just teasing

tongue

Not in a polite mood today.

my altpick

I have been thinking about it for ever, but today I finally pulled my credit card and joined AltPick. I sure hope it's going to pay back it's fee, you'll be the first to know.

birthday

It is sort of my birthday today, since I was born on Easter Monday. I suppose there must have been even more family visiting for what looks like my baptism, but they didn't all fit on the balcony. These are my late grandparents, my cousins Els and Margriet and my two brothers. The far left one is sending me his son for the summer. He is looking real proud of me in the picture. I am real proud that my nephew wants to cross the ocean to stay with his weird auntie.

elizabeth simcoe

Sketches by Elizabeth P. Simcoe, wife of Upper Canada's first Lieutenant Governor, of Sorel, Quebec, Fort Niagara from Navy Hall, Upper Canada, Montmorency Falls, Quebec, and York harbour, Upper Canada, 1792-1796.
From the Canadian Heritage Gallery website, really interesting.

We were at Ward's Island today, a lovely overdose of fresh air. And there we decided not to bother with the stupid Ontario Parks this year, with their reservations payed in full four months ahead. And too many regulations for Max, and too much radio noise for Michele. So instead it's going to be camping in the wild, no clarinets, no sketchbooks. Martin is a real ranger, we should be all right in the wilderness. Now we have to find somebody who is willing to rent or borrow or sell us a piece of Canada this summer.

bedroom ceiling

A very unpretentious work of art today.

diane arbus

Maybe it's not fair of me to post Diane Arbus because I had been hoping to see something of the kind, visiting the my-so-called-life exhibition in the Monte Clark Gallery. "My So-Called Life features six artists whose works explore the struggle of ordinary adolescents to live up to society’s expectations as they come into their own." No it's not fair, a little surfing left and right can conjure up the world's greatest art too easily, no wonder going out and taking the streetcar to Toronto's craftistic artificial distillery district disappoints. I don't know, I don't have it with that place. I get into this middle-aged-creative-women frenzy. Itching all over. Defiant too. I told the hat shop woman her hats were too Audrey Hepburn.

yale joel

Three pairs of H&M pants, one pair of shoes at the GAP, two very nice jean jackets and a fleece pullover at Value Village. Grow boy, grow.

henry darger

A very puzzling story. Henry Darger was born in 1892 and died in 1973. He led a reclusive life after having fled institutions for the feeble-minded. After he died his landlord discovered an enormous artistic oeuvre in Henry's raunchy Chicago room. Amid the debris he found hundreds of gigantic watercolour paintings, illustrating a twelve volume fantasy novel Henry had written in his lifetime. Read all (?) about it on this website and don't forget to click on the paintings, to be seen and enjoyed in resolutions of thousands of pixels. And if that's not enough for you, you might want to read this 3 page Salon article: "The late Henry Darger is a darling of the outsider art world, a dishwasher who created a vast epic tale of naked little girls. But was he also something more sinister?" Questions, questions, after reading that one. Whether Darger was a murderer, no one will ever know. But did Nathan Lerner really not know about Darger's art before he died? Living in his house? Or did he just sit it out, waiting for the loot?

todd schorr

I kept thinking about these Milton Glaser things, and there is one thing that I find kind of unsatisfactory. Number 6, about style: "But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist." Now I for me personally, I find Glaser's more recent work not that appealing. But that might just as well just be me. I don't think he is very influential on the young and hot anymore. But take his sixties counterpart Alan Aldridge, I don't think he ever gave a single thought to any zeitgeist, he just kept doing what he did until fashion came back to him. And just look at the influence Aldridge still has on the young and hot. It wasn't easy but I managed to find three websites with a little more than a little bit of information about Aldridge. 1 2 3

milton glaser

When there is nothing to blog about one can always go to our hyperactive blogger Hanan and steal an inspiring idea. Today I found the 10 things Milton Glaser has learned in his carreer. I hate patronizing didactical advisory moralistic shit, but Milton Glaser has gone through quite a carreer, so it can't be all feint. And it isn't. I'll give you the first thing he learned, so you can decide for yourself as to whether you want the rest:

YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE (I agree!!)
It took me a long time to learn this rule because at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism inferred that you didn’t necessarily have to like the people that you worked for, and should maintain an arms length relationship to them. As a result, I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Some years ago I realised that I was deluded. In looking back, I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. Affection, trust and sharing some common ground is the only way good work can be achieved. Otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

Oh, and am listening to this all day. Especially "creep", I think about 25 times now, even Michiel loves it. Via IJsbrand, everything today is second hand. I can't wait to hear what Martin thinks about it, but he is very hard to get in touch with these days.

jeroen de leijer

This is the comic strip that used to accompany my favourite radio show. I don't know why, but they seem to have stopped publishing them early last year. The radio show is still being broadcasted. Jeroen de Leijer studied at the same artschool I did, so I read. But much later in time, because he is much younger than me. Everybody is younger than me, but that is of little importance. I had my children before my carreer, so at least I didn't need any in vitro fertilisation. Jeroen also draws a comic strip in the same paper I did my first illustration in this week, so it can't really be a bad paper, I totally need to see a copy some time. Radio Bergeijk (the show) is very very typical Northern Brabant humour (Northern Brabant is in the southern half of the Netherlands - I know it must sound strange to Canadians to devide a petite country like Holland into regions of regions, but hell, doesn't Neil Young sing about Northern Ontario?). For me, every episode is a trip down memory lane. Half my family is exactly like the characters in both the show and the comic strip. Especially the half that doesn't want to know me anymore. Unfortunately they don't read BN/DeStem because they are from the eastern part of Northern Brabant. They read Eindhovens Dagblad, god I hope the local papers in Holland keep on merging like they do. I always imagine my sister-in-law reacting to my illustrating for NRC Handelsblad (very upscale) in a very radio Bergeijk tone of voice "Eindhovens Dagblad evidently wasn't good enough!".

right ceasar

This is much better. Now all we need is a frame. I didn't like the frame that could have come with it, too fake-old. I'd much rather have a genuine old one. Anybody have an idea where to get one?

wrong ceasar

Finally my Ray Ceasar was delivered, but it's the wrong one!!

- to be continued -

couch

I got out of the house to get the groceries, and look what I saw! The couch is ready! I'll let Peter hold on to it for a week or so, I think the couch is really proud to be on display like this. A very artistic window-dresser, Peter is.

the other tupperware party

This is my first illustration in BN/De Stem, a local Dutch newspaper. It is published in Breda, the city of my wild days, when I went to artschool. I think with this topic I am being re-introduced to the people in Breda in a more than appropriate way. You can see the big version of the drawing in my portfolio.

And oh, must not forget to thank my friend Gustave for the picture!

Update: I went for a haircut. I look like this now...

robert crumb

Thank you IJsbrand for finding this week long series about Robert Crumb in The Guardian. I'll spend the rest of my Sunday reading.

Excerpt:

Crumb has chronicled our basest desires for 40 years. He is the professorial pervert, the shameless monster who let it all hang out in his cartoons. He lusted after women with big butts and big muscles; he showed his wise old Mr Natural, a man desperate for spiritual transcendence but thwarted by physical desire, having sex with overgrown babies; he drew cartoons about incest in model nuclear families - "The Family That Lays Together Stays Together"; he fantasised about sex with headless women; he portrayed a black woman, Angelfood McSpade, the incarnation of pure lust, as the ultimate jigaboo jungle bunny. He took LSD and pot, and celebrated the excesses of his imagination. But he did more than that. What made his cartoons so powerful was their ambivalence - while embracing his fantasies, they also reflected a disgust and fear of what he exposed about himself.

bartolomeo passerotti

For just over twelve dollars I bought an enormous steak at the St. Lawrence Market, we could not even finish it with the four of us.

gilbert shelton

Done -for a while at least- with sex toys. And don't get me wrong, I swear I have never even touched a single such object. Whenever I pass a sex shop window it is with an averted head. You can imagine the fun I had researching on Google images. I was absolutely intrigued with nose dildo's, I would never even have imagened them, had I not been given this last illustration job. Goes to show what a mind broadening profession illustrating is. So there I am, job finished, but the nose dildo does not want to leave my thoughts. I could now show you the Chapman Brothers, but whyy? No, let's make 'em real jealous over at Drawn! and go for some old fashioned underground comics!

While typing this entry I hear the stupidest artist on earth being interviewed on the radio, how irritating. She is talking about D3 software, and it's not a slip of the tongue, she said it twice. A question from the interviewer: "What do artists do?" Answer: "They make an image to express themselves". You can order a CD with this historic interview for 8.50 euro. One mind blowing experience after another, my life.

black & white

This drawing is going to be printed in black & white. I am so not used to working in black & white. I planned on colouring like usual and then flipping the thing to grayscale, but that didn't work at all. Been messing around with the contrasts for ever. It's going to be the Monday paper by the way, not Saturday like I thought.

sorry

I can't help it, I get asked to do these topics. This time by a new client, another newspaper! The local paper from where I used to go to artschool a long long time ago, so it's kind of nostalgic. Do any of my readers maybe live around there? Could anyone send me a digi of the Saturday paper? At least I presume the illustration is for this Saturday's paper, I didn't even ask yet. By the way, what you see now is a sketch, I'll finish it tomorrow. But you already figured that much, I hope.

primo

They forgot to send me a copy of the magazine, but fortunately I Google myself every once in a while, so I found the PDF. I love selling for second use, that way the pay can amount to a reasonable hourly rate after all. This very morning I sent off another old drawing to a different magazine. Oh, and speaking of Google, I also found that I seem to have been long listed for an actual important award. But don't cheer too loud, I didn't win anything.

peter pontiac

I subscribe to a mailinglist with Dutch illustrators. One of my colleagues there unsuspectingly posted the image above, click on it to see the whole thing. He took it from "the Pontiac Review #6" the sixth album in a seven-volume autobiographical series by Peter Pontiac, a widely respected comic artist in Holland. In the text above, Peter tells us about a glass recycling company that fiercely art directed his drawings, and that later a staff member of that same company complained to him about the boring image of their campaign. No wonder, according to Peter. Nothing really spectacular so far. Now about the mailinglist. A couple of subscribers started questioning Pontiac's professionalism, exposing his client like he did. And about him not "coming across" as a professional. My god!! My worst nightmare is coming true. In future artists will have to go to business school before they can start a carreer. Without gooey marketing jargon we will not be allowed to talk to -let alone about- clients anymore! Portfolio's filled with decades of beautiful drawings will be worth nothing. Lobotomized managers will only want to work with business school brainwashed illustrators who cannot draw. Professionalism, my ass. I am so completely not interested in whether anyone thinks I am a professional or not. I do what I do and I am what I am. Anybody trying to "come across" as a professional is an imposter in my book. I don't need to come across, I am not an actress. I am a visual artist and my work can very well speak for itself. And me myself can speak too, in four different languages if I have to, but not in gooey jargon, in servitude of the holy client.

overgame

This is my biggest size newspaper illo so far, and rest assured, the NRC hasn't gone tabloid yet. As of now, I'll have to go for full page. A girl needs goals. The title of the article is a pun, I'll explain. Adultery in Dutch is called "overspel", "spel" means "game". We are a happy people, for us adultery is a game to play. Or maybe it means "game over", never even thought about that possibility before. That would maybe better fit our calvinistic disposition, but I wouldn't really know, as a renegade old catholic. Here's the big version.

dallas

I've been on the phone with a potential client from Dallas, Texas. Maybe I have hit oil, who knows. Great accent, she can call me every day, teach me some. Yall wanna know whah she picked me? Because of my liberal sexual illustration habits, they don't have those in Texas would you believe that. Poor people.

marcel van eeden 2

Otger did a portait of Marcel at the opening. Marcel complained about the chin, and rightly so. But other than that, it's quite good I think. For a palm pilot drawing.

marcel van eeden

No blog entry yesterday, overseas visitors. Had a lot of fun contemplating the good old times. Opening at Clint Roenisch tonight. If you're in Toronto, get your ass over there. Great work, nice guy, what more do you want on a cold thirstday night.

adultery

And this is for the newspaper that calls itself "grindstone for the spirit". Anyway, buy one this Saturday. Free board game!