Summer travels

Živijo,

This summer in Infopeka there is not so much things to do. The activity is a bit off, and also Maribor, just after the Lent festival. So me and Marek we've been to the sea side to check if it's truely beautiful ;) and of course it is !!

Here is Piran. The first town we visited, and we loved it. And as I visited Venice in June, it made me think a lot about Italy. Those narrow streets, the laundry drying outside between two windows, or the old pebbledash on the walls. And the people are also mixing italian and slovene language, we could hear 'Ciao!' in every corner. We also could swim on one beach with big stones, and there were not a lot of people. Of course there were some typical beaches with sand, and too crowded. But they are not in that little piece of earth, with that lovely tower at the end, you have to go back a little bit more. Here, one of those streets that Marek enjoyed to photograph:

 We also saw Portorož, but only the countryside and near the sea by bus, but nothing impacted us.
Then we moved to Izola, and we figured out that it was quite similar to Piran. Same architecture, same big tower in the center, and influence of Italy. We even passed by some kind of 'celebration of the tomatoe', in a pedestrian little narrow street. People were speaking loudly and on every table we saw cooked tomatoes in big saucepans, or some competition of the bigger tomatoe.
But this is the only thing that I personnaly liked in Izola, it's still less charming than Piran.
Then we went to Koper, and then we were even more disappointed, even if in some streets we found again those typical mediterranean kind of streets. This town is more like industrial, and it's also interesting to see anyway.

Cécile

Fotografije - Dundee, Škotska

Foto: Klemen Kamenik

February, March, April, May, June – 5 months already?!

My European Voluntary Service started in February. At the beginning, spending almost whole year in foreign country seemed like quite a long time. Not now. Five months already passed. That means my EVS is in the half. What I managed to do during this time? As I said earlier, EVS volunteer can work by very various activities in Pekarna Magdalenske Mreže. But let me to focus just on one, photographing.

As enthusiastic photography fan I somehow received role of Infopeka's „proffesional“ official photographer. Photographing of events, photographing of workshops, photographing of lectures, etc. Simply, a lot of fun. Of course, even photographing can be sometimes boring a little bit. There is really hard to find something interesting on photographing the lecture if speaker has only one emotion in his face for whole two hours of his talking. Here is one example.

But much more often situation is totally different. Horrible light conditions, working with unknown people, lack of time, etc. Especially Dan za spremembe (Day of change) was full of such „problems“. Photographing handicapped people. Moving from one event to another without possibility to real participation. Photographing Greenpeace event in total darkness without using flash, etc.

Photographing sometimes can be even dangerous a little bit. Some of Infopeka's volunteers are very active in public engagement. Because of that, I was also participating as photographer on two protests against privatisation in Ljubljana. It is very interesting experience to do such a thing. Especially when your language skills are not very good. Not all people like to pe photographed so sometimes can happen that that somebody start to shout: „Ne slikaj!“ and a lot of other words which I didn't understand. I can only estimate their meaning. Simply, photographing for Infopeka is real challenge. 

Marek Šurkala

Some stories and tips about drawing

STILL LIFE

What for?

On the 9^th of June, I gave one of my first drawing lesson about how to draw a still life.It was quite new for me, especially for giving this in english. I remember that I actually did one lesson among friends of mine in Nantes (France), but this was obviously into my comfort zone. This is also what is about EVS, get out of that comfort zone.

Before that day I tried to find beautiful objects for the composition. Usually for my own exercises I don't try to compose something, because I consider that the most beautiful subject is our own mess. The remains of a diner, the open laptop on a messy bed, tossed clothes, books or papers around... Because it has storytelling. We can feel that there is life behind, rather than just put some flowers into a jar, then on a lovely tablecloth, just with the purpose of drawing it, because it means nothing to you.

But for this lesson i had to find objects, so I've been to Salon Uporabnih Umetnosti, because it's a nice vintage place. I could borrow old objects, which already have a story: a teapot, cups, glasses, bottles, a lamp converted into a bowl to put fresh fruits at the last moment. I tried to create a scene with those object, to make it lively. It was quite okay with that composition, but I've decided to put two compositions, one simple and one more complicated. On the complicated one I've put an old alarm clock, a light bulb, a bottle... Those object had basically no link between them, it was just made for the exercise, with only difficult things to draw. The people were clever enough to not choose this one.

The purpose of the workshop was to draw that composition with only grey values, in an 'academic way'. It means with no personal 'style', but just as it is, with a particular way to built the shadows, according to the volume, with hatchings, according to the source of light. This is a really good exercise, and what is really the best is doing it as much as possible, trying to draw everything around us, outside, landscapes, people. No need to go to Africa or New Zealand to find the most interesting animals or landscapes. You can basically go into the train station, a shopping mall, a museum, taking live model courses, draw yourself, or go to the zoo. Everything is a potential subject. You can also work through pictures. The best though, is drawing the reality because your brain will have to convert the 3D into 2D. You must try to think that you are a 5 years old child, and that you've never seen those things in your life, and/or that you don't understand how it's working. A lot of people make that mistake, they draw what they know, and not what they see. It is only the idea they have of the reality, and trust me, it's never accurate.

There is absolutely no point in just trying to reproduce a picture as a final artwork. It is a means, not an end.

The students were good and got caught up with the game. But I noticed something bad, is that a lot of them felt frustrated to not be able to do it as they expected, and they were basically too severe with themselves. It was their first drawing lesson !

In my opinion, the ability of drawing in the minds of people in general is too much considered as 'something we have or not'. It is denying all the work we need behind before having a correct level. And the bad thing is that a lot of people give up because they think they are not good enough. They just need to keep it up... I believe only in the capacity of improving quickly, this is the only gift we can talk about. Some people of course progress quicker, it's true in everything, but they do work. And then when you know how to draw the reality- you don't stop- you can play with it and break the rules, find your style, etc, but very important, not before (breaking the rules). Study hard the reality and you will be able to draw the most crazy stuff on the paper, simply because your brain will have that library of datas and will be able to play with it and it will have consistency.And above all, it helps you to understand what you are drawing, how it's working. Even if it's about a monster with four arms (volumes, muscles, perspective, attitude, proportion...).Even if you do caricatures, characters with big noses (like some classic french comic books:) ) as long as we can recognize it, you need to have the basis. There is no shame in studying the reality, the best artists have references when they work. There is actually any merit in saying that it comes out from your head, because it is simply impossible for the result to be good, unless you studied your subject hard like hell, but usually people who are proud to say it just didn't. So basically I present to you some of my favorite artists, working on their paintings or illustrations, or giving tips, with obvious references. If you keep all of that in mind, you'll go far away. Something else you need to know : you will mainly get unsatisfied, it is part of the job, you can be happy about some results, but it's never the end of your progress, you will always always go further and further all your life long. You'll be like the wine, better through the years ;)

Disney illustrator and animator Aaron Blaise video tip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnrqUx4XhtM

Illustrator James Gurney video tip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=75&v=Zwp6RfRx60A

The same guy, using here references of the begining ot the century for a steampunk style illustration (which takes place in a famous square of Nantes, my former town! So obviously highly documented background as well)

Illustrator Norman Rockwell:

Painter and illustrator Gil Elvgren:

Illustrator Paul Bonner 

 This is his studio. For this step, he is using a picture of mountains for help about colors. And a lot of his previous sketches and studies he is keeping around.

James Jean sketches:

Please stay curious, not only about drawing, but everything: dance, movies, books, radio, exhibitions, music, theatre, design, sculpture, history, geography, science, documents, fashion... And also: people, your friends, landscapes, buildings, animals, your boy/girlfriend sleeping... Everything!  And above all: enjoy.. It will be visible in your work. 
Don't fear the fact of being wrong. You can always start all over again and nobody will see it. 
Thank you for reading this post! 

Cécile, from France

Report "Choose your granny!"

I am EVS volunteer for Pekarna Magdalenske Mreže, and also an illustrator from France. In march, I had the opportunity to print one of my project, “Choose your Granny”, which is a little game for children, and I wanted to  introduce some of them in Slovene, and create new ones for the occasion. Once the grannies where all done, I could print them as post cards in CGU, a graphic center in Maribor, with the process and skill of serigraph. I discovered more concretely this technique (that I already knew only in theory), thanks to Tiki, a professional of handmade prints. We spent three weeks in trying to find the most effective way of printing, in splitting channels or colors, and concrete print. The first granny we made was Babica Pogumna.
And indeed we needed courage to finish this one, it was about not less than 9 layers, and 4 days of work!

Here is the process: first, I had an illustration on the computer. Then we needed to separate the colors in photoshop, including black. We transformed each layer in plain black, and then we printed it on a tracing paper. Then, we put this paper on a screen of mesh, which has a thin layer of special product on its surface made to close entirely the mesh. Then we switch on a light to warm it up, then the screen is open only in the shapes we need, because its loosing the product under the black areas. Then, we need to remove entirely the product that remains in the shapes with water. We make it dry, and the screen is ready for printing. It has holes in the shapes of the colors, so the paint is leaded by those shapes to go through.

We fix it, we search for the good color and we just have to print , until the next layer, where we need to clean the screen of the previous color, and so on until the last layer. The problem with this process is that I had to mix all the colors by eye. For the other grannies, we splitted the channels on photoshop to have some CMYK layers (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black), then we transformed each color into bitmap to have some dots instead of plain color. The colors will mix together easily through the 4 layers and recreate the original colors thanks to the various density of those dots. Like those old comic strips of the 50′s!

I had 14 grannies, but at the end we’ve printed only 4, but it was so much work than we were glad with it, and it was enough for the day of change ! So we had Babica Pogumna, Babica Čudaška, Babica Čebulica, and Babica Dvojna.
And so, for the day of change (Dan za spremembe), the 28 of march, I put one granny per table, then people (real grandmas and also grandpas) could choose the table according to the granny. In the same time, they were choosing their team for the quiz of Infopeka ! After this event, each of them had one post card granny. Thanks a lot again to Infopeka and the team, and the CGU, and to all the people who helped me in this adventure.

Cécile Bondon