Drawing (is) my life

Hello my friends! You on holiday? I am! Not at the seaside anymore, but not at work either, so I feel RELAXED. Yippee!! 

Some of you texted me and commented that my thoughts are always flowing and delicate, and when I write in English they sound even deeper. Thank you! But some others are waiting for posts in Italian. Come on, stop being lazy and study English. You all know that this language makes me feel calmer, and surely you don't want me to get angry and aggressive.

Ok, let's stop joking now. 

Today I'll introduce you to one of my super great passions: DRAWING.

Let me tell you how it all started:

I’ve been watching Japanese cartoons (Anime) since I was two, and I read my first Japanese comic (Manga) when I was six. I was in love with the big eyes of these beautiful characters, with their hair in the air. They looked so dreamy. Like me in this picture. 

When I was eight or nine I found out that using my pencil to copy those beautiful faces or create new ones gave me a sensation of lightness. Every day, as soon as I finished my homework, I fulfilled the last pages of my exercise and note books with charming young ladies and shiny fairies. But a few years later I stopped, too busy with my school exams. It was sort of a trauma, like forcing myself to abandon my true love. I tried to draw Japanese characters again in my mid-twenties. I still had my style, but my trauma wasn’t totally over, so I stopped again, afraid of eventually losing my ability.

The recent lockdown due to COVID-19 changed me into a prisoner of my small flat and I needed freedom: no gardens or big balconies where I could run, no dogs to take out. But I had old photocopies in my library, and pencils... so I smiled. I reversed a photocopy, took one of my mangas, looked at its cover and started to let my pencils flow on the paper. 

My very first drawing during the quarantine was completed in a few minutes, and it wasn't perfect. It was just a quick approach to overpass my trauma. And it worked. 

It shows Mokuren and Shion (the protagonists of Please Save My Earth, by Saki Hiwatari), two alien scientists from a dead planet, living on the Moon and studying our world. They are bound to love each other forever, even if no one understands the purity of their love, so they will face lots of difficulties to stay together.

My second picture was much better and while drawing it I felt happy and free, like when I was a child. 

This is Mokuren, who is not only an alien scientist, but also a Kiche-Sarjarian, a psychic whose powers are plant empathy and plant growth through singing. I’ve considered her to be my alter ego for several years.

Recently I drew again, but the picture I sketched (taken from Last Quarter by Ai Yazawa) was a bit sad or scary. “Angry”, added my favourite librarian. “You might need to shout”, supposed another wise friend. 

I think they’re both right. My art expresses my feelings and emotions, it’s quite normal, but I had never realised it before then.

Two days ago I decided to draw My Cheshire Cat the way I remember him. It was the Saturday night before the lockdown: I was trying to put my sleeping kids into my car. “Shall I help you?”, the Cat was just behind me. He was smoking a cigarette, grinning as usual and looking a bit like Clint Eastwood. “No, thanks”, I answered. But, puff, he had already vanished. And the wind was howling. 

I’ll keep on drawing in order to feel safe, to express my emotions and to tell you the stories of my life.

Hope you will enjoy.

See ya real soon, my friends! ;-)