I have named this picture something neutral, so you can take a guess if you want. Where does this grandmother live? As for me, my golden pants were a big success, I am going to put them on again. Party after party this week, I am so loving it. There are not too many red wine stains on my golden pants, I think I'll get away with them. Barbecue at the U of T, very intelligent sausages. The invitation says "BEER, a BBQ, and great BANDS! You can't go wrong!"
I am so glad the editors at my newspaper appreciate my drawings don't always look the same. You hear of clients who seek consistency. I sometimes wish I was more consistent, but I don't have it in me. When I do things a certain way for a while, I start to ache for change. Perhaps I am just bored easily. No, I know it's not that. I think deep down I hope that if I keep trying, I may hit gold one day. That I will find this fantastic genius way of drawing. I just didn't give up hope yet, that's why I am not consistent. And I have bought a pair of golden pants this afternoon. And I am going to put them on, and I am going to Martin's fiftieth birthday.
The picture seems a bit vague, I hope it printed well. Worshiping Jesus's foreskin is such a nice custom, don't you think? I think it should be re-established. People do stranger things when they want to get pregnant. I for one would certainly try Jesus's foreskin, but I have had enough pregnancies in my lifetime.
And there I am again, worky work. My example is starting to rub off, Piffin has a job too now. At Value Village, LOL. Together with all the babysitting she does, it looks like she's going to do real well for herself. She decided that she is going to save up for a down payment on a house, isn't that just fabulous. And just now we went to the video store with Otger, and he was offered a job! We are going to be a four-income-family. Tycoons.
I had the author of this article laughing, so I guess I did something right. If anyone can guess why I drew a penis on a mountain, then, I don't know what I'll do. But I'll think of a reward. You guys have amazed me before, so I could go promising the world here, feeling confident nobody will get it right, but let's flatter you by not underestimating.
Hey Ellen, they managed to get the article out before doomsday after all!
Some good already came from this one. We just got Dr Zhivago from the library for Otger. The Volga is mentioned on the first page, instant familiarity. He needed a new book because he finished the Name of the Rose yesterday. He is not doing the countries in the same order as me. He is not that fast a reader anyway. Oh and my friend and loyal blog reader Ineke made the Globe & Mail!
I know, I know, I am late posting this. I fell asleep.
I slidered some hue, and thought, yes. I'm done. Don't touch it anymore. It was like the lights came on in the village. Which is appropriate, since its electricity was down before. And tonight we are going to try and see the Dark Knight again, yippie!
It was Esplanade, Ineke, or Front, what is it. Your Rainbow cinema. And yes, it is a bit ironic. We couldn't go back tonight, because films are four Dollars on Tuesday nights. Must have been mayhem. Me, I am going to shut down here, storm. I finally got word from Russia, there was no electricity in the Russian village. How authentic. доброй ночи!
And again a problem solved itself. The rest of the family wanted to go see the Dark Knight, I really rather wanted to finish this sketch. But I didn't want to miss the film either, so I went along. And then the Rainbow Cinema was closed by the police! With real crime scene tape, just like in the movies, the forensics guys were taking pictures. I asked the guy at the door what had happened, but he said he wasn't supposed to talk about it. He was gay, so he was almost bursting with wanting to tell us, and I wished him good luck with whatever he wasn't supposed to tell us. The man in the bookstore around the corner -where I at last bought my Obama New Yorker- knew. It had been a robbery at gun point. Poor Rainbow Cinema. But how convenient! I could finish my sketch after all!
Here's my old prickly self with yet another lovely giclee print. It's a nice objective way of establishing which are my best drawings. The best ones will sell. I wish I could effortlessly repeat the success of this one, or Noah's arc, but it doesn't work that way. The good old ups and downs, nothing goes without them. Artists get judged by their best works anyway, so why worry. Never be more then two weeks away from your best work, that would be an ambitious enough goal. I am starting Russia, but I am waiting for the man in Russia to brief me. I know he is traveling along the Volga river, and Google Earth looks promising, but I would like to know roughly what he is going to write about before I start.
For the life of me, I couldn't think of anything to make for dinner. There wasn't anything I felt like cooking or eating. And just when we decided to try out a new restaurant in our neighbourhood, it started pouring. What now? And then my life motto once again proved itself true. My life motto is "every problem will solve itself". In this case neighbour Ann suddenly appeared with two bottles of red wine. She wanted to show her gratitude, because earlier today Michiel gave her an old bicycle that none of us liked riding. Ann's own bicycle was vandalized the other day. And then on top of the two bottles she invites us over for dinner! Which is no small deal, because there's four of us, and we're big eaters. But everybody's problems were solved today. Ann's bike problem, and our dinner problem. Life is good.
I realize that the more drawings I blog, the less I write. So let's give you an update on the Duvekot family. My life is uneventful. I was working on Spain today, but there was too much distraction to get things done before the weekend. Piffin was nannying little Francesca, and they both liked my air conditioned studio, who would blame them on this scorcher of a day. Then neighbour Jeff came by to ask if he could drop his daughter in our household for dinner. Sure, but that meant I had to go grocery shopping before walking the dog. And after shopping and walking it took a long while to cool down again, boy was that hot out. Otger was trying out as an intern at Autodesk, that's why he didn't walk Orbit like usual. He modeled and animated a gumball machine, it looks very cool. He was spending his holidays at his computer anyway, so why not upgrade that. The last time I heard him passionately converse about anything, it was about some weird equation he needed to code something. So there's your update. Or do you want me to include Michiel? Well, I think his life is even less eventful than mine. He held a conference call with the rest of the world from the kitchen while I was cooking. I cooked as silently as I could. Which meant he had to do mammoth dishes. Good night.
The lines are not actually this dark, I did so Hilde could see them too. Not everybody has out of this world monitors. I did the drawing nice and quick, I'm learning. I had time to go swimming, that was really nice. Maybe I'll do that again, tomorrow. The arm pain is much better, thank you. I put a pillow under my right arm, at the tablet. And did all the keyboarding left. But over the course of the day I improved, and now I am typing right handed, yay.
The next one is going to be less intense for sure. my arms hurt. Both of them. And guess what, my loyal reader Gwen from BC sent me a postcard. She is on holidays in Souris!
So Javaherdeh is an investment opportunity for Iranians. There's an investment opportunity around my corner, a teeny weeny house, 350 grand. Agents going in and out like pigeons today. So if you want to live within my eyesight, go right ahead. I was just sitting out on my porch, having a beer after work. Like a real worker. Neighbours say the street isn't the same with me not sitting out there much anymore. I work too hard. I bet you the illustrator who did the drawing at the bottom of today's page gets paid the same as me and was done in a fraction of the time I spend. Now I lost my concentration. Phone keeps ringing. First the pharmacy. They're all Chinese at the pharmacy, speaking to them on the phone is quite funny. My pills are ready for three months. Hurray, I'll be healthy for another three months. Then Michiel, on his bike. Whether he had to come home or go straight to Reliable Fish & Chips. But I am writing my blog entry, I can't just drop everything and run to Reliable. Shall I first get you a New Yorker then? Yes, do that. So I am off now, to read the New Yorker while I eat fish & chips and drink root beer.
We watched I'm Not There tonight, it was very beautiful. Strange to see Heath Ledger. The dead guy playing the living guy. The Beatles as Teletubbies. If I hadn't worked today, I would have showed this drawing, very beautiful also. Amazing that people don't seem to get this cartoon, or maybe it's not. I like it a lot.
It seems to be too hard to force myself to be done by the weekend. But I guess 1:30 PM on a Saturday is not too bad. Iran looks like the ideal holiday destination, doesn't it?
This is yet again one of the more interesting stories in the series. The history of a village, from 1350 to now. From Prussian noblemen to Hitler's Luftwaffe, to Honecker's Interflug, to one of Europe's largest hubs Berlin Brandenburg. Needless to say the village is gone. Deserted at least. The articles are online, for who reads Dutch.
I feel like I am taking a geography course this Summer.
Research is everything! (Ich kann mich gar nicht entscheiden, ist alles so schön bunt hier!)
This one doesn't work very well in tiny. The original 60 cm ink drawing is hanging on my studio wall, and I like it very much. I am curious as to how it looks on the paper page. Anyway, I can't be equally happy with all twenty-one Summer Series drawings, impossible. The Germany one I am working on is going very well though, I am proud of myself. And fortunately, I might ad. Today I had to turn down doing another VPRO-Gids cover, I could cry. I think I will do that, in the pool tonight, if there's no storm. But it looks and feels like storm. Done now. Beer.
Michiel is a finder, he has that kind of eye. Yesterday while walking Orbit, he picked up a watch. And went silent. Handed it to me. A Rolex. A fake? What do we know about Rolexes? It looked pretty real, it was worn, a little dirty. So we take it home, and look for the particular model on the internet. Ten fucking thousand dollars, Michiel gets a heart attack. We have to return that watch! But first, let's find a website that shows how to recognize counterfeits. Okay, that wasn't hard, heart attack over. We decide to look out for lost watch signs in the park, and if nobody claims it, Piffin can wear a Rolex to art school. Today in the park, I see a guy looking for something, right there where the watch was. And looking, and looking... So I walk up to him and ask what he is looking for. A ball. So I tell him about the watch. He thought it was real nice of me, having returned his watch to him had he lost it. He didn't look the type for a fake Rolex anyway. Which makes one wonder, what kind of guy wears a fake Rolex?
Top left is 5 centimeters wide, and I drew the one at the bottom right on a sheet 60 cm wide. Next one is Germany, but I haven't heard a thing yet. I will email the man in Germany now. Right away. And then, Feierabend. Oh yes, great little Youtube clip about this village, click!
Michiel updated my Photoshop, we should have done that ages ago. I work at warp speed now. Also because he went and got some extra gigabytes. In his new jeans. You now these long stickers on the back of the legs of new pairs of jeans? The whole city now knows Michiel's size :-)
The downside of committing myself for two whole months is that I really do have to say no to other jobs that come along. Good thing that yesterday I promised to do just that, because it happened today. I told a colleague, to vent. He said that as soon as work slows down, I will realize how stupid I am. And he asked whether I told them that he wouldn't mind working nights for a gig like that. Michiel had to cry a little bit too.
It's going really fast, this series. Number three already! And number four, the sweetest tiny little French village you can imagine, is waiting for me. I am still finishing up another project on the side, I hope to have gotten that out of the way by the weekend, and then life can slow down a little. I will say NO to everything else that comes along until at least October. By that time I will be ready to move to the country, settle down, and make a living as a sign painter.
Happy Canada Day. I am working, don't worry. Fortunately though, we are invited to dinner tonight, so I will have some leisure time. If you have the newspaper on hand, make sure to read these world-village-series stories. They are just wonderful, all of them so far (I've read more than is published yet). To read about normal people with normal lives, all over the globe. No wars or natural disasters, just normality. Normally there isn't much normality in the papers.
