mission accomplished

Voila, my summer. Best summer ever, I have been everywhere!

21 and a half

It is hard to believe, but I have almost made it. Twenty-two drawings non stop. And no Summer holidays. And thanks to Ann and Orbit I don't even need physio. After my first two Little Golden Books I did, I wrecked my back drawing so much. But now I am a dog walker and a runner. Session six tomorrow morning. I feel all sorts of body parts shift towards where they once were. I feel I even stand straighter. And I see some muscle definition just above my knees, I am sure it wasn't there before.

brother jimmy

And I even have some time left to enjoy this perfect day. I will jump on my bicycle and celebrate. No I won't. Orbit is being the perfect dog today. I hate it when he wants to go in and out, and in and out, and in and out. And I have to get up all of the time. Hate it. So now I have the front door open, and the back door open (there is no wind), and Orbit walks in and out as he pleases. And he stays on the porch, he doesn't run away, what a good boy. My friend Martin emailed me and asked if we want to borrow his piano for a year. What do you think? I can play Brother Jimmy.

quick

No time, have to work fast because the briefing was a little late!

20 down, 2 to go

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.

evi

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.

cough

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.

diner

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.

cold

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.

north dakota

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!

faces

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.

relief

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.

past

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?

hollywood

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.

math

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.

focussing

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.

fubar'ed

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.

and then getting the song out of your head again

You can choose your own favourite, and I will apologize beforehand for putting my country to shame. How awful is that!

front door

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?

enough is enough

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.

i can't go wrong

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!"

gold

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.

boy those catholics

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.

post posted post

I know, I know, I am late posting this. I fell asleep.

o o olga

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!

robbery

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!

waiting for the volga

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.

problems

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.

pool

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.

brazil

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!

javaherdeh

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?

and where would this be

I feel like I am taking a geography course this Summer.

diepensee

Research is everything! (Ich kann mich gar nicht entscheiden, ist alles so schön bunt hier!)

rolex

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?

feierabend

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!

three

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.

mouse

Souris was founded by Acadians in 1727 as a fishing settlement. These early settlers experienced several plagues of field mice in the surrounding area during the 1720s-1760s and the name for the town is derived from the French word for mouse. In Flemish the Dutch word for mouse is also used as a connotation for a woman's private parts. In Dutch Dutch the word puss (poes) is preferred for the same purpose. Cats and mice, it is said that there are no other two neighbouring countries in the world with greater cultural differences than Holland and Belgium. Now I wonder about French. No, I don't suppose the French would use souris. Or would they?

eighteen

This one was more work than I thought, I had serious drawing cramp. I took a bike ride to the bakery before finishing the last match box. And Piffin and I did a lovely spaghetti Bolognese (a full three hour simmer) with a salad of broad beans. And Brick Street Baguette.

poland

Nothing to blog equals blogging a cat. Two cats. Cats from lovely Polish match boxes that I am using in my Poland drawing. That I'll show tomorrow. I was waiting for Piffin to come home with the camera, and blog a photo, but she's staying out too late. She went shoe shopping with her friend. I urgently need to go shoe shopping myself, but I don't have time, so I told her to take pictures of all the shoes she thought I'd like. That way I only have to go to one store, smart huh? And it would have been very Blackbirdlike to blog shoe shopping photo's, but she's staying out too late. What can you do.

greetings from china

My next world drawing should be about Canada, of all places. But it isn't written yet. Which is just as well, because before that, I am going to cover the end of the world. It seems near, we are enjoying thunderstorm after thunderstorm here.

working family

The spots on the left hand side of the image are dirt on my scanner glass. I know exactly what it is, it is glue from the top of my sketch pad. It's been there for months, and in stead of cleaning the glass, I always patch up my scans. I have gotten to know the shapes and sizes of the stains, and I have grown accustomed to them. Piffin is plastering the guest room, it is coming along nicely. Everybody was working hard today, it was like a good vibe in the house. Otger studied for tomorrow's science exam. Even Michiel was working from home, because he wasn't getting enough peace and quiet at the office. He read something to me, and I thought he was reading from a book. But he wrote it himself, this paladin of mine. And Orbit is as good as new, the only thing is, he is obsessed with food. Hungry all day, I can't explain it.

Abjeez

I am going to do a lot of world blogging this summer, but it will be great fun. Our man in Tehran has a blog and he posted this clip yesterday, it's hilarious. The Abjeez, Persian slang for sister ... and that’s just what they are - Safoura and Melody Safavi. Backed by a colorful crew of musicians, the two abjee’s present their own original brand of Persian world pop! This should be a nr. 1 hit record on this side of the ocean, and the sisters could be Nobel Peace Prize candidates... (Canadians: there is a moose in there)

Make sure to watch this one too.

all over the world

These are all the foreign correspondents whose articles I am going to illustrate this summer. I emailed them all today, and the man in Moscow got back to me instantly. Hurray for the man in Moscow. No west coast, and no Australia, that is kind of odd. I've got my summer planned full proof and tight shut now, and I think I am up to it. Funny enough today is the first real sweltering day, I almost have itching hair roots. Itching hair roots are the threshold of unbearability. And when I'm done in September, my friend Klaartje will come to Toronto, yay. I have something to work forward to. And now it is the weekend. Cheers.

my roots

I am slowly starting to think about the subject matter of my upcoming economy series. And why not start close to home. The building in the middle is a castle. My father was born just outside the castle walls. So that would be the small building closest to the castle, or any of the three farms a little further out, or a farm that isn't there anymore. I think that would be our safest bet.

Update: I wasn't looking very well. There is a loud and clear picture of my father's farm, this is very awesome.

They were poor farmers, like all farmers at that time in this part of Holland. They were catholics, and catholics used to divide their farms among all of their sons, which made the farms and the farmlands smaller and smaller. (In the sixties they started to reverse this process, that is why the patches of farmland are not so small anymore in the picture, which is a great pity for the landscape btw) This unlike the protestants in the North, where the oldest son would be the sole heir to the farm. Which kept the farms big and rich and prosperous. My father was the youngest of eleven. All of his sisters except one became nuns. I would have certainly been a nun too, had I been born a generation ago. Nuns got an education, and they didn't have to go through fifteen pregnancies. But every good catholic family also needs a priest. And my father was the lucky one. He kept it up until after graduating from the seminary, so when he kissed priesthood goodbye and moved to the big city, he had a diploma. Smart move. From a poor country boy with no shoes, he made it to accountant with Philips. And that is more or less what my series is going to be about, stories like this from all around the world.

mission accomplished

Client hunting is over, I am good until Fall. And it is my good old newspaper. And it is not even someone I asked for work, and I asked enough, believe you me. Which is bad for me really, because I already tend to the bad habit of waiting for jobs to just like that fall into my lap. Which is exactly what this one did. A twice a week over the Summer gig for the economy section. Economy and me, we go way back. Right. I told Otger I had good news and bad news. He wanted the bad news first. I'll be working a lot this Summer. Fortunately he found the good news much more impressive. I'll be making a lot of money. Okay, maybe not that much. That's all very relative anyway. But I have to remind you to keep reminding yourselves that nothing compares to loyal clients.