This morning I received the Skoda magazine in the mail. This is the first time I illustrated in it, up to now I only did telecommunication things for this ad agency. And before you say anything, Skoda's are cars with tradition. Speaking of tradition, I am baking oliebollen today! Mmm, I have a better recipe than that one, I just called my father-in-law, he's an oliebollenpro.
Bit boring perhaps, but I need this character and his cat a zillion times. I'll put them in backgrounds later.
Found a nice art weblog.
And surfing for a chair that could replace the doodle: I would go for this one, just a little bit over Tim's parents budget I'm afraid. Maybe they can afford this one. Make sure you check out the doll's house on that site!!
You will see my book slowly develop, or maybe quickly. Depends on the publisher. This is how I make my lines seem very easy and right. I just draw what I need several times and put the good parts together. Sometimes I score a hole in one, that's when I start framing. A very nice thing happened on this rainy monday: Keri Smith mentiones me in her blog! Remember I wrote about Steve the taxidriver on christmas day? She actually sculpted a bust, and a reeeeaaalllyyy nice one as well, lazy me should have done that too, but you know me.
Hey, I even finished colouring the above today, not so lazy after all:
This is how things get out of hand here. Now Otger wants a blog too. Mais bien sure. And he wants me to draw his portret. And I do, in three seconds. Then he colours the picture. Then Michiel colours some more. And then I start changing the colours again. I hope he will like them, he is in bed already, time flies (when you're having fun).
Of course Michiel is overdoing it. There is not one scene in the entire book that needs dining room furniture in it, but you know Michiel. And in the illustrations it will be utterly invisible that a computer came even near them. We can almost make a complete virtual walk through the house. You know Michiel. It keeps him busy. Enraged at times, surfing interior design, yikes. He even took a test to establish his STYLE, and guess what, he's fusion. I shall not tell you what I see when I walk around in our house :-/
You are probably bored out of your minds because of this christmas thing, so I found you a nice holiday activity. And it's art even. A website full of serious assignments, everyone is invited to submit. I love the one where the taxidriver asks for a bust when he finds out his passenger is an artist. He agrees to have several busts made. And you can see the results on the website. People all the way from Japan have been sculpting this American taxidriver, haha.
And I saw in my stats that the Toronto Star has visited my blog. Yes! I have a phone number, star people!
Babette Wagenvoort is a Dutch artist with a beautiful weblog. This morning I saw she posted a woman on a rug. I did a woman on a rug in a newspaper illustration last easter, in a very different way. Here you can see another very different woman on a rug. Haha, and here another one!
What's the difference with yesterday's version? Answer in yesterday's comments.
Today Piffin and I went to the Art Gallery of York University. We were instantly admired when we arrived for coming all the way from downtown, and we were the only visitors. By public transport, no less. A lot of bang for our TTC bucks today :-) What it feels like for a girl, first thing we saw was the Peaches and Iggy Pop projection we had already seen on RAM. But in the gallery you can sing karaoke with either one of them, and darn, I forget to take a picture of Piffin singing a duet with Iggy. We also liked the enormous Fiona Smyth mural. And the Karma Clarke-Davis video, because it had a lot of "shining" in it. The gallerist offered us a lift back downtown, I was too fast with my "no thank you". He seemed an interesting man, I need to do something about my reflexes.
This morning's newspaper. I think it came out quite good. This is too small to really see, and newspaper printing is a bit grey, but I'll show you a clearer version too. I desparately need to do something like this in a glossy of some sort. Thank you Peter for mailing me a digital photo so quickly! By the way, the thing at the bottom of the page page is a "kroket" one of Holland's most famous traditional dishes.
Otger's birthday. Ten years ago in Stuttgart, a long cold Sunday. I sent Michiel and Piffin away and watched downhill skiing on tv, somehow that worked very well with the contractions. Today my friend Stefaan emailed me, he works for an ad agency that has been voted European Agency Of The Year, congratulations! I couldn't get the award's website to work. So instead I looked at tons and tons of great art without even leaving the house. Nice.
A day of bits and pieces. Bought candy for Otger to hand out in class on his birthday tomorrow, christmas presents, christmas cards, backed up files, a little sketching for Martin. And I even thought of a nice art URL for you. Just watch it and ignore the weird language, you'll see how different culture is broadcasted in Europe. We watched last night, saw two artists that went to artschool with me, way back in the eighties, frightening. Program is called RAM.
Not working today, have to clean the house. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to post anything. Above the front and back cover of a small stedelijk museum catalogue. Beautiful little book. It's not dated, but most of the drawings are from the 1940's. Nowadays the two of them together are tragic victims of webdesign. Seperately Matisse and Picasso are also still around.
Colouring is done. And no, I'm not going to show you the drawing before it's published. You can have a detail.
This is how far I got today for next Saturday's newspaper. Don't say anything. It's a pencil jungle right now, but all the essentials will be loud and clear when I finish colouring tomorrow. And potverdorie, I found a Brian Cronin that says everything I wanted to say sooo much simpler. Grmpf. But then again the NRC can't afford Cronin anyway.
I planned to do my friend Martin 's portrait today, but the
newspaper called on me, article about computer illiterate elderly next week. And Martin is none of this, he is a fantastic clarinettist. This is how far I got, or to be honest I have more but can't show it, I always seem to have to go through numerous stages of disaster before I get to something decent, and I don't want to insult Martin. This is one of the first sketches. And now that I put it here I see that it completely rhymes with my self portrait. Guess I subconsciencely started out drawing myself. Boy, do I hate to show sketches, don't look at the thing in his mouth, it is going to be a clarinet next week, I promise. Would love to draw more musicians though, once saw a hobo player in white clothes, a bright red head every time she blew the hobo, hilarious image. Almost like this bloke.
I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that I have been asked to illustrate a Dutch "little golden book", deal almost closed. The bad news is, I found what I hope to be a draft of the marketing brochure on the internet. Surely the mini jpg cover image will not be printed... And two character design drawings collaged on top of each other...
Michiel, as seen by son (9) and wife (43). If you know Michiel, please click on "comments" and tell me which one you think is closest to the real thing. Michiel has a growing series of portaits by Otger. Otger draws him on the palm pilot while Michiel reads him his bedtime story. When he gets to 100 we'll start thinking about a gallery show.
I haven't properly introduced myself yet, so I thought it'd be nice to just give you my business card. You will probably notice I have become a little more honest in doing self portraits lately. I don't really have this many heads...
On the very day I start mij blog -marketing myself with my own two hands- the ispot sends me a postcard. Isn't that funny, good thing I am not supersticious. Fantastic excuse though to put Gary Baseman on my blog :-)
I don't know how to start my blog, so I guess I'll just start, haha.
This illustration was in last Saturday's newspaper.
I wish the heading would look better, mmm. And a little more white over the picture sure would't hurt. On my blog I mean, the newspaper layout is fabulous of course.
