Another sneak preview. The article is about 70 years of Penguin book design. Read all about it this Saturday in NRC Handelsblad, grindstone for the spirit.
May 2005 Archives
It's not that I am above drawing private parts, but the area is going to be hidden behind books. Too funny not to show though.
I always do these self-assignments when there is nothing official coming in. Of course every time I think nothing is ever going to come my way again. Up until now I have always been proven wrong. And today a fantastic thing came my way. ANOTHER LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK!! Yes, hip hip hurray, I know. About a merry-go-round. I only have to talk them out of helicopter views over cities, dear me. And then I will let you witness the whole development, just like last time. Oh, and next week a big NRC editorial as well, I'll be real busy. Weekend first though. Cheers.
They're having a track pants & cheese party this weekend, so I thought I'd make them a present. I'd probably better keep it a secret, but on the other hand, blogging it will maybe absorb the shock. And hey, I have to share our incredible street a little bit with my overseas readership!
This black and white thing kept bugging me, so I did another version of the Globe drawing. I was going to make a birthday drawing for the Dutch illustrators gallery anyway.
Three lobsters for 10 dollars (6,30 euro) in Chinatown. Otger wondered why McDonald's doesn't just sell lobsters, they taste so much better than hamburgers. It would be good against obesity too he figured, since it is such a lot of work to eat them.
Most of my Dutch readers probably don't know that today we celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday. We honour her (and the neighbours) with power tools.
It's a disaster, I never noticed they were asking a b&w illustration, my mistake. And on top of that, it got printed way to dark, I could cry! This is the big version.
Look what I found in the garbage! Actually it was not today, but earlier this week, but no matter. It was put outside just around the corner. I rang all the doorbells to find someone to help me carry it, but no one was home. So I took it in my own two hands, and it was heavy. I am going to paint it all white and put it in the bedroom. The white bedroom, I'll show it in due corse. But everything needs four coats, so it takes a while.
This is Otger in his last school, where he was pelted with play-doh on a daily basis. Real stones they threw only once, in the classroom mind you. Such darlings. The kids in his new school are nicer. But not without impressive autobiographies, that's the assignment Otger's self portrait is for too. His classmates write about rats in frying oil, and exiting stuff like that. You either live in Chinatown or you don't...
Everything going according to plan, don't worry.
Image posblogged on May 21.
Haha, my promotion campaign was sort of succesful. I'll postblog the stages of what I'm doing in a few days, promise. Can't stretch my liberties with a new client!
The image is postblogged on May 21, to make life easier, we made a 3D sketch.
Had to do some follow ups. The phenomenon of fictional newspapers is quite interesting, the Simpsons have lots of them. Who knows more?
My own actual original old Melitta doll's tea set! It is being remade, I don't believe it! I am going to immediately order it and restore fond fond memories. It will be so happy to finally replace the old one that didn't at all come to a happy end. The text on the website says "schlagfest", but that is not the case when smashed to pieces on purpose.
Got a very nice email back from the Daily Planet...eh... Globe and Mail. No promises of course, but better than a rejection letter.
I wanted to post this hypnotizing picture of Mia Farrow as Allison (my aim is true - it was in my head somehow all day) Mackenzie and then I stumbled upon this site full of Al Hirschfields, because I was thinking our orthodontist -Piffin had her retainers adjusted- looks like Woody Allen. Our accountant does too, but that's beside the point. If I were Jewish, I would also look like Woody Allen. Under any circumstances would I sooner look like Woody Allen than like Mia Farrow. I wasn't often allowed to watch Peyton Place, no doubt because of all te non happening sex. I guess maybe Allison Mackenzie and Rodney Harrington were my first fascination in that field. Absolutely spellbound I was.
Some heavy artillery, I even threw in a T-shirt. The orange typography is a T-shirt, I wore it at the queen's day party last week. Don't worry, I washed it. I know I am doing something wrong here in Canada, but I can't figure out what. I just can't get myself hired for illustration jobs. Surely if I'm good enough for the Dutch I am good enough here. But how to get somebodies attention? Will this one do it? There's lots of goodies inside, I'd say it's at least worth a rejection letter... By the way, under the letter you can see the freshly painted bedroom floor!
Our neighbours dropped by for coffee. No, not Eva & Adele, they're just art zweckentfremded as illustration, I do that. Michelle knows German, she can tell Clare what zweckentfremden is. There probably isn't even an English word for that. Anyways, they're the closest to Eva & Adele that we have on our street. Clare is a very impressive career woman, I just discovered that. Nevertheless still rides her scooter on the stoop. And has coffee with us.
See my portfolio for the bigger version of my spiritual drawing. Thank you to Gustave for sending me the picture! And call it a coincidence -but in this context nothing ever is- The Star has a similar but different article today, LOL. "Licensed to offer alternative health treatments such as shiatsu, reflexology and aromatherapy, about three-quarters of the city's holistic centres operate as sex dens." Call me naive, but I had no idea.
For weeks now I have been hunting for books set in Toronto, determined to learn some more about the city I live in. Patricia helped me, Robert from PopMatters wanted to help out, but he has chronic email troubles, and I did read some books, but not exactly what I had been hoping for. And then Patricia found this article in The Globe and Mail. And today I bought the Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke. About the Italians and Jews in the Ward, between College, Queen and Bay Street. The Christie Pits riots, days before the police intervened. But I'm not there yet, only at page 63, but breathtaking already. A Philip Rothian epic about an Italian teenager in 1933, at page 63 he is working as his neighbour's shabbes goy.
This is my dad and my daughter, I don't have a photo of all three generations. I don't have any photo's of my dad's parents either. I think my brother Peter has some. If so, he should scan them for me some time. I happened to stumble on a family tree today. Truly fantastic, it traces my family back all the way to 1658. My grandmother died ten years before I was born. I always knew my grandfather had seen me once or twice, now I know he died when I was two. There is also something I never knew, I never knew my father had a sister, four years older than him, who died at the age of nineteen. How odd, why did he never talk about that? Did she die in a mysterious or scandalous way? And also I thought I had more cousins. Counting me and my brothers, we're 36 now, I always thought we were 43. And Peter just emailed me and said he thought opa Doris threw a party for me being his 50th grandchild. But I don't believe that, that's too much. Maybe his 40th. I'm the youngest of all the cousins, oh and I don't know a single one. Our family is extremely good at embroiling, always has been.
Bought myself a pair of shoes today. Ralph Lauren, not Bally. I used to always wear Bally's when I was a little girl. Always the same ones, I remember I didn't like that much. Navy blue with a white instep. Of course my stepmother put a stop to that as soon as she took over the household budget. She bought me shoes that I tried to wear out as soon a possible, by letting them slur on the street while biking. Not that the next pair would be any better, I remember a pair of hideous white and red shoes, left and right were different sizes, I am not kidding you. They must have been a real bargain. So I consider it my own personal defenition of freedom, to be able to just go out on a Wednesday afternoon and buy a pair of Ralph Laurens, or Bally's, or Prada's, or Gucci's, or cake with whipped cream when it's nobodies birthday.
Michiel baked pancakes for breakfast. Then the kids went to school and Michiel went to the office. Then I cleaned the kitchen. Then I bought a lovely big German sour dough, gigantic cod filets and somehow outrageously expensive potatoes. Then I vacuumed the living room. Then Otger came home for lunch, ate some German sour dough and read some Peanuts. Then I cleaned between the planks of the bedroom floor. Then I cleaned the bathroom. Then I went to NoFrills for toilet paper, tooth paste, milk, eggs, beans, banana's, grapefruits, and cookies. I came home and the kids were doing math at the kitchen table. Then I put the potatoes in the oven with olive oil, bay leaves, salt and pepper. I called Michiel to tell him it was time to come home. Which he did. He cleaned the beans because I had a blister on my finger from cleaning between the planks of the bedroom floor. Then I fried the cod filets. Then we ate. Then Otger washed the dishes. Then Michiel made coffee and we watched the news. Then Otger went skate boarding with Zack from nextdoor. After which they went upstairs to play computer games. Then Zack went home and the kids went to bed. Then I wrote this blog entry. And Michiel has made a cup of tea.
I know he is doing me good, but I still feel all sorts of very primitive emotions towards this periodontics guy.
I found yet another marvel of Dutch literature. "Intieme revue" by Henriette van Eyk, 1936. She is mostly remembered for a children's classic she wrote and that has been republished, "Michiel, de geschiedenis van een mug". Other than that she sadly has become a relic. She's a great read though, ironic, humourous, she was co-founder of the famous illegal "Bezige Bij", inspired later writers like Annie MG, Belcampo, Bomans, and Carmiggelt, was called a literary clown, and was Simon Vestdijk's lover. I have read piles and piles of Vestdijks. And now the thrift store has given me Henriette van Eyk. And the sun shines. And the bedroom is paint ready at last. It will be a top to bottom completely white Scandinavian Ingmar Bergman bedroom.
