my voice and some software:


I will get better, promise!