“The Blue Cow’s Nightmare” by Koldo Barroso

Have you ever wondered what cows dream about? This is the way I portrayed the nightmare of a stuffed cow. A scene that has to do with global warming and the terrible consequences of men’s abuse of nature. I know it may look weird at first sight but I will try to explain how all this developed.

I originally drew this illustration back in 1991, though I never really finished it. I recently recovered it from an old folder and decided it was time to get it finished and shown, so I completed the drawing and did a few corrections on the computer. The original pencil drawing is 35 x 32 cm. It will be featured in my book in project “Portraits From The Dreamlands”.

The story of this piece stars in September 1989, during my first trip to United Kingdom. I was spending a few days in Brighton and my partner at the time and I decided to have a walk along the beach in the night. We were walking by the infamous Brighton Pier and we saw one of these machines with paws to catch stuffed animals. I never gamble or play these things, I think is a stupid way to waste your money. But this time, I saw the cutest stuffed animal ever amongst a mountain of bears. It was a little blue cow and she was looking at me with innocent eyes telling me: “Take me home”.

Detail of the Little Blue Cow

So I had to save her from jail and take her with me. I started spending one coin after the other and trying to grab her with these mechanical paws that never seem to catch a damn thing. After three tries, she was released! It was a very exciting moment. But it didn’t end so easily. Just after taking the Little Blue Cow out of the cage we found out there was also a brown bull, it was her boyfriend and she beg me to free him too. It broke my heart, so I couldn’t just go like that and we ended up spending 10 pounds on two little stuffed animals!

I liked so much the design of Little Blue Cow that I decided to do this illustration about her. After all it’s not the first time that a stuffed animal becomes protagonist of a story, let’s not forget that A. A. Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh stories after his son’s teddy bear. I wondered what this Little Blue Cow would dream of and I thought she would have nightmares about how men abuse nature. So I came up with this idea of the big cloud of smoke swallowing the sun.

Detail of the smoke

For the character of the smoke cloud, I got inspired by Goya’s painting “Saturn Devouring One of His Sons”. I saw this painting hanging on the wall at my godfather’s place when I was four and I got completely impressed by it. There’s an older version of this scene painted by Rubens in 1636 which supposedly inspired Goya for his.

The landscape was inspired by my family’s homeland, Orduña, in the Basque Country. I used a few sketches of the mountains that I had drawn there many years before. The house is a typical building from the area called “caserio”. My grandparents and ancestors used to live in a place like this. Cows, hills and “caserios” are some of the most popular elements in Basque culture. If you want to know more about it I suggest you to watch a Spanish movie directed by Julio Médem in 1992 called “Vacas” (Cows).

Detail of the “caserio”

When I look at this illustration it makes me think about for how long we’ve known about the terrible consequences of man’s abuse of the Earth. I remember talking about this subject with friends in the early 80’s after Peter Gabriel’s song “Here Comes the Flood” and it looked like science fiction but these catastrophes are happening today. I also wrote a song called “1000 Seasons Haiku” by 1996, along with my good friend Juan Carlos Samper, which talked about seeing images of earthquakes, floods, fires and droughts all over the world in the news. It is very sad to check how this is exactly what is going on today and stuffed blue cows must probably have the same kind of nightmares. I dream of the day their nightmares turn into beautiful dreams.

“The Mesmerizer” by Koldo Barroso

This is my latest illustration, called “The Mesmerizer”. I’ve been working in this piece for the last two weeks and it will be featured in my new portfolio with a couple of new works that I’m currently working on.

The Mesmerizer has been inspired by different characters related to the world of mediums, mentalists and hypnotizers. I guess he could be a cross between Derren Brown and Max von Sydow in Bergman’s The Magician. I had this Gothic scene on my mind with this cold and unexpressive character that could look inside your soul and mesmerize you to control your will. Possibly it stayed in the back of my mind for a long time, since I read E.T.A. Hoffman’s short story “Der Magnetiseur”, many years ago.

In a forthcoming post I will talk more about images that influenced me to do this work and a little bit about it’s process and the changes it went through before becoming what you can see now.

This illustration will be featured in my book in project “Portraits From The Dreamlands”.

Here is a new illustration that I’ve just finished for one of the projects I’ve been working in lately: a children’s book about monsters at home and how to not fear them. The working title is “Boos And Creaks” and it compiles a collection of illustrations and text about those annoying monsters that every kid fears and show up at any corner of the house. Every monster is being categorized and filed and I am also writing some suggestions and advices about how to deal with them and to not be scared about them anymore.

This particular creature is called “Amgonnaitya”: a monster that grows in fridges and pretends to swallow us whenever we open the door for food or for a drink. He is pretty pathetic because he doesn’t know there’s another silly monster living inside his mouth. I won’t tell much more about this so I don’t unveil the whole story about this pair.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take this project, probably several months to get it completed since this is a side personal project that I have to complete in my spare time. I hope to see it finished by the end of this year. By the way, I still don’t have a publisher for it so if you are one and you are interested, please contact me.

This is the latest illustration I have done for the portfolio of the new and definitive version of this web site, which will be online in 2 weeks, finally. I used a girl character that I originally drew a few months ago as part of a set of commercial illustration characters. I decided to use this girl relaxing in a sort of lounge area, having a strawberry milkshake and sitting on a typical egg chair from the 60’s. I love this kind of retro futuristic furniture design myself.

When the job was almost finished I felt I didn’t quite like the result, it look a little stereotypical to me and more sexy than I intended, so I decided to do a new version from a different perspective. I love Japanese art and decoration too, and there was already something kind of Eastern in the image, so I decided to dress the girl with a kimono and do something a little more spiritual, to say something.

I think what probably made me change my mind is having my walk with Naomi yesterday morning surrounded by all those almond and cherry trees blossoming. And then I thought I wanted to go for something a little Japanese and I ended up using the blossoming trees on it. Cooks usually take advantage of the season products for their best courses, so I will try to do that too. This could be called a “seasonal illustration”. Everyone is on holiday in Spain today and I am here working on my portfolio. Oh, I wish I could be in Kyoto right now!

I’ve never been in Broadway. I wish I had been there in the 40’s watching some terrific play by Elia Kazan or Tennessee Williams. But my spirit travels there when I do a work like this. I listen to Glenn Miller and for a second I could swear I’ve been there.

One of the dearest memories from my childhood is going to the movies in Madrid on Friday nights. It was the 60’s and the night lights and movie theatre marquees along the Gran Via used to be for me something really breathtaking. I tried to capture the same feeling in this illustration.

I did this illustration originally last year as a vector work, originally it was just the car. Then, I decided I could do something better and then I did the background scene.

I was never satisfied with this vector work, I always felt there was a lot more behind it if I could work to get the right atmosphere. So I decided to finish the illustration and this is the final result. It hasn’t been used commercially yet, but I hope it can be sometime.