My dear father-in-law is this year's chess champion of Deventer! Hurray and congratulations to him! He really deserves this, after a zillion heart attacks and -operations, his brain is going stronger than ever. I wanted to link to him anyway, yesterday's entry on his blog is almost entirely in English and extremely interesting. Cheers to the hero.
I bought myself a pair of reading glasses to get this detailing done. I should not be telling you this.
An extreme heat alert, a smog warning, and a humidex advisory all continued for most of the province Tuesday, as the record warmth continued. Officials confirmed it’s the hottest June since records were first charted in the mid-1880s.
We'll have Lijn's tabouleh again tonight. I expect you understand I didn't do more than a little sketching. And Piffin is through to grade twelve IB... of course. My trust in the teachers league is completely rehabilitated. They know she can do it, and they trust she will. Wise decision.
Past 4 o'clock and still no word from Piffin's teacher. He is supposed to call me after the teachers meeting. She needs all her marks to be over seventy percent to get into grade twelve IB. Math and French aren't, we don't know about chemistry yet. My nerves.
I guess we saved ourselves from a fire. We are renovating the guest room because my nephew is coming over for the summer. I hope he'll have walls, floors, and a ceiling in there. The effing house was sold to us as having all new electrickery. Look at it, the new wires have directly been attached to the knob & tube! Is that a criminal offense? And the works of art we find behind the plaster and lathing... All live, I might add. We did do some fun stuff as well this weekend, in the tropical heat (so fun to demolish ceilings in a sauna). We also went to our neighbours wedding! After fifteen+ years of hokking, they finally decided to do the right thing. With cake and pastors and tears and everything. I'm tired, I'm looking forward to sit on my butt all week and draw.
I only managed to sketch a little today. Piffin had her last exam, on Monday she'll know whether she has made it into grade twelve, we can only hope now. After the exam we did the mother and daughter thing. We went shopping big time. My living doll, of course I bought her clothes. We bought so much we had sore arms when we came home. All necessary things though, all the plates and cups and glasses in this household have been running out and giving up and breaking down. Not even a decent beer glass left. Now everything has fresh and pretty gold rims again. Oh yes, this is the movie Otger's drawings are going to be in. I asked. We're getting photo's of the set tomorrow, but I don't suppose I'll be allowed to blog them.
Otger is working on his first paid job. One of our neighbours is a set designer for the movie business, here in Hollywood North. She needed some drawings for the set of the new Bruce Willis film. So now Otger pretends he is Henry, the twelve year old film character. Problem is, there also have to be early drawings by Henry, which means Otger has to pretend he is six. Not an easy task. Thus. Soon coming to theatres near you, look closely at the fridge.
Piffin is leaving the building. Think of her, chemistry exam. She might consider a carreer in chemistry, opting for drugs or terrorism. But first she'll have to make it through this one. She's on her own. My one and only chemistry result ever was a 3 of 10, and I was extremely lucky with that report mark, because I had not reached 30% on even a single test.
Oma in today's newspaper. The Dutch word "oma" for grandmother is one of the few surviving Dutch immigrant words in Canada. All of the second or third generation Dutch Canadians I know still use it. Kind of neat. And then depending on how nice those grandparents are they can say things like "beste paard van 't stal", or "pak voor je broek". Here's a big version.
Almost a year ago I blogged about this drawing. I thought the image could be found in "logic, labels, and flesh" by Stefan Themerson. But I could not find our copy of the book. I then thought the book must be at Michiel's parents, but they denied everything. And today I got mail from a reader in Poland: "You were right to think that the picture you mentioned was in Themerson's Logic Labels & Flesh. I happen to have it right by my side, so here goes a quick pic." Thank you Tomasz! (Don't forget to take a close look at the drawing, find the eye socket and the nose.)
Page 4 I think. Lights, music, and all six features. I think it's rather an act, to get all of that in one little drawing. We had a supper disaster tonight, the mashed potatoes exploded. Miraculously nobody was hurt.
You probably can't see a thing. But the blog has to be complete. It's what I did today, so it's what I show. Doesn't look like a lot of work, to work up all these sketches. Things are not always as they seem.
I guess I hadn't read the text well enough. The helicopter was supposed to carry two kids, and some other children needed sex changes. I have only myself to blame. And good thing I made this collage, It made me spot another mistake that I immediately fixed. Not in the picture above though, enough is enough.
This illustration will be printed in b&w. I am still struggling with that concept, but I think the result this time is not bad. I tried to keep thinking "white, lots of white!" and "contrasts!". Very zen. And kept switching to b&w and even working while in grey tones. I haven't asked, but I assume it's going to be published this Saturday, in BN/DeStem.
Update: I asked, it's Monday.
Newspaper again. Michiel is already comparing me to the horse in Animal Farm. No, not because of my looks. I am going to change the hem of the dress tomorrow, it wrenches. We had a fantastic thunderstorm today. The water came right through the porch and into our hallway, fun. But we're down to 21 degrees now, 10.30 PM. Feels like heaven.
The loot from two weekends of yard sales in our neighbourhood. I believe the mirror was the most expensive item, ten dollars. I bought the toboggan from a boy across the street, and I promised him he can always come to our house to borrow it in winter. Poor kids. I almost bought a gem little Gustave Tenggren golden book from a little girl, but I couldn't help myself making her reconsider selling it. The jigsaw puzzle is a very little golden book like city in bird's eye view, something I will have to draw in the near future, thus a welcome inspiration. So is the horse, for five dollars. And what about a 12 cm thick book full of b&w pictures of moviestars? And those wild shoes Piffin found herself for five dollars. And a work bench. And lots of antique Penguins, a little mustard after the meal can't hurt. We are one happy family.
Maybe I will change a detail here and there over the weekend, but right now I have gone merry-go-round-blind. Ready. Piet Schreuders can have some fun next week doing the typography. Good thing I drew a cat.
No, I am not showing this any larger. Halfway with the colouring is a very unshowable stage. I hate it the way it looks now, it's a hard day's night. There'a a barking version of the song right now on the radio, awful.
See, now it's a happy submarine. And I am ahead of schedule even, I planned to start the colouring tomorrow. My old neighbours are hooking up the airconditioning now, the thing is making weird sounds. The old neighbours too, Polish sounds. Toronto is hot. I bought two fans, I have one aiming at my feet.
I had drawn a very girly submarine, and Michiel laughed at me. So he modeled me a real submarine, but I can't get it right. It's totally foreshortened in this view as well, and seen from behind, which doesn't make it any easier. The column in front is way too curved and doesn't carry on logically into the roof, but that's easy to fix. Mañana.
This is a spot illustration for a telecommunication magazine. Now I can go back to my merry-go-round. Oh, and the newspaper discovered their mistake and I never even complained. Très sympa.
Why I am addicted to books that compete with a packet of cigarrettes, that title is too long to use for this blog entry. My name under the illustration is spelled "Eliane Duvek", I don't know if that is just an error in the digital version. Could somebody look that up in the paper version and tell me in the comments? I am getting so little comments lately, I feel I have to encourage you to do so. Write something dammit!
-big version-
Just a little sketching, there was too much housekeeping today. Usually I set myself a curfew, no housekeeping after 10 AM, because I am too good at it. I could clean all day. Today there was too much though, had to clear out the spare room, make neat little piles of clothes of the whole garbage dump. And in a minute Bianca will come over to barbecue. A real Torontonian dinner, I have Macedonian and South-African sausages, Portuguese baguettes, Dutch cheese, Chinese eggplant, Californian strawberries and Canadian wine.
It is all starting to take shape inside my head, paper is patient.
Research is everything. The little golden book I am starting to work on today is about a merry-go-round. And just like last time, I find out there is one already.
About JP Miller (copied from):
JOHN PARR MILLER (1913-2004)
From the NY TIMES:
John Parr Miller, an early animator for Walt Disney whose later art adorned best-selling children's books, including those in the popular Little Golden Books series, died on Oct. 29 2004 on Long Island. He was 91 and lived in Manhasset, N.Y.
Best known as J.P. Miller, the illustrator of several incredible Little Golden Books, Miller's art is still influential to a new generation of animators artists. His "Little Red Hen" is still in print and considered a classic. "Lucky Mrs. Ticklefeather," "Little Pee Wee" "The Little Golden Funny Book", "The Marvelous Merry-Go-Round", "Tommy's Wonderful Rides", "The Circus ABC" and many others, define the Little Golden Book style. These books, all done in the late 1940s and early 50s, are prime examples of the stylized modern commercial art of the era - and a huge influence on many of today's best animators (including Spumco), leading cartoonists and commercial designers.
According to the Times obit:
John Parr Miller found himself in Hollywood during the Depression, with a widowed mother, need of a job and a portfolio from Grand Central Art School, which he had attended for a little more than two years. He found work in the story department at Disney Studio in 1934... In 1937 he was one of only three artists asked to start the studio's character model department. According to studio archives, he helped create characters for Disney "Pinocchio," "Fantasia" and "Dumbo." He left Disney for military service in World War II, when he made training films for the Navy. After the war, Golden Books recruited him and several other Disney veterans to enliven children's books for a mass market, to go beyond the bland Dick and Jane primers of yore. Mr. Miller continued his work as a freelance artist until about 10 years ago.
