One more week, two more villages, and I am done! I was looking forward to a little September break, but I think I am giving it away. Cry. You'll understand though. Anyway. At least I am enjoying an easy weekend, full of sunshine, food, drink, and naps. My neighbour Chandra just woke me up, she needed to borrow a bike. Chandra calls it a cycle, she is from India. Now I will go back to my nap.
Who would have pictured an image like this in the newspaper twenty years ago. At the time the papers printed squeezed Outspan oranges. Does Outspan still exist as a brand? I still associate it with something you're not supposed to buy. Like Granny Smith's apples. But those weren't South African.
Since we are now sitcom characters, I thought I'd better show you some set dressings. Plus my today's sketch sucks and I needed something else. I didn't notice the curtain wasn't hanging straight when I took the picture. The table is huge, much bigger than it looks here. If you guys would all come over at the same time we could hang out at this table. It still needs finishing though, but so does the floor. Michiel's famous thumb cut happened when he was working on the legs. Neighbour Caspian gave him the wood for the top. It is made out of the beams of a wall that neighbour Caspian broke out of his house. Old growth pine, we love it. The legs were doors. I think the only things bought were the glue, two bolts, and a metal detector to prevent the occurrence of nails in the table saw.
Yes, it is true, we have taken up jogging. Our sedentary lifestyles are taking too much toll, we admitted we are not twenty anymore. Or thirty. Or forty. It is tragic. Ann rescued us. Ann went C25K (couch to five km, I already speak the jargon) a few years ago, and she is doing marathons now. Ann got help from Evi, a Flemish radio host who podcasted a C25K series. And now Ann gave those to us. And Evi is whispering in our ears while we suffer. She tells us to keep up, to be proud, that we're almost there, and that she has her next amazing tune waiting for us. Even the lyrics of the songs she plays fit the activity. Amazing. And all of that in Flemish. We can't disappoint Evi, we have to keep going. And also we bought insanely expensive running shoes, it would be a total waste to give up. So we join all the other pathetic souls on the track down by the Don River, and run laps. I amazed myself to be honest, I totally expected not to be able to do it. But I am. Not easily, but hey. And I have only done two sessions so far, with my cold.
I sent him the drawing before he even wrote the article. He could have easily written yellow blouse in stead of black T-shirt, I don't think anyone would travel to North Dakota to check what the waitress is actually wearing. I guess NRC correspondents can't lie, good for them. My cold is much better, thank you. I can go for my morning jog with Michiel. Yeah. I know. I'll tell you about that another time. After I finish my -not English, Willemijn- landscape.
Believe me, this is going to be a landscape, if I make it through the night. My cold is taking a turn for the worse, chest feels raw. Cheeks hot. Legs wobbly.
Piffin's new girlfriend used to live in North Dakota. She laughed out loud when she saw my drawing.
Question. Does your dog eat blueberries too? It is quite funny to watch Orbit eat blueberries. He has a hard time positioning the blueberry between his teeth in order to bite it.
Hey, I am quite happy with this one!
I should have done so much more, but Michiel gave me this stupid cold that he caught on the plane. We did watch a nice film though, Otger sneaked away halfway through, to watch Battle Star Galactica on his laptop. Those diner booths are so wrong, what was I thinking. I'll redo them first thing tomorrow.
Guess which country! (joking, joking, joking) Strange how quickly I can shift focus. I finished this one around four o'clock this afternoon, and then I started emailing with the next correspondent. Yay, a communicating one, who sends me pictures. I am completely in North Dakota right now, Africa is long forgotten. North Dakota, where you can buy a house for twenty thousand dollars, and pay less than a hundred a month on mortgage. Imagine. Let's buy a street!
I am drawing a cemetery in Dorset, I said to my neighbour Suzanna, who is very English. Excellent place, she said. For a cemetery. I will tell you why I drew the cemetery. I didn't have the article yet, I have only read it just now, a minute ago. I had to call the correspondent to ask him about the village he was writing about. Calling a foreign correspondent on his holiday address is not easy. The newspaper's switchboard, and they need permission, so the foreign desk, but they are out on lunch, then the same thing again an hour later, then the foreign desk can't connect me, only the switchboard can, okay, we will tell them it is okay. Me and my telephone phobia. So I ask the correspondent, are you going to write about any particular people that I can feature in the illustration. No, nothing at all about people. Wow, a little bit odd, but hey, I am not writing. So I do my research and find the angels. Stone people! I can feature people after all! And then like I said, I read the article just now. And he writes about several people, with their names and all, how strange is that.
I just noticed that they didn't print my final version of the drawing. I changed some colours, and uploaded again. Something must have gone wrong there, shit. I should have double checked.
I didn't do as much as I wanted to today, it was just too hot. But it is not going to stay hot this week, so that is good. You can see that I like to use real faces as references. Especially in this case, because I don't often draw black people. Of course I could draw black people without references, but I'm afraid they would end up horrible caricatures. Or worse, they would end up white with their faces painted black. No, I am not that bad.
This one is dedicated to Joris, because he made me a compliment. I rewarded him. Goes to show that it pays off to suck up to me (joking!). It does really help though, when I know that I am appreciated, boohoo. Michiel showed my work to someone at Dreamworks, and they liked it. Guess that if I ever would need an actual job, I might even be able to get one. And about California, I think Michiel was just trying to scare me. Relief, relief, relief.
I am going to give you my last California song, he is boarding his plane tonight. He doesn't want to. He is having fun. He likes it there. I believe he is flirting. Not with women, no, I don't think so. Ohmygod, I don't want to be rich. I can live without a pool. Let's do a very ominous California song. I've always liked this one, it was a Donna Summer hit record when I went through the worst time in my life.
Lonely and drawing cemeteries, enough to go sentimental. I am too focused to get sentimental though, seriously. Otger heard from a very old friend today, that was nice. Yes, Otger is old enough to have very old friends. The old friend looks like he is old enough to join these guys. I found a Belgian California song, now how about that?
Otger is the only one who hasn't yet deserted me. So the two of us went out for dinner, that is, fish and chips. And the two of us watched three episodes of Grey's anatomy. Great show, very innocent and harmless entertainment. And extremely educational. But I won't go into that. Oh wait, I will. Very educational California song. Michiel is doing great by the way, having fun. He is blackberrying me constant eye witness reports. Good thing he has that thin thumb. He was in some meeting with the 50 best people in CG, he said that if a bomb would have dropped right there and then, there would be no films or games in the next five years.
Sorry about the strange title, but in Dutch you can actually use the word internet as a verb. The drawing fits the article. Which is a relief, because I didn't have the article yet when I did the drawing, I only had the name of the village. The only person Bernard Bouwman writes about is an old man. But the second sentence rescues me: "But when Pitek starts to talk about his village, he suddenly sounds like a 20-year-old boy, in love for the first time". Almost like my daily California song, but I looked it up, he's not quite 20 anymore. So I can dwell with the commenter who wrote: "Rufus, you have no right to be so smart and sexy."
Piffin worked at the cash register today. After fifteen minutes her manager asked her whether she was sure she had never done it before. At the end of the day the manager noticed Piffin had not made a single mistake. You're good at math, right? How we love understatements. And of course, my California song of the day.
I think I would have liked Los Angeles in 1971. Anyway, he has not quite yet touched down, he called me from Washington telling me his flight was delayed. But I will try to post LA songs until he's back next weekend. Like the time he was in New Orleans. It will be harder this time, since I am not at all into surfing. Oh, and about this explosion, that was way at the other end of the city. I had nothing to do with it. Slept right through it. In case you were wondering.
I don't fail that easily. I lost a day, and now I am done, and in the end I only lost half a day. Which should tell me that I can do these drawings in a day and a half. Which means I could even have time off, if only I kept to a tighter schedule. There is something to be said for discipline. I become quite weird though, if I spend too much time in the zone. When I snap out of it, my gross motor skills are gone, and I tend to drop things. So I spend my breaks mopping. And I can't speak anymore, least of all English. A neighbour dropped in. I said to him "it growed slowlier", and I realized this was wrong. So I said "it grew slowlier". Which made my neighbour say "slower". It is very strange, my English really isn't that bad.
Broadview was closed off by the police. Loads of police. And fire trucks, and ambulances. The woman at the bakery told me. There was a guy on the roof of the school, Otger's old school, dressed up as Spiderman. I had to ride my bike around the school to get home. I couldn't resist though, and crossed the street to where I saw people looking. But I saw nothing, just a lot of police officers up on the roof, no Spiderman. He must have been some of those divorced fathers without custody. With a kid at Queen Alexandra middle school. Doing his thing in the middle of Summer, to spare his kid the embarrassment. Must be real awful though, to be denied custody.
I spent the whole god damned day on a drawing that became a complete failure. Fun. I am not even going to show you. And now I am a day behind schedule, which is going to cost me my Saturday. Very fun.
You can choose your own favourite, and I will apologize beforehand for putting my country to shame. How awful is that!
Ladies and gentlemen, I have won the famous Belgian Weblog Goblet (Belgische Blog Bokaal):
Dear Pom awarded it to me, thank you Pom. And now I am expected to award seven other weblogs. Not an easy task, since I hardly read any anymore. I simply don't have enough time. But enough complaining, here's my top seven:
1 My dear father-in-law. Not only because he posts all of my drawings, but he always has something interesting to say.
2 Ruud, for whenever I need something smart.
3 Ann, who isn't writing anything over the Summer. Her husband used to work with Michiel, and they moved to California when we moved to Canada. Our lives used to be comparable, now they are dramatically different.
4 Blackbird is a charming lady in NY, who somehow lives a pretty comparable life. She has a better sense of style though. And I think she is better mannered.
5 Lotte blogs wonderful wonderful drawings, she should be much more famous than she is.
6 Louter is a very brainy lady who has the gift of writing.
7 Hans and Bianca for an utterly incomparable lifestyle. They moved to rural Texas of all places. Very worth reading.
Oh, and all of these seven bloggers should award seven others, that goes without saying.
Michiel and Piffin found a fantastic antique front door in a garbage container. Now we have a problem. What are we going to do with the antique door? It is really lovely, worn, torn, weathered, and very ornate. Paint is almost completely gone. We don't need it as an actual front door, because Michiel already painstakingly restored another antique one, and that one works perfectly fine. As a back door maybe? No, that would be too dark, this one only has a tiny window. And too big a project for now anyhow. I thought we could make a mantlepiece on the guest room chimney. But Michiel's face turned a strange colour when I proposed that. He thinks Piffin can turn the door into a work of art, by building a room behind it. What would you do?
I keep seeing details, like that it seems she isn't wearing any underwear, and a little bit of shadow that needs to be erased. But I already uploaded the whole thing twice, I am not going three times. This is it. I also made a mistake in the face, women without teeth have their noses much closer to their chin. I could work away all weekend to perfect all of that, but I am not going to. I have six laundry loads waiting for me.
Long day at the computer. I am going to write nothing at all. I am going to shut my machine down, and take a shower. Or maybe not shut it down, and watch a movie after my shower.
