Caramblogage

And, to continue on the subject of sketches, here's the project sketch for the contest against cigarette avertising targeting children I just entered into…

And here is the final version of the first ever issue of .Funk Pairy, the drumming whirlwind with whamming witchpowers. Available at selected newsstands across the galaxy once content makes itself available! (and just in case anyone was wondering, yes, dot is part of her name)

Continuing the process of colouring and effecting the little drummer girl… After layers and layers of colours, shades, various effects and highlights, I think I've arrived where I can with this. To celebrate, have some process pictures! …added details… …layers and layers of colour… …the finished product, sans background… …and the finished picture, with background vectored in! This was mostly a graphics tablet experiment, but all in all, I'm pretty happy with the results attained with my dilletante approach!

And this morning, having found my wall of choice, shot it and documented, giving it strange and multifarious names in the process (it went from being called Greg to a sex change and Heidi… don't ask), here it comes:

Hereunder, you shall find three pictures of walls and one of the Ground in Kreuzberg. The Trash Container is used in construction and proves its qualities as a stencil surface. Caption: "Mom, the cats totally destroyed!" Lucy, what have you done? This last one is interesting in that it has been popping up all over the ground over the last few weeks… either it's a reaction to government bailouts, wishing ponies on everyone (I'll pass, never having harboured that particular dark desire, thank you very much…), never considering how much it would cost to feed the animal. It would probably be good for the flowers, though… OR it's hairstyle advice, as a pony also translates as a fringe. In which case whoever did this might be pointing out that we all have faces like horses… which is a valid point of view.

A couple of days ago, riding my bicycle through sunny Potsdam, I found myself singing Clint Eastwood by the Gorillaz and reminiscing about the fun times that particular band had provided me with. Good music and some great music videos, not to mention one of the coolest uses of hologram technology for concert purposes ever… Imagine then, my jubilation at finding a documentary, directed by Cery Levi, about the making of the band, featuring the suspected suspects and various other suspect people circumspectly speaking about the making of the band! Have a blurb: This incredible film, “Bananaz” removes the secretive, mucky walls of Gorillaz, the cartoon band created by artist Jamie Hewlett & musician Damon Albarn, smashing down all artificial barriers to reveal the full and filthy details behind this awe-inspiring band. Audiences see just what director Ceri Levy saw over seven years of mayhemical creative madness… a lot of it too graphic for mortal eyes to behold…Bananaz is Levy's ...

Ah, the joys of a slow day at work… it gave me the time I needed to get down and continue using equipment I don't have at home to continue on the development of the fairy I started a couple of days ago. She started to strike me as a very sedate character with wery little motion or actual character upon re-examining the last post re. her. So, here, still not quite there yet, but getting there, process of the fairy, part II, the sequel, soon coming to printers near you: As yet, more to come, when it gets down to the shades and special effects.

I knew I had missed a few. Have three pieces of extra street art on the house! Anything involving the survival of the panda race can't be that bad, right?

I saw an online tutorial a few days ago, in which a fairy (or somesuch creature) was depicted flying at the viewer… Yesterday, in the train from Berlin to Potsdam, she resurfaced and wanted to be drawn. Out came my trusty sketchbook and a pencil, the graphite rubbed onto the page. I found myself with a pencil sketch, git back home and inked it. Today, at work, in the spirit of experiment and the enjoyment of an Intuos tablet, I started colouring her, lost about three versions and still wasn't done by the time I got home. So here, in the beginnings of glory, a couple of process pictures, one of the B/W version, a second of the flat colours I got to lay down today. More to come!

Any travel guide will probably tell you to avoid this particular spot in Berlin. The going joke is "In other parts of the city, you'll find needles or bottles or puke on the steet. If you want to see the full tableau, visit the Kotti". If you do dare to visit, I recommend two things: Tadim Döner, who produce one of the best Kebabs in the city, and, since you are already in the area, that you dare sneak a peak at the backside of the eyesore that is the Zentrum Kreuzberg. According to the Berlin Streetart Blog (link in German), it is one of the hotspots for creative tagging in the city. I tend to concur. There you will find many and varied forms of expression, some by street artists documented elsewhere on Carambolage, some political, some by great unknowns. What follows is are pictures I took while exploring the back of the Zentrum Kreuzberg, entering from Admiralstr.: I will be returning there periodically to see if anything new has been added, or anything old removed and...

Ladies and gentlemen, I am also happy to announce that the last was the two hundredth post on Carambolage. Thank you for reading! You may also have noticed that I've introduced day tags recently. This is in case someone feels like adding an element of randomness to their browsing experience. To celebrate, I will, for the first time in a long time, upload a picture of me at Achtung! I am to be found amongst the stylish, the smiling and the famous, in my customary pose for this kind of picture: surprised, bemused and wierded out by the fact that anyone might wanna catch me on film!

Once again, the Achtung Berlin Film Festival has come upon us. And this year I'm so there. I had completely forgotten the joys of sitting in a dark screening room for five hours on end at four on a sunny day. I had pushed to the back of my mind the schmoozing, the boozing, the sheer amount of socialising one does during these events. I thought I'd never want to do it again, after quitting the festival circuit five years ago. And yet… having a pass and time on my hands I've decided to attend this year and have, up to now, found it to be a most enjoyable experience! I've been watching quite a few films, so I'll break it down a bit, and introduce three films. Here are the films I've enjoyed most up to now : Tallulah & Killerhead: A longish short film, coming in at about 18 minutes, this is a fun-filled romp into the times when we could live in our imaginations all day long and our friends were the most important thing to us. A mix of live-action, overlayed wit...

Today, my stroll leads us past a few new sprays on old walls. That's one of the things I truly appreciate about this art form, that it changes and evolves over time, always giving the viewer (ie. you & me) something new to discover…See if you can spot the walls mentioned in older posts! The famous Carambolage no-prize will be awarded to those who get them all right!

Current events prompt me to post a couple of pirate flags that I found flying from the windows of Kreuzberg 36!

A memory snuck up on me yesterday, of simpler days, when all we had to do was sit at schoolbenches and somehow make it to the next bell. The memory was brought up by someone connected to those times, who, once upon a time, drew the most amazing cross between a lion and a mouse. Those being simple times, we never considered what it might do to the poor mouse. So here, about fifteen years later, my take on what a ten-foot, 300 pound mouse might feel like… Rancho, this one's for you! UPDATE — On Thomas prompting, I redid the lettering to a slightly more handwritten style… see if you like the difference:

And yes, it is still a guinea pig… As per request, it no longer practices Kung- Fu (which I find very sedentary) and it has gained the ability to see through a more obvious eye… Hmmm…