Cartoons and Illustrations by Steve Bonello
  • Home
  • Drawings & Graphics
  • Editorial
  • Cartoon Strips
  • Illustrations
  • Unpublished
  • Scrapbook
  • Blog
  • Contact

Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part Three

29/2/2012

1 Comment

 
Here is another series of drawings dating from the years 1983 and 1984 – nearer to the time that I changed my style almost completely and almost overnight.  (See the blog entry from August 2011 entitled Between the Eyes for details)

This time I picked on drawings which are stylistically related – they are all monochromatic and all involve the use of heavy black lines. These days I usually build dark shadows by a million strokes of a finer pen but the thick black lines have a language all to themselves – at least this is what I’d like to think.

The first drawing is called Destructive Force No.1 and I am fairly sure it is the end result of a series of idle doodling. I have said elsewhere that I consider doodling a great way to exercise and unwind the mind and yes, the hand too. I still believe that. 

The second drawing is Consolation dating from 1983. This was a theme I returned to more than once then. The origins of the image owe a lot to Edvard Munch and the Appiani grave at Genoa – famously featured on Joy Division’s Closer album cover.

I actually exhibited a version of this drawing the first time I exhibited publicly. The exhibition was cheekily named Wirja Bla Isem (Untitled Exhibition) and was held in 1985 by what was at the time a group of close knit friends embarking on their baptism of fire in the local, miniscule art scene. Some of us in that group have labored on… Lawrence Buttigieg is now a well known portraitist…Ray Azzopardi is a brilliant wood sculptor…Lawrence Attard carries on the tradition of fine stone carving in churches and homes…Tony Briffa still produces exquisite ceramics in his studio in Denmark.

The next drawing is called Okapi even if it looks more like a giraffe to me. I guess I liked the word okapi better. It’s also probably the least morose drawing in this lot!

The morosity quickly returns in the next drawing – The Watchers. The idea may have been of people in hiding or afraid of the outer world beyond their self-imposed confines – but I can only hazard a guess here. It was intended as a first sketch for a finished drawing which never materialized.

Next drawing is Monument Y – I don’t know why it’s called that but again the origin is likely doodling with architecture in mind.

Last is the Old Clown. Clowns are nearly always depicted as somewhat sad figures in pictorial art and I guess I tend to think so too. This old, sagging clown fits the stereotype nicely. 

  

Picture
              Destructive Force No.1 - 1983
Picture
               Consolation - 1983
Picture
                 Okapi - 1983
Picture
                  The Watchers - 1984
Picture
                Monument Y - 1984
Picture
                        Old Clown - 1984
1 Comment

Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part Two

23/2/2012

2 Comments

 
I have always been awestruck by extraordinary architecture and I have drawn my ideas for a better (or more fearsome) looking world at times too. Included in this small second batch of drawings are an example of each vision...the playful naïve lighthouse and the drawing entitled The Ministry of War. This last is probably a residue left in my head after reading George Orwell’s 1984. The drawing is appropriately dated from that year too.

I drew many landscapes back then too and did many outdoor sketches which I later reworked at home – with my imagination reinventing the colors to suit the mood.

Included here is a sketch of a country road at Mizieb. The other landscape is a strange one, almost an abstract really and one I recall I was inordinately proud of at the time too! It is entitled Bloody Landscape and the inspiration here is very likely T.S.Eliot’s strange poem The Wasteland – a work whose mood and language I have always been fascinated with but never quite understood anyway.

The last drawing here is a Mother and Child from 1985. I have done numerous drawings on this theme (in cartoon form too) and this is one of my favorites, probably because of its strong lines but also the “accidental” nature of the drawing. Some wax was definitely used in this one. I think there are strong thematic influences here from Henry Moore and Munch – both of whose works I strongly admired back then.

Picture
The Ministry of War - 1984
Picture
Mizieb Landscape - Undated but probably 1984
Picture
Bloody Landscape - 1984
Picture
  Beacon - 1985
Picture
   Mother and Child - 1985
2 Comments

Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part One

21/2/2012

0 Comments

 
I have not always drawn the funny, ridiculous or absurd…in fact I think I was a very serious minded lad in my younger days... an angry young so and so fed constantly on a diet of Pink Floyd, Joy Division, The Cure, The Smiths…I think you get the post teenage angst thingy!

I have quite a collection of drawings I did in my early twenties and I will be uploading a few here from time to time…. I will also try to arrange them by theme, or stylistically if that fails.

So here’s a tentative first batch of drawings … all between twenty-five and thirty years old and practically antiques in their own right! What that says about the artist is another thing altogether…

A short description of each is in order I guess, n’est ce-pas?

Picture
Edinburgh Castle 1981 – I remember my first trip abroad in 1981. I took my first ever flight to London on the afternoon of Princess’s Diana’s wedding. The three-week trip took us up to Scotland and I did a thumbnail sketch of Edinburgh Castle which I later drew again in this sketch.

Picture
Wied Liemu 1981 – I was always carrying a miniscule sketchbook around in those days and the formula here is exactly as above – rough sketch on site and drawing at home. Still love this one.

Picture
Battersea Power Station 1984 – I actually drew this one on site on one of my frequent visits to London in those early Air Malta seriously-discounted-tickets days (long, long gone…). I was of course familiar with this now famous edifice from Pink Floyd’s Animals album. Always considered this building as a temple to energy and I guess it was in fact designed with something like that in mind…

Picture
Addolorata Cemetery 1984 – Also drawn on site from the edge of Garibaldi Road. I also remember clearly I was in the company of Raymond Azzopardi (now an accomplished and respected wood sculptor) when I did this.

Picture
Wied Liemu 1984 – A reworking of the 1981 drawing. I was here using a technique involving non-permanent ink and wax. The wax (not melted!) was actually a candle with which I treated the paper before giving the paper itself a wash. I like the effect created – but for the life of me I cannot remember who taught me this….

Picture
Beirut 1984 – Same technique as in the previous drawing but with a totally different subject. The civil war in Lebanon was raging at the time and this drawing may have been inspired by a news photo, but again too much time has passed and I do not quite remember how the image originated.

Picture
Self Portrait 1985 – Talk about precocious drawings. Enough said!

0 Comments

Color Cautiously

3/2/2012

1 Comment

 
Picture
It is a week since my colored inks arrived from Cult Pens http://www.cultpens.com (very reliable people and a quick dispatch) but in spite of my clear enthusiasm to get my hands dirty and try one or two colors out, I really have not found the time to do so until now.

This was no ordinary week for me… it was the week I finally severed my 30 year long employment at Air Malta and decided to take up the early retirement scheme which was on offer. Which does not mean I will not need to work of course ….economic realities dictated I find a new job (until such time collectors are stampeding over each other to buy my work) and I will jump into my new job on Monday. Would really have loved a short sabbatical – two days of it is simply not enough to catch up on so many loose ends.

Anyway back to those inks. Pelikan inks are supposed to work well with the technical pens I use…this is a rarity as most colored inks will invariably damage the somewhat expensive techies… not an option in these economically dark days.

So I am initially filling just two new pens (so kindly donated by a dear, dear friend – thanks Anne!) – the 0.18 with sepia and the 0.25 with burnt sienna - and see how it goes.

I am still a bit wary that the inks will damage the pens beyond resuscitation so I will monitor the pen behavior closely over the weekend…before I put a third color into another pen. However... Pelikan is a German product and the Germans are usually as good as their word.
 
If they say it won’t clog, they normally mean just that.


The drawing will be uploaded in the Drawings and Graphics section as soon as it's done.


Picture
Picture
Picture
1 Comment

    Categories

    All
    Addolorata
    Anthony Burgess
    Art
    Billboards
    Bio
    Bla Kondixin
    Boats
    Books
    Cartoonist Forum
    Cartoons
    Cats
    Cinque Terre
    Color
    Death
    Doodling
    Drawing
    European Union
    Exhibitions
    Failure
    Fireworks
    Flora
    Football
    Gaddafi
    Genoa
    George Fenech
    Gozo
    Hamrun
    Hiking
    Humour
    Il Bizzilla
    Illustrations
    Ink
    Interview
    Jobs
    Joy Division
    Krakow
    Ladies Of The Night
    Landscape
    Liguria
    Lija
    Majjistral
    Malta
    Marsaxlokk
    Merchandise
    Mordillo
    Motivation
    Mqabba
    Mugs
    Naples
    Nature
    Newspaper Cuttings
    Oslo
    Pens
    Photography
    Photoshop
    Pictograms
    Poland
    Promotion
    Ralph Steadman
    Riviera Del Levante
    Saint Francis
    Scrapbook
    Signs
    Skytime
    Staglieno
    Terror
    Travel
    Walks
    Wolverhampton Wanderers
    Work In Progress
    Youth

    Author

    Steve Bonello
    Malta

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    August 2017
    October 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011

Created by Steve Bonello