65

It's 65 drawings now, if I count right. I'm still on schedule, despite an upcoming cold. I bought a bottle of Jack, wonderful against colds.

hansje brinkers

And this is still only background. Haven't received the briefing for the important images yet.
Otger did some interesting work too. (For those of you who don't read Dutch: it's about the threat of flooding in Holland. The dikes are not as strong as some warning engineers say they'd have to be. The requirements stem from the fifties, from after the last serious flooding. And even that standard is not met. Politicians are only worrying about terrorism, not about water. But the water danger is much more real. And so Otger proposes that the people in Rotterdam attach life boats to their houses, for safety and for waking up the politicians)

41 in place

This is what happened to yesterday's 41. We also went tobogganning. And I am listening to the music I gave you yesterday. Concert by the sea, beautiful. Piffin is cooking dinner, fingers crossed. But I opened a bottle of very nice wine, so any dinner will do.

a lot

Hey, I did 41 drawings today, and ready before five. Feierabend. Here's a nice link to get you through the weekend.

goose game

I get to do another children's classic! An NRC journalist is rewriting the goose game rules, and I am going to draw the board for next week's Saturday paper. The board shown above is the one I own, the doodling is Otger's, he is ashamed of it now. I don't know much about the game, other than that it is very old. I found lots of old boards, mostly on French websites. Where did it originate? I hardly find anything in English, is it known at all in North America? I found a disgusting new age version, can't those people leave anything alone?

Update: Ineke found this website with the history of the goose game.

dog?

William Wilson sent me one of his animals! Is it a dog? I think he likes it on my mantelpiece. For those of you who missed that blog episode: William is a stuffed animals artist and an NRC reader with initiative. He contacted the editorial office to purchase a print of one of my illustrations. I had a very chique giclée print done.

angel

Illo in one day. One afternoon really, first I spent the whole morning at the dentist's, ouch. I was doing good, he said. I don't really know about the illustration, I'd rather they'd give me more time. It's about cellphones on coffins. So you can call up your deceased loved one. They're called telephone angels. Invisible and unhearable from the outside. And outrageously expensive.

Update: the client thought the image was too complex. So I simplified. Better, I admit.

fabrics

You can help me. I have a whole pile of fabric samples. I am finally having the couch re-upholstered. I pre-selected twelve. Click on the image for a closer look. Which one is it going to be? Choices, choices. I also had to choose a new pair of glasses today, the old one's nose pad is gone. And it's a special nose pad. Of course it would be a special nose pad, what else. So they don't make 'em like that anymore. So I need a new frame, because of a lost nose pad. I think I'll take this one. I need a firmer look. I look so absolutely unthreatening now. When all double seats in the streetcar are taken up by single persons, I am the first one to get a neighbour. When people need to know directions, I am the one to ask. I look too approachable. A middle aged woman in jeans, sensible shoes, a brown corduroy coat, curly hair and a nice smile... I need a really harsh frame. Definitely.

the new new yorker

A form of pirating the world hasn't seen yet. People in Moscou wanted to read something like The New Yorker, so now they have The New Eyewitness. It might just be an excellent opportunity for illustrators, I could of course send them a little promotion package, what do you think?
Via.

Update: the Wikipedia tells me The New Eyewitness is history already, damn.

alphabet

Al Hirschfeld * Brian Cronin * Clayton brothers * Dave Cooper * Eric White * Franciszka Themerson * Gary Baseman * Heinz Schubel * Isabel Samaras * James Jean * Kathy Staico Schorr * Lisa Petrucci * Mark Ryden * Nils Karsten * Otto Siebold * Peter Pontiac * Quincy Renon * Ray Ceasar * Saul Steinberg * Tim Biskup * Ub Iwerks * Vanessa Dell * Walter Trier * Xavier Marquis * Yoshitomo Nara * Zohar Lazar

first love

Yesterday's entry reminded me of this drawing I did in 1977. Christmas holidays with my first boyfriend. I sent all my friends a piece of the drawing as a greeting card. Fortunately they returned those pieces to me and I glued them back together. The boyfriend and I did not stick very long. The idiot left me for another woman. Our relationship had become a drag, so he told me. And what do I find when I google him? He is still with that same woman (okay, so it's true love), he teaches at the university where he used to study, he lives in the same area and he breeds doggies. Dumping me certainly didn't solve his drag problem!

kozyndan

After reading the Ray Ceasar interview on Pixelsurgeon I browsed through the rest of their interviews, quite an interesting time pass. I show you Kozyndan because I love complicated perspectives. And because I am jealous of their cooperation. Sigh, what if Michiel could just quit at Alias...

excerpt:

How do you work together? What's the process?

DAN: Depends. Mostly we beat each other up and whatever the blood stains look like - that's what Kozy starts drawing. She does the really detailed intricate drawings. While she is working on the backgrounds I am supposed to be figuring out what the characters are doing (although I am usually just watching TV or something though). Then she takes my character sketches and redraws them in her style, adds more of her own and I composite all the characters into her original background.

KOZY: Then we put the image on two computers and just start painting. We sit back to back and just pick areas to color until everything is just about done, then we join them in one file and finish it out.

dentist

My situation is not completely hopeless, he assured me. He poked between my teeth and my gums with some mesurement instrument, dictating the millimeters to his assistant. Six, seven, three, three, three, three, four, three, seven, three, poke, poke, poke, poke, blood, blood, blood. Three was not too bad, I have nothing under three. He put me on antibiotics and I have to go see a gum specialist. I feel wrecked.

ray ceasar

I have bought a work of art! We went to Ray Ceasar's opening in the Lonsdale gallery yesterday. I knew his work very well, but only from his website. Really great to see his pictures together, framed and much bigger. I adored them, I'm really glad we bought one. He knew my website too, he said. A very modern introduction, "I know your website!", "Yes, I know yours too!". This is the picture we bought. And so nice of him to pose for Piffin's camera phone. Here's an interview with Ray.

the painful truth about happiness

According to the article by Ellen de Bruin 50% of whether or not we are happy is decided genetically. It's just who we are, nothing we can do about it. 40% is circumstances, but everything we achieve in our circumstances, we get used to. And we sink back to our basic level of happiness. Hence the treadmill. We really only are in charge of the last 10%. With the last 10% we can kick our own butts. Here's a big version of the picture.

commute

Today Michiel took pictures cycling to the office and back.

I did some fine tuning on my links page, I'm not completely satisfied with it yet though.

twelve goats

Payment: We pay US$300 per set of 10 books. Each book has 12 drawings. The calculation is based on spending about 5-7 minutes per illustration (mind you we just need line drawing, not colored or shadowed), and therefore about one hour for 12 drawings, so that's about $30 per hour we are paying. We pay promptly after the work is completed.

I considered this a challenge. I illustrated one of their stories exactly in the given time. Of course I could not count scanning the the drawings, or even taking out my pen, ink and paper, or reading their mail, or answering their mail negotiating a better price. Or clearing the kitchen table. Those things alone would have to double the fee. What do you think, shall I submit the drawings?

rooster

Happy New Year from Chinatown East, Toronto. Otger partied through the day at school. I am sorry I didn't take a camera to the school concert last week. They celebrated Black History Month and Chinese New Year together. Dancing dragons and rolling drums. Red banners with golden Chinese characters hanging over the school choir singing gospel songs. Muslim girls with head scarfs singing gospels. Rows of little Chinese kids playing jazz tunes in the school steel band. Yay for multiculturalism, these kids were to die for.

hedonic treadmill

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday, I was busy working on this baby. And the computer kept crashing. Michiel discovered a lame fan. I found the liquid air spraycan in a box of CD's. A little dusting and voila, a stable machine. Just the everyday panic. I can still make a yesterday post with an in between version of course. Yes. I'll do that.

yesterday

This is the entry I posted tomorrow.

pencil

Don't forget to sometimes read the "communicatielog", I posted something there too today. O shoot, in Dutch. O well, it's just something that already went through boing boing and numerous other blogs. But nice nonetheless, and about Little Golden Books, so go have a look if you haven't yet.

Update: I am suffering from my monthly female troubles. When I was young, the pain was much more severe than it is now, after giving birth twice. Back then I had an Alvin Lucier record that soothed the pain. Guess what, I found it online! Mmmm, that's just the beginning. This is the whole thing, but it's the wrong version. It's probably somewhere out there, but not now in my condition.

la ruota della fortuna

If you're going to think the NRC pays me a week's work to do an illustration, I'll have to clarify. I worked half an hour today. The illustration will not nearly be as explicit as the tarot card shown above, I just liked it too much to not blog it. I forgot where I found it, sorry.

sketch

The uglier the sketches, the better the final result. I have to tell myself that. I hope Michiel will help me make a nice 3D model of the hamster wheel.

hedonism

I have to do an illustration about hedonism. Research is a fun part of such a job. (Please don't google the word yourselves, vulgarity alarm) Do you think these Minnesota scientists are having fun doing their research?

sigh

Conquering the house, centimeter by centimeter.

history

Did you know that my old website is still online? It's up and running perfectly, and it 'll stay that way as long as the provider leaves it the way it is. I can't touch it anymore, my subsription with that provider has expired long ago. On the website you can see the illustrations I used to do for that same provider, Planetinternet Belgium. They're not called Planetinternet anymore, they're called Scarlet now. Why they keep running my website is a mystery to me.