I was walking down a rainy street, ruminating about why we keep putting off buying a house and rather pay way to much rent to live in a stupid suburban neighbourhood. And about a little face I want to draw today to use as a favicon for the new website. And then I saw this image laying around on the wet sidewalk. So I play a little trashlog today.
This is last Saturday's newspaper. I forgot to tell my brother to buy a copy, he doesn't have a subscription. So I asked a friend to take a picture, but forgot to ask for a picture of the whole page. And I always write the article title on the invoice, and now I don't know the title. And the drawings were meant to be six tiny spots, and now it looks like they blew two of them up enormously. Usually the graphic designers do a great job, grr. But maybe I can't judge it like this, maybe the whole page looks nice. But still, I'm glad it's already in use for wrapping fish.
I did draw and sketch and doodle today, but nothing worth showing. This picture however! Otger suddenly needed a photo of his parents this morning before school. You can't see my pyama's, but I *am* wearing them. I think the photo perfectly reflects our personalities.
Peter Ustinov died today. I heard it on the radio. The radio quoted one of his school reports: Ustinov was showing “great originality — which must be curbed at all costs”. This is where I found the quote online.
Yes! Michiel finished the new website, hooray (3X). Please critisize. We haven't seen it on a Mac yet, so maybe we're still in for disaster. It is best *not* viewed in explorer, some wonderful features fale to work in it. But otherwise, everything I promised. O, I also urgently invite native English speakers to correct my writing...
Up to no good today. Just reading a bit, writing a bit, watching a bit. The artiest thing today was this incredibly beautiful beduin tent. It was even more beautiful in moving pictures. There's camels on the fabric if you look closely. More moving pictures: i am watching "night of the living dead" wow.
A pubnight for the Toronto illustrator's mailinglist members! Look how many illustrators showed up! Three! (You can see my nose on the left hand side of the picture) We still had a real good time, showed each other our portfolio's and shared secret knowledge.
Otger doing homework, how sweet. He brought home a real good report card today, with an A for visual arts!
In Holland you can buy a dessert that looks just like this hair colouring turned out. It's called "dubbelvla".
I am mainly blogging about my work, but to be honest, a good deal of working is housewiving. So here's dinner. A nice herby dough. I was told herbs loose their taste when you freeze them, so I put in a lot. It's an hour after dinner now, and I can still taste them. Never believe anyone. Top right is the nice looking result, bottom left the part that is waiting for Michiel to come home. Bottom right Otger's leftovers.
Interesting, a Google images search on "passport". Today, we subwayed downtown twice, ouch. Otger needs a passport, so we went to the Dutch consulate. Of course I didn't have all required paperwork with me, of course not. And Michiel had to show himself as well. Which is understandable, we wouldn't want anyone abducting our son, not even us. Now all we need is a lawyer for a letter of consent, so Martin can legally abduct Otger to his grandparents. Ticket is payed for too today.
The pigs gallery over at Dutchillustration is online. A very popular topic, I think they never had this many participants.
If you can read Dutch, you can read about Michiel's uncle.
See, purple has gone. Told you.
This is as far as I got today. All that purple is waiting to disappear.
Shading study again. Maybe it doesn't look like much, but I am learning a lot. I am trying things that I don't risk doing assignments.
Just playing around again today.
Michiel is making me a new website. He told me to make 24 thumbnails, 200 pixels wide. But I don't think they look good together, the vertical drawings seem so much bigger than the horizontal ones. Maybe I'll have to use details, I don't know. The new website is going to be great, we're going to try to do a minimum of webdesign. I get sick and tired of webdesign when I surf illustrator's websites and I bet I'm not the only one. Entering and clicking and flashing and popping and skipping and navigating and loading, yuk yuk. Mine is going to be totally serene. My old website is outdated and too designed too. Jeff Soto has an almost serene enough website.
Martin gave me an accountant to call, and the accountant had me going through paperwork all day. I am on my way to the post office with a thick envelope. And in a business mood I made myself some new business cards. Don't have any nice enough paper to print on though.
Sometimes I suddenly like a drawing even when it's not ready. I see something. Which is good, because this drawing is just an experiment. Maybe I'll have it finished later today.
Voila. I finished it. A shading study, for international woman's day. Because it sounds good.
I bought this book today. It's almost like stepping into a parallell universe. Not really life as we know it, but still strangely familiar. Love it. Picture above by Masahiko Kuwahara. Pig with tits, where have I seen that before?
If you like Japanese stuff, Cipango has lots!
Read in the papers today that the TTC is finally going to get some funding. About time. In the Jane bus (24 years old) I always feel like I'm in that Kienholz bar in the stedelijk museum in Amsterdam. Somebody asked the driver whether he was going to Jane and Finch. "I'm gonna try", he sighed.
Another old book I own. It's not even on the internet, or can anybody find it? "Look before you elope", illustrated by Peter Kneebone, published by Longmans, Green & co ltd, in 1952. It contains genuine advertisements, and Kneebone draws the men and women on opposite pages. Lovely drawings. The woman in the image above is my age exactly. Mmmm.
I bought this postcard years ago, in the pre-internet days. I found it in a box today, while looking for something else. We saw this (enormous) painting in Rouen, and nobody in the museum could tell us what on earth was going on in this strange scene. We were intrigued, even asked the waiters and the chef in the restaurant that night. Nobody knew. "Les énervés de Jumièges", there is a lunatic asylum in Jumièges, maybe the painting had to do with that.
But now, in the internet days, a Google search reveales everything. It is a very famous painting, about a very well known legend. Inspired artists from Simone de Beauvoir to Salvador Dali, there's even a movie about it. Apparently we met an incredible number of ignorant people that day in Rouen.
Here you can read about the legend in English.
