Not Enough Room to Swing a Cat

at 3min 13sec, Roberto Benigni  quotes this this line, in order to share his impression from the size of his cell with his newly found cellmates.

In the past few weeks, I have tried to deal with shrinking  space left for my illustrations for Shlomo Artzi’s column with a new attitude. After being granted the designer’s approval, I have started providing the illustrations with the layout for the page. this allows me to render the design into an active tool in my illustration. I have done this occasionally in the past, when I illustrated Yair Lapid’s column, but here, the amount of text written by Artzi on a weekly basis, challenges me to come up with different solutions in order to maintain the effective visibility of the illustration on the page. as far as I am concerned, so far, it seems like a blessing in disguise; I am being pushed to come up with a more global solution to the expression of the visual alongside the text. So far, I had no cats to swing in this page, but I’m preparing myself for an eventual feline apparition…

here are three examples:

Using a background colour across the entire page

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Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013

it seems like we are witnessing a change of guard on the world’s stage these days. Some people of great importance are leaving us, bringing to the forefront their life achievements for us to reflect upon and to fertelise  the imagination of a younger generation.

Nelson Mandela, without any doubt is high on that list.

Nelson Mandela, globes, December 6

Arik Einstein, 1939-2013

Last week Israel saw the passing away of one of its more defining cultural pinnacles;  Arik Einstein is no longer with us.

Since his departure, the web and the press is heaving with tributes to a singer-songwriter, an actor and athlete, who helped define the israeli culture since the early sixties.

This week, Shlomo Artzi, inevitably, dedicated his weekly column to this most admirable colleague.

Artzi considers Einstein to one of his most defining role model, who helped him pave his way to his own personal expression by example.

He expresses his grief and sorrow with sincerity and pain.

For me this serves as an opportunity for a deep hearted farewell from a great artist, in the company of whom (metaphorically speaking) I spent many hours of good music and beautiful lyrics.

Unforgettable moments of laughter through his acting parts. mainly in LUL and Mezizim (with Uri Zohar).

Thank you.

Shlomo Artzi, farewell Arik Einstein

farewell Arik Einstein

This additional illustration, relates  to a particular sketch (watch it here) with Uri Zohar. This sketch is in fact a summary of the evolution of the Israeli society throughout waves of immigration.

In the sketch, ‘inaal din babor e le jabhum’, from Arabic:‘damn the ship that brought them here’ is the curs, initially produce by the palestinian arabs who saw the arrival of the first jewish immigrant embarking on the shore. it is later reproduced by the succession of newly arrived immigrants towards the ones to follow….

inaal din babor e le jabhum