Oregoing

Some snaps





You can find larger versions, and other pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/groene_inkt/

Illustration for the Nrc-handelsblad.

Sketcharoonees!

I've been sort of on and off busy with the project they gave me that award for (what award? you know, the one paid for by Hema-merchandise). Mostly I've been sketching and writing. Jotting down ideas. Thinking of stories. It's turning into a bit of a stew. Things go in, ideas from weeks ago suddenly float the top again slightly changed. I'm having fun with it so far. So I thought I'd put up some stuff. This is all from one story. It's going to serve as something of an introduction. It's not finished, because I'm still brooding on how to colour it in, but here ya go.

Mo' Music

I reckon it doesn't hurt to post this here clip I shot at the Motel Mozaique music festival. It's Alela Diane with her daddy, banjo man Matt Bauer and that right wonderful squaw Mariee Sioux.

Bunny bunny bunny

I think these could be developed into very charming little cartoon critters. I drew them while on the phone last night. One is a neurotic of course. The other plucky and the one with boobies is like a leporid Betty Boop.
There's a comic in there I think

Creepity creep

As flawed as it is I adore our national public transportation system. It gets you places, almost anywhere in fact. It does so on time even (well most of the time). You can buy a card to almost reduce the price by half, and on top of that it's the more sustainable choice as well.
It's a relaxed way of traveling, seeing landscapes fly by, you could even do some work if you are so inclined. You also get to meet people, nice, cute wonderful people if you're lucky. (if you're less lucky you're later dependent on the Rails' misery hearts page) Or you encounter less savoury characters. Like this creep I saw in the train from Emmen to Zwolle. The drawing doesn't even do him justice. I swear he must have been keeping maggots or eels beneath that baggy coat.

Last Chance!

It's going into its final week now,
the exhibition Mooi! (which I can't help but translating as Purrrty!)
Some pictures of mine can be seen there, along with work from fellow Fiep-awardee
Pyhai and other illustrators. We were asked because we're all illustrators of children's literature (some more than others though). And apparently the exhibition has been quite succesful.
What I found most interesting though, was the way it showed off some interesting differences in age and approach. Each illustrator has a style of his own that in my opinion seemed to very much belong to a certain age.
Though I'll leave it up to you to make any judgments on that.
You can see samples of all our work: here.

And if my camera's batteries hadn't given up I'd have shot more pictures,
but here you are.

A long long time ago

Back when I was a nipper in artschool I had to draw things because the teachers said so. Unlike the freedom I enjoy today to draw what I want to draw, only having to please myself (alright, and the people who pay me), back then I had to contend with the will of the aforementioned teachers. In the first term of my chosen course of illustration we had to deal with a certain teacher who had come up with, what at the time seemed like an incomprehensibly cruel punishment, a class to develop our sense of composition, our drawing skills and our general sense of what makes for a good image. He made us all draw a tinopener, for a complete term 6 hours a week, we were to draw our tinopeners. Starting with a small sheet of paper, and ending with huge sails of the stuff to blacken with our graphite pencils.
It was maddening, it was dull, it was one of the most valuable things I've ever done.
I think it was one of the most worthwile things in those entire four years.
Why am I typing this? Because I came across my drawings from that term on Flickr last week. Our old teacher, being as devoted to new media as he is, has put up lots of old work by students on the internet.
Unfortunately Flickr, doesn't want me to copy the images unto my blog. So you'll just have to go here

Motel Mozaique

Last year I was at the music festival Motel Mozaique for professional purposes,
this year however I went there because there was good music.
From the wonderful and oh-so american Alela Diane for example.

I shot a video myself, but I've yet to upload it.
So this will have to do until then.
I also saw Devotchka, who were fun in their rag-tag Mexican Balkan gypsy-way.
And we just managed to catch the tail-end of the concert by Mariee Sioux, who also sang at her friend's Alela Diane's concert. And she's cut from the same folksy cloth, but rather more surreal. There are wolves in her songs and trees and roots.

creepy corridors and icky interiors

The Nrc-handelsblad asked me to illustrate an article about the interiors of haunted houses. A wonderful subject, and one I could do lots of things with. Instead of going the easy route, I didn't draw any rooms or dark corridors filled with ominous shapes, I made a few miniatures. And used pictures of those to make something else altogether.
I'll post the final result later.

I think I know what my christmas card is going to be this year