Just a little doodle to say:

whaouuuuuu !!!!!

The flu power 4! that was not fun at all, not one second...

... We remain weak people in after choc!

Let's drink some more fresh orange juices...and we will be back on track for real.

Tonight the spiral shaped tulip are in good company: an aviator on wheels and two flying fishes.

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I tried to use more textures. I am pleased with the anthracite sky and the blue rock but I ruined the contrasts by over using the blur tool. I also merged the layers too early...

Next time...

Brigitte Bardot used to sing:

"Sur la plage abandonnée
Coquillage et crustacés
Qui l'eût cru déplorent la perte de l'été
Qui depuis s'en est allé..."

The song was probably internationally known...

Here, there is nothing like everybody going on holiday at the same time, causing traffic jam etc... as it happens in France on the 15 of August. First of all people have far less holiday and they fly abroad most often.

In Binyamina, it is not even really cold in the winter... still the sea side looks a bit like that: (except for the pink sand)

Since I have been living here (about three years by now), and even when I came for visits (before the girls were born), I was always surprised to see that everything seems to be in constant evolution, in other words "not finished".

It is a recurrent surprise for me, when I go back to France to observe that everything is comparatively so neat: flowers pot holder are installed at regular intervals - in Lyon for instance, down town, each window receives a specific light at night....etc.

Lots of things happen and are created here, as for the finish, it never seems to be part of the plans. Where does it come from? - mentalities? - singularity of the place? - a little bit of this, a little bit of that, probably.

For the sea side, it's about the same dominant impression, half wild, half built...

When few friends meet, It can look like above. I believe that creation and "im-pro-vi-sa-tion" are strong points of most people here...

Here is an improvised living room on sand. It reminds me an album from the cramberries, "No need to argue".

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Behind the third tree on the left...

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Let's say this guy is sitting somewhere in Ardèche. I believe he is an environmental studies teacher.

A few years ago, she stopped being a city women and became a "new Ardéchoise", which is a drastic change in life... She never regret it, far from it...

She bought a house over there, near Aubenas (With a silent S at the end). When the walls of her house fell down, dusty smoke came out of the windows. It look a bit like that:

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From Lolo and Lulu's house (Laurence and Luc) we can see winter birds and neighbours who look like this women in black:

For this post and the three coming ones, I (re) used characters originally coming from two drawings made (as sketch) for somebody who want to create a cards game featuring various locations in Israel.

For the sketches, I chose two locations in Tel Aviv: the Azrieli towers and the Yacov Adam fountain.

Here I present these two places plane, without the characters.

I really liked the idea of drawing views since it makes a change for me: I am used to focus on characters as a priority. It was also intended for 10 to 12 year old children which is different from the age I usually have in mind when I draw.

...But, I was not really happy with the result of my sketches. I did not manage to free myself from the indications I received (the drawn places had to be realistic and recognisable and suit pre teenagers taste) and to integrate them into my own way of making images.

Acknowledging my own disappointment, I decided to(re) use the characters and transpose them onto background I recently made, when experimenting paper and cloth based textures... a way for me to appropriate the drawing...

Here is a man walking amongst clouds.

There is either clouds in the street or a huge wrapping paper which flew away from the dustbin. If not, the man is walking in the sky pretending he did not noticed anything unusual.

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A short wiki-information:

"Gingerbread was brought to Europe by the Crusaders.

The town of Market Drayton in Shropshire is known as the "home of gingerbread" and this is proudly decreed on the welcome sign. The first recorded mention of gingerbread being baked in the town dates back to 1793; however, it was probably made earlier as ginger was stocked in high street businesses from the 1640s. Gingerbread became widely available in the 1700s.[1]

Originally, the term gingerbread (from Latin zingiber via Old French gingebras) referred to preserved ginger, then to a confection made with honey and spices. Gingerbread is often translated into French as pain d'épices (literally bread of spices). Pain d'épices is a French pastry also made with honey and spices, but not crispy"!!!!
(Wikipedia)

mmmh recipe: Gingerbread recipe by Stephanie Jaworski:

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Illustration Friday:

For this week's topic, I played a little bit with an old drawing (green balloon)... as for me, I prefer the old ones... it happens.

I am always impressed to see how balloons can empower under five little people's imagination.