Graphite Sketch of a Golden Retriever's portrait

A few months back I started with a quick sketch of my former pet Golden Retriever and pleased to upload it here to keep as my memory booster and to share with all of you how I do Pet Portraits using pencils. This is extra special that I am going to make it into a hyper-realistic portrait of Gypsy to circulate among my family and friends who enjoyed her company those days. She was a friendly one always busy playing her own pranks but yet ready enough to guard our household as soon as night falls to steal a wink only at daybreak.

Breaking Free - Line test - animation release

Animation - work-in-progress

In 1998 I wrote this story I made into 3D animation using the primitive tools I had using the Dos version of 3D Studio. While at Siggraph 1999 I was glad to pass on copies of it to some of my associates there. Since then production of this story has slowly taken shape as a book illustration and animation. It is going at a snail pace because I am interested in having it done on my own free time. Because if it was to be released sooner I would have had to make a serious investment into it by putting aside my mainstream #creative jobs. So here I am presenting my first official release of the animation work-in-progress. I had released about 75% of this line test way back in 2010 the sketches on paper I had made on campus at New York University, NYC  in 2007 but did not really discuss the message of the story. Keep following these WIPs to piece together my story and aesthetic progress while I produce the completed version soon.

Title of this clip: Breaking Free

Type of Animation: Line test

Release date: 20 Sept 18

Author: Remy Francis

Crossing Oceans, plateaus, rivers to meet my dreams

It was 1994, the year when all my trials and tribulations while choosing a career path came to rest and my journey into the arts began fully unravelling.

source: awesomejelly.com

I was a computer science tutor at my family owned training centre from the late 80s when I started dabbling with PCs and teaching programs such as BASIC, FORTRAN, PASCAL, and applications such as WordStar, WORDPERFECT etc. Although we have come a long way since then, the grounding I acquired from teaching these programs and meandering around limitations in that kind of computer life would make my career life more meaningful and easy to manoeuvre more than a decade from then.

I land this interview at an animation studio that just gets recognized for a few top commercials in my country. And voila like magic I get accepted into a job I least expected. As an animator! I was overjoyed because I was that ardent fan of Disney animation. Struggling to get any and every information I could gather about Disney even during those days when there was no internet. I remember during my sophomore years as a Math student to get ready to be job-worthy, my independent mind had another alternative route to a job-worthy field I was trying unofficially by not spending my parents' money to reach this passion. Because from where I come from, our societies have a tradition where the parent funds for the child's education from the first grade to university unlike the USA or Europe where the child is left to fend for itself after school through student loans or a job to fund their own education. Such societies as mine hence have their children come back to their home nests to return the favor back to their parents to take care of them in thick or thin. There is a good side and challenging side to this just as there is a challenging side to the way western societies too have a positive and negative side.

With this said, let me get back to 1994 when I took up my role as a young animator and dashed away to a progressive, commercial capital in my country. In this city, much like New York city, I get to learn my trade better working night and day. Today, 24 years later as times have changed with everyone having access to technologies I still have no regrets about how far it has taken me and how it has led me to be part of other evolving transitional cities and to have an opportunity to see the world's people. Now it is time to transport my learnings to the roots so that this global way of life makes more meaning for many of us.

Digital Portrait Painting of Senator John McCain (1936-2018)

HH Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Portrait Painting by Remy Francis

The Year of Zayed Portrait release by Remy Francis@rembrandz.com
© 2018 Francis Remy Teresa

This Portrait painted of the late H. H. Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Founding Father of the UAE by the artist celebrates 2018 declared as The Year of Zayed to commemorate 100 years since his birth. Contact Rembrandz.com for limited Edition prints or a high-resolution version of this video.

Dubai Orientation Video - UAE visitor Video - Explainer - Animation

Valluvar Kottam - an Ancient 13th Century monument in India

This memorial honours the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar and his classic work, the Thirukural. A weaver by trade, Thiruvalluvar lived around the 1st century BC in what is present-day Chennai and wrote this famed poem, providing a moral code for millions of followers. The three-level memorial replicates ancient Tamil architecture and boasts an immense 35m chariot, as well as an enormous auditorium and inscriptions of the Thirukural ’s 1330 couplets.

My painted version sold today ©rembrandz.com

2 December 2016 : Happy UAE National Day!!

On this 45th UAE National Day it is a privilege to wish everyone a Happy National Day with a genuine pledge to say it is #ForeverUAE for a good life, peace and prosperity in business!!

Sia Performs 'Unforgettable'

Let's live everyday!

Dear all! 
Happy second week of 2016!

Today I placed a quote out there from Buddha which states "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." 

Gratitude is paramount as we spend an hour in introspection every morning to look at what we have now and relish in the moment to remind us to stay in the moment without brooding about the past or getting anxious about the future.

This illustration was visualised during a detox session nearly a decade ago at a time when reality of what life had not been encountered and when major risks in life were not yet taken….in 2016 this seems all too relevant. 

Mood-booster Post

As we tread into uncharted territories of the much anticipated 2016…..

Today all I care about as I recharge in prep. for the next week ahead is that I am so grateful to have gotten this far and so grateful for the people who have patiently stood by me in full trust.

This is a thought I picked up when I was listening to a Mood-booster playlist of music.

Good people, good things are in volumes in this world and no matter what there is a sparkle of bright light to cheer everyone of us somewhere in this universe. That also moulds us or reminds us to stay giving, stay kind, stay happy in beatitude.

This is the only moment in life we are definite about and let's enjoy it let's be proud of where we are no matter what age, creed, race, gender or disposition. 

Art Installation & Fine Art: #Creative ways of mingling with an #international ...

Art Installation & Fine Art: #Creative ways of mingling with an #international ...: This is another weekend keeping in touch with the community I live within at #Dubai where more that 200 cultures/nationalities co-exist. ...

Art Classes by Artists in Dubai

Hello dear friends and well-wishers

This is my newest and most promising few endeavors in my tenure in Dubai as an authorized Art expert.

I am launching my new series of Art classes in various cities in the United Arab Emirates and in India starting this MENA summer and India Winter of 2015.

6 months away from my dear blog here has been my longest time off. But I promise I come back with glad tidings!!!

Although I have made specialized posts and articles on my other specialist blogs,  the only reason I was away from our Rembrandz blog was because I did some serious prioritizing of my line of artistic services. 

Hence I now announce that I am redefining this blog from focussing on my art practice to focussing on how art, artists and art methodologies as a movement can be made useful to my community. 

With this post I am also glad to coincide the relaunch of my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/rembrandz with its new name Artists in Action….where it will be all about educating through art, art events to promote and assist various communities within the public and local environments. 

Will tell you in time how therapeutic it can be made along with my other artist friends who will perform as ambassadors to creating a well-being and cheering up of the community in fun and interactive activities….This set of energetic creative minds will operate with no bar on age, caste, creed, gender, location, spiritual orientation or social status….as long as everyone are able to participate with one intention….art to enhance lives.

So long till I return very soon for some more news….coming soon!!

First week of 2015 in Dubai #Accomplished #Goals #RestarttheArt

Was the 2015 post-holiday startup great for you?

With a week into the brand new year. It was everything about making amends.

As it always is we start a New Year making amends with life to start with, without a care if the positivity is reciprocated. Our attitude makes all the difference and any reciprocation is made to look positive. That is the power of our magical mind and brain-power. It is a bad day only if we make it one.

'Nough said about philosophy already :o)…let me just dive into reality which made this week that passed by, such a pleasure.

The message I want to pass on to you on this post is not only an introduction to some great artistic causes in the City, but a suggestion to a peaceful way of taking things as they are put onto your plate of experiences.

On Friday on introduction from the lovely ZeeArts Community founder I took part in an art-for-the- community-initiative called RESTART THE ART. Certain that it is surely going to be a fulfilling one for anyone seeking community development, It was more than a meaningful start for my 2015 artistic work life. As it was for all the artists Professionals and talented Khansaheb Construction Employees in Dubai.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/thesamenessproject

At least, it turned out that it was a nice topping to my other commercial work that also has been falling in place just fine, taking its own pace "very organically"….which is what puts me at peace because of the certainty that nothing can go wrong when things come together naturally.

By "Organic" in this context I mean...

For instance, something goes very very wrong for us, not out of our own doing but someone else's. It could be even losing a pitch,,,while our competitor may have won the race. Whether one likes it or not things like these keep the world moving in present times. So...Only if someone loses do someone get an opportunity to win. We really can't put rules to anything for that to happen otherwise. Things just transition into something else and one moves to the other like waves in the sea. No matter what you do, whether you inject any kind of stimulus, by way of capital or societal/ethnical influence (oh yes!! some competitors thrive on that-but alas it is short-lived), for everything to come back to normalcy, it will take time. Any situation takes time to heal….you would agree. Even if you hide behind something material which you think may give you that temporary happiness….after that phase you are back at square-one waiting for the time it will take for everything to become normal again. "Time" is so relentless. Cruel and cold at times ... therapeutic and caring at other times. But it is a smooth operator ticking away and so we have to tick along with it to make best of our existence. eh?And hence also be proactive, be persistent, stay in the moment and be proud of our length of time so far on this planet and Just Be Happy. Although it is important to be very curious, very empathetic, very sympathetic, yet cautious and wary of the current environment. By trying our best to make it healthy for ourselves as well as for others around. As I always rant this is the only moment we have surely. Present is a delicacy that needs to be relished. So of course one does not just sit there for it to get normal and organically fall in place. We too are part of the substance that puts everything in place. We too are part of that atom, that world shared by flowers, trees, rocks, and have a responsibility to keep even a bumble bee alive. Like them Hard work and persistence towards our goals are a "must".

So my participation in the on-going Sameness Project satisfies me to think that I was part of an initiative for everyones dream to be considered as "Same" on this earth. Message I took away was that ….. While not taking advantage of each others weaknesses to get ahead alone, then fall down alone without support... Let's take advantage of each others strengths and get ahead together….in good spirit.

I am so excited that I am among some of we artists who are thriving towards this to happen in Dubai….to uplift the true heroes of what Dubai looks like today….every single person was/is as important to have built-up something as world-famous from nothing in such a short span.

Do check out these spaces which are truly currently happening towards a valuable ideal in Dubai

http://www.thesamenessproject.com

http://zeearts.wordpress.com

http://http://www.facebook.com/W2WEvents

All for equality of humanity, with no ethnic differences, status quo, gender differences, ageist thinking, secular, all size-fits-all attitude.

Watch the above spaces for a year-round excitement to create a happy equality in the midst of great diversity!! IN DUBAI!!!

See you around again!

2015 GOALS - 7 points to a Happy Work-life in 2015

Dear 2015 entrant!!!

How are you. I hope you are as energetic and chirpy this New Year. All set to take 2015 by storm?!

Perhaps these 7 points I suggest for a Happy work-life in 2015 should also add to you surging ahead to victory!

The close of an unforgettable 2014 has sat me with my blueprint (Thanks to Drawn by Success http://drawnbysuccess.com/blueprint/) to draw up my action plan for 2015…. Thanks to all the players who made it either easier or challenging in 2014 …In the end it all helped to emerge as well-researched a businessperson :o)

So here it is….my points which actually is not rocket-science for anyone to come up with... but just common-sense to be able to jot down and pin-up as reminder to practice as a natural:

1. Collaborations Select collaborators only after pilot runs. This should be true with also friends. Do the groundwork to check if they could be best business buddies too. Personal issues getting in the way of business commitments is toxic for best practices and eventually for an ideal business. 
2. Contracts Sign contracts with everyone who you do business with…. Whether it be for a partnership or a supplier or client alliance. Clarity is key to a good contract.  Offer a Purchase Order when you ask for any job or Ask for a Purchase Order for every job you do, even if your client is working with you on retainer-ship basis or for years.
3. Terms Offer a post-dated cheque to assure your confidence in your service provider, also to show you are keeping your promise in return for their best quality work or Ask for a post-dated cheque, dated a few days after you are expected to deliver the job before you start a project. If the project value is low get your work done by paying in total if you trust (I know it is easier said than done) but for smooth business this could be the best way forward. Because of the trust placed upon the provider, I assure you will get a 200% better job than what it actually cost you. Stick by this policy: Extra charges must apply for delayed payments or delayed deliverables. Count the others time as important as yours.
4. Discounts Do not give discounts lavishly. And think hard before discounts are granted for if you want to reverse it even your best client could get annoyed. Be firm with your prices as your quality is incomparable.
5. Documentation Keep on record all your email communication, phone text message communication and proof of work done. In case you don't have any of the above to make claims, these help in the end. Legal systems do help you more than you are aware of if done very meticulously and thoughtfully. Endorsements: This year I will invest in getting my contracts and LPOs attested and wish to have a legal advisor. You may want to do the same to make sure you are doing things the right way.
6. Respect Respect your associate. Mutual respect for your client or service provider even though the job value is low is so important. Communicate: Keep the communication open and transparent wherever appropriate. Do follow-up after a job is delivered and remember to let the provider know the status of your payments. Delegate this job to your subordinates if you are a busy business owner or manager. A promise broken is a cause for great loss of trust and reputation. Time-management: Keep to deadlines strictly. Whether delivering a job or getting back with approvals or being on time for meetings or collecting or making payments. I know so many of my associates have become as close as part of a family of trusted people, who in a period of time by doing trusted business with each other won't stop at doing each other life-changing favors whenever one could afford to. I have plenty of experiences to share about my clients and associates I have been with for more than a decade who I may drop everything to help them with a project and vice versa. Respect nurtures best associations, helping people to grow with each other. As social beings this is all we have to treasure.
7. Legitimacy Last but not the least let me say that one cannot come out of all this unscathed if he/she does not have a legit. work status (authorized freelancer, part-timer, business owner or employee with valid visas).

Before I say goodbye with my best New Year cheer to all of you….Let me suggest to consider pinning up these quotes as post-its in front of your workspace:

“Just when you're beginning to get bored with what you have done (letting know of your business offerings and quality of work to your target market) is probably the time it is beginning to be noticed by your Audience".

“Even if you are on the right track you will get run over if you just sit there."

“God will helps those who help themselves. Benjamin Franklin 

(rather than stating this as a religious quote, I state this respecting that this comes from a Philosopher who had practiced hard work and reaped the benefits all his life.)

So no matter what challenges may come by, do not lose focus of what you have stepped out to do….do keep on it and the challenges will not out-shine your successes & determination…and importantly...do realize the power of writing down your daily goals.

Having experienced the results of doing these a few times in my 2 decades of my career, I can confidently say persistence and being determined with your goals will let you see what you have envisioned miraculously unfolding in front of your eyes.

With a classic wish for a Happy New Year…I dive back into my 2015 endeavors and my kick ass plan :o) for the year to come which already looks good.

So gals and guys! Are you ready to list everything promising you are foreseeing for yourself in 2015? List yours and be very pleased that the clock has struck 12 leaving behind a rich but past 2014 :o))) because with these you are going to be a run-away success!

Do write in for any suggestions on defining your creative selves if you feel stuck in limited and challenging situations…. I will be only too glad to give my 2 cents of "professional counsel".

Catch up with you on this note, a year from now…. with another reality check! And to share how I did this year.

Happy 2015!!! My dear readers!

An event to cherish!!! An enjoyable painting session!!

Dear all!!
I hope you have been well while I was gone out of the blogosphere for so long.

Perhaps this artwork I made dedicated to UAE under the Zee Art Community Umbrella says it all!
…Which... I just have come to realize this very moment!

I would like to hear if your subconscious speaks to you in this way too…. Where your art and passions have led your quest for whatever future you have been seeking.

While doing this live along with 8 other truly passionate artists living and working in this country (Do take a look at all the other paintings made that day by my new artist comrades:
http://tinyurl.com/obdpw2r having their own stories to tell through their paintings.),

….little did I realize that the past 5 months I have been a lot more a part of this portrayal than ever before.

And so today as I get ready for another artistic performance…the excitement in anticipation of yet another new UAE experience I am going to see today (will tweet or instagram when I am there in a few hours), I cannot help feeling pleased at the opportunity I received on 2nd December and find it urgent to register this here to share with you and extend my gratitude to the lovely organizer of the ZeeArt community here in Dubai!!

Let me explain the story behind this piece so that all of you can see the context of my narration here. So that you too can relate to it.

While creating this piece I was enjoying the fact that people watching me, came up to me so curious to know what I am trying to show here. And I just told them it is for them to guess and if they have at the end of my art session, I think I have succeeded. Else it would be otherwise and think I have better luck next time as a performing artist. Luckily a handful... to my joy did guess what I intended although I left out one important subject from my painting. I felt okay because I could make myself an original painting than a derivative. The metaphor is what was important.

This picture explains my take on the theme to paint that day "My UAE". which takes us along the path of a classic English fairytale we all have enjoyed growing up through elementary school.
"The Jack and the Beanstalk"
You may refresh your memory from here: :o)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN_C-eGzEEs

And the subject I have chosen not to paint in here is little Jack. Instead I have attempted to indicate that there are a number of us here climbing this beanstalk to find treasures up above the beanstalk.

So there! I hope you have enjoyed and been able to reflect while reading on like I have totally enjoyed replaying my inner thoughts while creating this realistic abstract piece. 

So long till the next time! I am sure I am coming back here sooner to tell you more of my adventures…while I climbed this beanstalk … a lot to share but I rather tell it in small potions (I meant potions not portions) as I want to relate to it as how it all turned out to be artistic inspirations for me whether the experience was a struggle or victory.

Will be back on the next day I feel so overwhelmed with beatitude!! as today! And hopefully all of you can take away a bit of my happy artistic moments to make this life a better journey!

Sci-Fi Novel Trilogy in the making (Design Ground-work)

Great to be doing some ground work to create an art-piece for my favorite Sci Fi author yet again. This time it is for his upcoming third novel as part of the trilogy.
It is always very exciting to make a piece for Gunnar C. Garrison as his creative briefs are in itself a masterpiece. 
I am quite pleased for this week as he is the second among my treasured clients who are just so perfect at painting the exact picture of what they have in mind.
Makes it so much easier to swoop into their story and get the piece done with a few sittings.
The following are the first and second novels I am pleased to have illustrated for... now available on Amazon. Both works were created by Digital painting, complementing the original characters with background filled with image-processing.

Thanks for passing by!

Organizing Artworks: A very Creative experience!

Hello there folks!

It is Friday here in Dubai and we are a good time into the weekend at this fag-end of a middle-eastern summer. Something very creative happened this morning. And I found this my best time to register it.

This was the spectacular start of my creative weekend. Organizing my Art!

I am very pleased to come back after a number of months of Fridays I could not update happenings at my side. Will tell you why in the coming weeks!
There sure was and is a lot that has been happening, all... too much and too over-crowded to update as surprises and interesting things kept happening "by-the-minute".

I wish I could send you a series of what I refer to here, right now, at once. While it is a near impossibility to do that, I promise I will put it out here to share for everyone in the community to learn from in small accounts from time to time. I will try to make it perhaps in picture strips to be worthy of looking at as like a story. :o) As I do have to illustrate each situation for one and all to take away from.
However, at this moment, all I can assure is that for certain I was on a great big educational journey where life in its mysterious ways allowed pockets of joy, pockets of surprise, pockets of awe and of course allowed opportunities to learn the truths about some lies, and the actual truth of dark intentions which lay behind quite a few "angel faces". I bet you would have seen some of those sometime in your lifetime too. Only that these veiled-with-an-angel-face was an occurrence all too frequent in a post-recession atmosphere that it has become almost predictable. So that's a good thing for all of us, isn't it?

So after this coming-back for good "speech", to start off this very very exciting season in my creative and art world, I make this post to share how today in spite of starting off as any other normal day turned out. It was one so spectacular, triggered by just a mundane chore I decided to do. I decided to clear up a couple of my mini shelves filled with doodles and paintings of work-in-progress and I was so pleased what I found. Like a pandoras box, I was pleasantly surprised to find my long lost treasured sketches which I had forgotten about. Now this added a whole new note of motivation for me to rollout this blogpost as the first special for the season.... making me capture all these sketches right now into my workstation.

While I keep my paintings and unfinished pieces to post for another time, I choose to post here a few of my ink & pen sketches.

So enjoy! while you share this wonderful thought as all we artists very often find ourselves in

An Aceo Ink & Pen Piece made for Ebay
I post this in tribute to my friend who passed this mid-2014

"one does not need a large, rare occasion to scintillate ones artistic inspirations....like I always say....little things in life can give one that immeasurable pleasure of being and making this a wonderful world to still exist in.

(1) Pen & Ink sketch - Cotton Tree in India sketched during waiting-time in my car

In spite of any low-moments for any of you, there is always hope in this world of unending opportunities....you may walk through the face of an opportunity and come out with none, but you may very well ramp into that next best opportunity when you least expect it... Or better still... a number of them land up all at once, all of a sudden putting you in a dilemma of what "one" opportunity to choose. This has happened to me many times. So don't worry!

You are in a good place!
So for those of you who haven't found that dream opportunity... just "believe" that it is waiting somewhere hidden... very close to you. You only have to find it and experience that it is your joy in your own small world. right?

View on!!!

(2) A 5-minute pigment ink doodle made on location Time Square Mall @ Arte early this year

(3) Enjoyed sketching these kittens playing their pranks.

These are just a few sketches I leave you with so that I can come back with the rest from time to time. So let me say goodbye while I go make those watercolor pieces. Weekends in Dubai is all I get to make my gallery works peacefully in my studio away from the weekday business grind.
Take care and get inspired by everything and anything out there. Remember nothing is a bad influence on your perceptions!! Take care!

A thought for the day for an immigrant creative

Today yet another weekend day after a recharge at the end of the weekdays mill, I sit pondering upon a few visualizations while chasing a deadline. It happens to be very appropriate... a subject so real... being an immigrant professional for over a decade now and having the honor to get first-hand experience in working and living amongst a multinational society.

Living in a foreign country as a foreigner is in my opinion, a hit and miss situation because nobody can be proud of enjoying lasting associations or friendships as it is a society that is coming in and out. (That is why I used the word "transitional".

As I create my pieces it brings back some mixed memories of the past, of people I have come across...Of the good people who come and go and the good people who have adopted nasty habits perhaps to survive... to me these survivors whether in the right or wrong, stay longer. Multinational societies are excellent but capitalism becomes the word of the hour... So in these times of global citizenship I make these drawings from my experience as an artist, professional, executive while working in various parts of the world. Every experience ironically speaks the same language because at the end of the day most of our interactions are with human beings irrespective of creed, cast, race, gender or age.

In my opinion this scenario has given a lot of learning but has come as part and parcel with unbelievable challenges for each of us.

Tune in for my take how I tried to live realistically in such a harsh but exciting world away from my home.

Brb