The secret life of plants

Prices

Prices listed here are for buying the original illustration.

Illustrations for books or other purposes where you don't buy the original but the rights to use the digital image are different, normally quite cheaper and start at 150€ per illustration, going up as the complexity of it does. Please contact me to talk about your project.

A quick explanation on how I work.

Some of my drawings I develop as I go, imagining and choosing things as I am drawing, but others are the result of things I see while looking at my surroundings, it can be an image that appears as I am looking at the leaves of a tree or the grass or the clouds or the shadow of a lamp or how the light and shade works on the faucet of my sink.

Another way of imagining for me is to just make doodles on paper and see what my imagination makes out of it. It ends up looking like lots of curved lines and sometimes there are so many that it looks like clouds or something similar. Hard to explain, sorry :-)

The secret life of plants

Above are three illustrations (A3 size) of the series "The Secret Life of Plants".

"The dancing plant" which is the first one, I saw while sitting on my couch one day. I had a little balcony and a big window door that led to it. On the balcony I had some plants and as I looked to one of these plants right underneath it on the window I could see the reflection of my boots so it looked like the plant was dancing. And that is what I drew.

The next illustrations is called "In the tub". One day I went to the city town hall and I had to sit there and wait for a while for my turn and they had some plants there too. One of them was in this big flower pot and it looked as if the plant was taking a bath. With its eyes and smiles and all. Except the fish, I added them afterwards when I was drawing the tiles, because I thought I might as well put the bath in a bathroom and then on the tiles appeared these fishes and they felt as if they wanted to dive in the water, so I thought I might as well let them to it.

The third one is called "In the shower" and it appeared on a photo I took of a park near me. They were watering the grass with one of those automatic irrigation systems and it definitively looked like the plant was having a shower and the leaves were scrubbing something that looked like a boot. So I put them in the bathroom too and while drawing the water this fine lady appeared there, she told me she was the essence of "The secret life of plants".

So called this series just that, and then I remembered that when I was around 9 or 10 years old I had this single by Stevie Wonder called "The secret life of plants" and though I didn't really get the lyrics well it use to take me into a dream like state whenever I listened to it, full of ,mysteries and wonder, and though very little images would appear in my mind it made me feel many many things which I couldn't and can't put into words.

I have searched on google, so many years later, the lyrics of the song and the documentary and book it was based on, and though I haven't read it yet, what I have found out about it makes me feel a big aha! so this was it, this is what I felt back then, and yes, it does match the feelings I used to have when listening to this song. Life will never cease to surprise and wonder me.

Of course, my plants adventures are different from the books and documentary, they seem to be having more fun. And who knows, I did see once in another documentary that plants did move, though very slowly, to the sound of music, and they definitively enjoy baths and showers.

Enjoy :-)

SIZES: The three of them are A3 size

PRICES 1500€ each

My magic land

Above are another three illustrations this time from a story I wrote called "My Magic Land", I am re-coloring some of the illustrations and therefore re-editing the book.

The story started because one day I was wondering what if the world I draw could come to life, what would I draw if I could create anything in my life. Of course it would be a world of love and fun and joy in a beautiful place on earth.

so the first illustration is a self portrait called "Imagining".

The second one is called "The river of Laughter" and is the re-colored version of the original illustration.

I drew this illustration without a previous sketch or even an idea in mind. All I knew is that I wanted to draw a sunset. So I started with the sun, and then I thought I would like it to be behind some mountains, and I drew the mountains. Then I thought, well, I like rivers, so I drew a river running down the mountain slope and I started coloring the grass, and in its midst appeared this dragon, and I kept on flowing with the river and made a cascade and its waters this woman appeared playing the piano. Its a water piano, made by the flow of the water, and the musical notes are made by the drops of water. She is there playing a melody inspired by the giggles and laughter of the main character of the story, who could me, or you, or any-one. And then I added other things I like, like animals and trees.

The third illustrations is called "The wave of imagination".

Sometimes I imagine myself flying with the birds. I choose a bird and ask if I may fly with it, and the feeling is awesome. I don't get to see from the birds point of view but I can almost feel the wind and myself souring through the skies. Drifting upon clouds is very similar, I look at a cloud and I start imagining myself out there upon it feeling the sun on my skin.

The third thing that appears on this illustration is a girl diving into an ocean, but if you look closely you can see that the foam of the wave creates flowers and little beings, because this is one of the ways I imagine things as I said above. Through the lines of the pencil as I colored the foam I saw these things with my imagination.

The forth illustration is called "The crystal flowers" and is a plant with flowers that have light in their center and is one of the things that the character of the book created in the Crystal dimensions, you can also see the horse there. This illustration is the result of the image that appeared on my ceiling and part of the wall of my sitting room made by the shadow of the lamp I had on my ceiling. I also made a small drawing of the lamp as it really was. Nothing to do with its shadow. Of course, when drawing the real thing I also saw a face on it and just had to draw it.

The fifth illustration is called "The Crystal Dimensions". Its just a name for that space where you are when creating something.

You can't really draw that, so this illustration as part of the story, is more like a representation of a feeling, also because the main character "goes" to this dimension and brings back with her some new fruits and flowers she imagined there and a friend in the shape of a cat, and a crystal horse to go riding through the bubbles of her imagination.

Following is the real lamp and also a bigger version of the horse, he is called Star, because the bubbles of imagination look like tiny stars.

SIZES: imagining is A3 size and the rest of them are A4 size

PRICES: Imagining isn't for sale but if you would like a special portrait of yourself the price is 400€, a normal portrait in color is 200€.

the other four illustrations are 1000€ each

And the two beneath this text are A5 and are 200€ each