I'm off

I booked a flight for tomorrow. It'd be too weird not to be there. And what a blessing our street is such a community. I have made Otger a notebook with a page for every day that I'll be away. And on these pages I've written where he is expected for dinners and sleep-overs. Piffin is okay without notebook, she will be on a field trip to Algonquin for most of the time. And I found time to finish another page today. I kept this one for a day with little time. I am that smart. I put all my work on an external hard drive that I am taking with me, hopefully I'll be able to keep working a bit.

card

Sad occasions require very fast creativity. Yes, a piano playing friend is found too. Here you can see some beautiful old funeral cards. As with many things, they don't make 'em like that anymore!

numbers

Now I have two September 20 entries. So many numbers. What a mess. And Michiel is still on the plane. She would have been 67 next month.

emergency

This is a whole pile of sketches, they kind of look good on top each other. It's going to be a board game. But that's the least of our worries. Michiel is on a plane to Holland right now, his mother is not well. Not well at all actually. We skyped through the night until the ambulance came in the morning.

rat

We found a mummified rat in our basement. Of course I only blog this to get my neighbour Kathryn -who tells me she secretly reads my blog- to write a comment. And we found more, the original cast iron fire basket for the fire place! We almost bought one a while ago, stinking expensive these things. So yes, we're clearing the basement, Michiel is. He broke away a wall and demolished some shelving. Hence the finds. And on another note, a Slate article about something I blogged in June 2004. There you have it. I am on top of things.

jan mulder

A very unsatisfactory way to end a week of hard work. My drawing was found too specific, the article is about more than alone William Leith's book The Hungry Years. But at least I am on the page next to Jan Mulder, that's a comfort. All the women's eyes will be drawn to the upper left corner. They still put me on the front page as well, not sure what I think about that. Here's the big version.

and another spread

Tomorrow is going to be a disappointment. Today I was told that my drawing will be printed in b&w, on an inside page, stamp size. Don't bother going out through the rain to buy a paper, and don't say I didn't warn you.

livrinhos de ouro

I have a new reader, her name is Sonia. You can go read her blog, good luck. It's in Portuguese...! But take a look anyway, she posted some photo's of my Little Golden Bookstore. She told me her son adores it. That makes me very happy.

helicopter view

Yesterday I just posted a drawing without much explainig. But then I noticed in my stats that people kept clicking "view individual entry", I guess they were expecting to read some more. My stats also tell me that I keep getting first time visitors. So maybe those people don't understand what goes on here. Not that much really, I would say to them. I just try to post my work every day, that keeps me going, gives me my own tiny little deadlines. And I feel less lonely when I can instantly share what I'm doing. You can find the sketches for today's drawing here and here. And the drawing is part of a book I'm illustrating. You can find the development of the book here. And the development of the book before is here.

hungry years

Is he about to dive into an eating binge or isn't he? I think he is. This Saturday in a newspaper near you.

marcel marlier

This extremely cute bear is one of my oldest and deepest visual memories. It popped back in my head yesterday, as I was thinking about the illustration I am doing for next Saturday's newspaper. This bear used to be the logo of a series by the Belgian publishing house Casterman. It was probably drawn by Marcel Marlier, but I'm not sure. He illustrated the books though. I owned "het ondeugende geitje" and read it a million times. I own it again fortunately, I found it in a second hand bookshop. Piffin was addicted to his Tiny series when we lived in Belgium.

gary taxali

By the look of it, this cover is by Gary Taxali, but I can't find a single website crediting him for it. Does anybody know for sure? It's the Canadian edition of a book by William Leith, and I am illustrating a Dutch newspaper review of this book. At least I know who I'm up against :-)

woody allen

The strangest thing happened today. Piffin came home, took the mail out of the mailbox, wanted to trash the junk mail in the paper bin. Hey, there's a CD in this one. Our address is on the envelope, but not our name. It totally looks like junk mail, so Piffin still wants to trash it. Oh, take the CD out, maybe it's something fun. And what do you know, crimes and misdemeanors. Of course we watched it, so now were criminals. No we're not, we'll return the DVD.

torture

Come back tomorrow. (No, it's not New Orleans.)

light

What colour can do. So much more fun than doing b&w drawings!

hands

I guess my problem is obvious.

herbert block

"Numerous editors have attempted unsuccessfully over the years to influence or alter his cartoons, suggesting he take a different approach or voice a different opinion. Herb Block has invariably demurred, standing by his work and upholding his now legendary reputation for editorial independence. A thoughtful journalist and gifted cartoonist, he is universally admired for his integrity."

Visit that website and browse through almost a century of American politics. The quality of the cartoons will protect you from becoming too depressed.

katrina

title page

Of course the typography is going to be done much much better. This is just a very quick sketchy typography, enough to get an idea how the drawing will work. I love title pages.

under the sea 2

Weird to colour a drawing like this, listening to the Katrina news on the radio. It's starting to sound almost like civil war down there.