What I do in airports.

I had the opportunity to travel earlier this month. The plane ride took me from Harare to Addis, to Rome, to Madrid, to Almeria and finally to Dublin. 

A long journey. 

A lots of movies and some sketching of people.

Working in Maputo with Handicap International

In February I had the opportunity to do the evaluation of one of Handicap International's project in Mozambique, about the inclusion of people with disabilities in the education system.
I got to spend some time with incredible people and hear their stories, hear their motivations, dreams.
People with disability are badly discriminated in Mozambique: lack of access, constant insults, they are made responsible for their disability, are frequently abused and often hidden and locked at home.
Handicap's team, with the government are changing that attitude.
They go door to door, chat with the people, give them motivation, strength and possibilities. Bring people to school or literacy classes, have access to welfare services, health care or counselling.
All the things that maybe are economically irrelevant, and certainly not priorities or profit making. They actually cost money. And are not sustainable as such. Economically.
But what a difference it makes in terms of happinness, of community building, of relationships and self esteem.
Best investment ever.
They make life better. And that is priceless.    

 

Lady Carlota, a childhood spend in an institution, now living with her toddler and another youth she met in the institution. He was probably not looking good enough for his family who preferred to dump him. She is his family now, he is hers. 

She is just amazing, a chatty smile full of good spirit and excellent fun. She introduced me to the people she met in her community, the people she is visiting and their families. She know each one, their stories, their dreams, their frustrations and joys. 

She is a beautiful great soul. 

I have met others like her, just could not sketch them, Maria, Bernardo, Esmeralda, David, Samito, Innocencia, etc. etc. 

 

A couple of sketches done in a literacy class. The teacher earns 20 usd/month (a fifth of the minimum wage). They are in charge of the shortfalls of the formal education system. In their class: the drop out kids, illiterate adults and people with disability (mental, sensorial and physical).

I am always amazed that in the worst situations, one always find the greatest bits of humanity. It is truely in the worst that one can experience and live beauty.
The people working with street kids, abused children, those who lost everything,... are amazing. They are showing so much hope, and really believe in the goodness of humankind, its capacity to do better, to expand boundaries and go beyond differences. I am blessed to meet so many of them with my job. You see nightmares made real, and meet the most beautiful people.

Colour Speke: the video!

That is what my wife is up to when she wakes up in the morning: she make things more beautiful than they were, challenge certainties, build bridges and transform places and their peoples.
The vid is mostly about the painting of the street. The project also build and set up benches, selective bins, solar lightings, photoluminescent glow paint and rehabilitated gardens, putting huge animal sculpture in which plants are growing.
If ever in Harare, go to town, see it for yourself.

#‎Harare‬ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRrkx8cDqWo

Kids

I was checking last month some of the portraits I did of the kids these last years and realized how much they have changed and grown. So had to do dem face dem again. 

On the other page, they wrote and drew things that they want to do this year, or that they like. I like having them participating in the books. My folks always made elaborate photoalbums keeping memories of our daily life the way a journal does. I don't really do photos. I feel that the thousands of digital pics made by cellphones, cameras, are staying hidden in a machine. I like to spend time opening something and having to tell a story, not just zapping. It is about the time spend drawing, the time spend opening and sharing. 

The kids love to draw on the pages of the sketchbook, and many are filled with their impressions of  the holidays, chameleons, dragons, hearts and I Love You graffittis. I love to have them in these pages, it makes it real.   

Trees from the Botanical Garden

Catching up on sketches done but not posted. Here a serie of trees from the botanical garden. In novembre I participated to an Art of Hosting workshop, and took the 20 minutes prior to the start of the day to quickly sketch a tree. It was a great way to be present in the place, and ready for the day.
Unfortunatly, I have no clue about the type of tree/ specie. Many of the name tags the garden had are long gone.
The garden remains splendid. 

bits and bits, skies and crawlers

Some insects bits from my sketchbook, the fortunate ones that have been picked up un the garden, or falling on me or one of the kids. 

The big one, the armoured ground cricket, is a regular guest of ours when in Inhassoro (Mozambique), my daughter use to call it a whassopper, so the name stuck. They are big and totally harmless. Big enough to feel it when they fall on you in the middle of the night. Unpleasant experience. 

My wife hates them.

My son loves wildlife, creepy crawlies and nature, 

My daughter loves my drawings

My son collects the creepy crawlies for me to sketch them. 

My wife cannot share the office with me following a running beetle. 

Between my wife and my kids + beetles, tough choice.   

As for the skies, I have been lazy lately, done some but not regularly. Same terrible colour rendering by the scanner, looks very dull and grey. Find it much better on paper 

What on earth is that?

What on earth is that is the title of a book for kids written by Sarah Savory I am illustrating. I just finished the last page yesterday, and here is a sneak preview of one of them. 

The story is about a pangolin (these weird creatures eating ants, full of scales and walking on their hind legs), one of the most endangered species IN THE WORLD. 

The book should come out this year, but the process started mid 2014. My wife then bumped into Sarah, at the market, buying tomatoes, bread and most probably Winkey's honey, I don't remember exactly but it does not matter at all either. In the conversation Sarah told her she wrote a book for children and is looking for someone to illustrate it, Lou told her that I was an illustrator and the one she needed. 

Small lie, big trust and best intentions. I had to say Yebo! I send her some sketches of an animal I had no idea what it looked like (thanks google), pimping it to look handsome. I knew that she was passionate about it. It was a bit like having to draw a portrait of someone else's love, only relying on google pictures. It is extremely difficult with google to be sure if the pangolins are actually male or female, central african, southern african or asian. Then again, Love is blind and Sarah is not fussy about their looks, gender or specie. Lucky me.

She liked it. And she trusted me too.

Next step for me was to meet one of these weird creature, and I met Marimba, in the Wildlife sanctuary. 

The blind date was set. Although we were a bit awkwards at first, we played the game, walked in the bush together, got personnal: I loved her scales in the sun, she played hide and seek in the tall grass with me, we shared ants and at the end she even showed her belly button as I was lying beside her. Now that is intimacy!

Looking at a pangolin belly should be on any sensible person's bucket list by the way.

I was amazing to follow the pangolin for a couple of hours, they are so bizarre. 

From there, I  actually had to do something I accepted doing but never really did before. It was quite exciting, really, to see the book come alive, discuss with sarah about colours, characters, etc. 

Really, really cool. 

All that to say that I am happy and thankfull for the trust and really want to see the book printed.
I'll look for new opportunities like that one! yey!