I must be modest, my images
are of a very heterogeneous quality and I don't have a long and rich background in computer graphics. That's not my first work, and actually it's just a little bit more than my hobby. Nevertheless, when I was studying
art more than 20 years ago (I have a graduate degree in painting) flowers were my hobby. And that hobby became my primary occupation some years later in 1985! I didn't practice painting for a period of about 15 years,
until I discovered Xara!
I love color. That was my first preoccupation during my studies. Gouache was my preferred technique and I spent a lot of time (and money), to experiment with the best products and create the
most characteristic blends, often with products of very different origins: (German have the best oranges, French the best reds, English the best blues). My latest work was based upon the little reproductions of one of
the most beautiful, but least known Belgian cartoon characters, Raymond Macherot's "Chlorophylle", which has something in common with Walt Kelly's Pogo the possum. I reproduced the pages in drawing alcohol
stencils with a ball pen on back of photocopies and printed them on silk paper. Then I painted directly with gouache on these pages. I have shown the results to the author who was very impressed by my nonrealistic
colors. Already a very unusual technique. But a long time before when I was a child I was a fan of Lego and plasticine and I constructed a whole world of objects (particularly houses or castles), in paper and recycled
all objects to very different uses!
For me, observation, experimentation and imagination are other kinds of art. I use them intensively in different domains: creating my community's rose garden, selecting new roses
and other plants (hardy geraniums, primulas) from seedlings, imagining theories about genealogy of ancient cultivated roses and their wild parentage for the use of two genetic labs (one in France and one in Japan).
I
have also sent a lot of proposals to Xara with illustrations in .xar format.
Making stuff for other people (like clipart), is also an art. But gifts are an art for me! Because of that I like to teach all that I have
learned by experimenting myself. Concerning Xara X, I would produce more clipart and brush art and perhaps revise my tutorials (in a more step-by-step manner), for the new "tips and tricks" section. And
certainly I will continue to send my ideas directly to Xara!
With all my wishes to Xaran's and others!
Ivan Louette
