mardi 3 novembre 2009

Utopiales signing report

It was great meeting James Gurney & JB Monge at the Utopiales Festival in Nantes. James always has a pencil and moleskine in the hand, and he did Aleksi's portrait while we were talking about Merlin on the stage. He did mine while we were sketching each others books at the restaurant:

(from left to right: James Gurney, Aleksi Briclot, JS Rossbach, Gilles Francescano, JB Monge.)

Here are James's portraits:


and here are the sketches Aleksi and I were doing at the same moment:




Seeing James Gurney's Dinotopia exhibition was an eye opener. He's a master of light and shadows, taking some of his inspiration in the orientalists movement. I've learnt a few tricks (that I can't wait to try!) only by looking at his paintings. The Dinotopia book is a must-have !

I also warmly recommend JB Monge latest Celtic Faeries book. The man got the Art&Fact award this year. Rght after the Spectrum award, this is your year JB !!

This was the last date of my Merlin Brittany tour. Only a handful days after St Malo. MERLIN was sold out after two days in every spot we landed, and we had a tremendous response to it from the people who bought it. So thank you very much for letting us know that spending 3 years on this one was definitely worth it.

5 commentaires:

YOz a dit…

même plus le temps de bouffer à ce que je vois!!!
encore de sacrées dédicaces les zamis!

Madchen Nathalie a dit…

Wow , super portraits d'Aleksi et toi... Vos nez sont accentués, mais l'ami a l'oeil ;-)

Living Rope a dit…

ah merci pour mon nez kleine mädchen, tu me rassures ! :D

Rob Rey a dit…

Beautiful!
Is there going to be an English version of Merlin? or should I stop waiting to buy it?

Living Rope a dit…

Hey Rob !
Thanks for your interest, man !
The latest news is that the english version is on stand by for now, because the publishers we are dealing with don't give us enough warranties that Merlin will be well distributed.
The book is a huge success here in France and it has already been reprinted twice, but Merlin is an ambitious project and in the beginning even our french publisher didn't print so many copies. They were frightened. Now they understand that Merlin is a hit.
It's boring me but it is urgent for us to wait for the good guys ;)

and btw your oil painting are marvelous, my friend !