A friend of ours recently took us to Sunflower Farms, a nursery in Torrance that is also registered Wildlife sanctuary amid the concrete and electrical pylons.

I’ve come across this Japanese architect through an article in Dwell and became instantly enamored with his aesthetics.   http://www.operacity.jp/ag/exh82/e/exhibition/index.html

Quick watercolor sketch

Here are a selection of sketches using watercolor and bamboo pen and ink inspired by my recent trip to Italy. I’ve used my photographs as reference and/or my memory. Most of the time we experienced cool temperatures and icy winds which made standing about sketching on site a little unpleasant. Although I did sketch on the only warm and sunny day which also happened to be the day my sketchbook was stolen (hint: a small leatherbound moleskin looks like a wallet to Italian pickpockets). Anyway, I like what’s happening in some of these so I am going to continue….

This year’s visit to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair was still fun even though we were not able to display this time around (see post from previous year). Overall the convention was on the more quiet side in comparison to last year, but beautiful and interesting children’s books from international publishers haven’t failed to show up.

On the one rainy day out of five perfectly sunny days we fled into the public libray of Bologna, the most beautiful and inviting public space I have visited.

Venice is located north of Bologna, only a pleasant 1 1/2 hour train ride away but the arrival feels  like stepping into a fairy tale.

This quick sketch was done in Photoshop using scanned watercolor texture and inspired by one of my travel photographs of Guandu Temple near Taipei.

This quick sketch was done in Photoshop and inspired by my travel photography to Malaysia.

A friend gave me this sketchbook made by Khadi Papers.  It is made of recycled cotton rags, love the rough edges…

I’ve had the luck to do some traveling before and around christmas.  Here are a few insights.

 This photo was taken at the Sematan Wildlife Park near Kuching, Malaysia. Native animals are rehabilitated at this facility, for example Orang Utans who only appear on the island of Borneo. With the Park being under new management this elderly male Orang Utan named Aman finally received surgery to get rid of an eye catarract and can now see again.

Inbetween Christmas and New Year I took my family to Palm Springs/ Joshua Tree National Park. Coming from evergreen, rainy North Germany, the climate and desert landscape was endlessly astonishing to us.

In anticipation of my trip to Malaysia  I’ve been revisiting one of my favourite graphic novels,”Kampung Boy” by Lat, an illustrator and writer from Malaysia.  His work which I’ve enjoyed since I was little, courtesy of my Malay relatives, has actually been very popular for a long time in Southeast Asia. But I was very excited to see that this book, along with the follow-up “Town Boy”, is finally available in the Western World, I’ve seen them on shelves in comic book stores and certainly available through Amazon.  I wonder what took so long. These very funny autobiographical insights into childhood in a rural Malay Village (Kampung) and teen years spent in the city of Ipoh go beyond cultural borders. The rite of passage is universal after all.

http://www.firstsecondbooks.com/kampungBoy.html

http://www.firstsecondbooks.com/townBoy.html