Italian artist Renato Rizzo draws beautiful, simple but still very complex and detailed black and white pictures of flies... with a lowly BIC ballpoint pen
There's a large and thriving fly-fishing and fly-tying community on Facebook, and amongst the many talented people you bump into when looking at fly-related content is Italian Renato Rizzo.
I became Facebook friends with Renato recently and started receiving updates with some beautiful B/W fly drawings, and immediately inquired about a feature in the Fishy Artist series. Renato indulged me and here are a few samples of his work and some answers to my questions.
a) How did you start working with art and with fishing related art in particular?
When I was a teenager, I liked to draw "Graffiti-style" in my exercise books during boring lessons. After leaving school, I completely dropped drawing.
In 2014 I had the idea to draw again and I tried out some techniques like pencil, charcoal and sumi-e, but nothing felt really natural to me.
One day I started to scribble around with a BIC and that was love at first sight.
b) Why fish and/or fishing?
I am a fly-fisher, but my first drawings were portraits. One day I made a small sketch of a fly while I was on the phone, and a guy told me to try it in a larger format.
That was the start of my fly-drawings.
c) What is your preferred method of painting/drawing/producing your work - if any?
As already mentioned, the black BIC-ballpoint pen.
Maybe I will try to draw with colored ballpoints too, who knows.
Contact information
Find more samples of Renato's work on his web site: http://www.renatorizzo.com/
You can contact him through this email address: info@renatorizzo.com
You can also find Renato on Facebook as Ren Ato.
d) Is the art your main source of income - if at all a source of income - or do you do other jobs as a supplement?
No, the art is just one of my thousand hobbies. I am pretty new with this and I don't even want to make this into a profession.
If I have to do something I like, I start to dislike it. So for me it's not good to make something with obligation as a driving force.
e) Can people buy your art and if so, then in which form and where?
People can buy originals, hand signed prints and/or can hire me to draw a certain fly.
They can just contact me and we will talk about it.
f) Where do you currently live and work?
I'm from south-Italy but I live and work in Germany.
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A fantastic artist.
A fantastic artist.
renato rizzi
Translation: beautiful drawings done well, they recall the drawings that the big names in fly fishing made, not being able to count on mobile phones, photos in general. so they relied on the pencil, charcoal to reproduce the flies, a nice return to the past, it should be rewarded and valued plus it is Italian and this is a plus point
original: disegni bellissimi fatti bene ,ricordano i disegni che facevano i big della pesca mosca non potendo contare su telefonini,foto in generale. quindi si affidavano alla matita,carboncino per riprodurre le mosche ,un bel ritorno al passato,andrebbe premiato e valorizzato in più è italiano e questo è un punto in più