Here are  some beautiful calligraphy pieces by my late father Jef Boudens, dating from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Mary White (English calligrapher) wrote the following  in The Newsletter of The Society of Scribes and Illuminators from 1982: "The thing that first strikes you is the incredible crispness of everything he does, whether lettering or illustration, and his superb and invigorating sense of design. One cannot generalize about his work because it is so broad in content, but he often uses variations on Gothic and Uncial forms and, of course, Humanistic Cursive, all used in an individual modern way.... There is complete harmony between the letters and any decoration he incorporates. The two together make one whole. The decoration, if simple, often has a wood-cut character." 
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What to do if you are out of inspiration but you, at all cost, want to put that pen to the paper? My solution is to copy a nice black and white photo. You don't have to think a lot and meanwhile you keep busy! I first drew a grid with squares from 1 to 1 cm. I did it on the photo and on my paper. After that you can start filing in all the squares just as you see it on the photo. Here I used stippling. Stippling is a drawing technique in which areas of light and shadow are created using nothing but dots. The basic idea is simple: for darker areas, you apply a greater number of dots and keep them close together. Then for progressively lighter areas, use fewer dots and space them farther apart. Below is the picture of my mother.  Underneath is my grandfather, the first portrait I made, using this technique. I realize now that the one with my grandfather was a lot easier to draw.

A small selection of the exhibited work:

                                                                    Elmo Van Slingerland                                                                                                                                                    Werner Schneider

                                                                                                                                                                              John Stevens

                  Kevin Cribb                                                                                 Kristoffel Boudens                                                                                                       Tom Perkins

                                                                                                         Sepp Jacob                                                                                                                                                                      Pieter Boudens

                                                                 Katharina Pieper                                                                                                                                                                               Sarah More

                                                                       Christine Wagner                                                                                                                                                            Leonid Pronenko

A few years ago, I made this spread in my big Moleskin sketchbook. These are all excerpts from a wonderful diary that my maternal grandfather left us. I picked some fragments to write down about him going to America with his family when he was only 17, but also about his experiences  during WW I when he  just returned from there. 

Now I'm working on a new concertina book about this America adventure, rearranging the fragments into another size of paper and leaving out the war-section. I added a small family tree for better understanding.

Years ago, I made this portrait of my paternal grandfather but never finished it. The intention is to add his name and some other text, although I don't know what yet. Anyhow, I want it to have the look of art nouveau style, with some decoration added. This was one of the first times I used stippling to create a portrait. It takes many hours of work but the advantage is that you can work for very short periods now and then and to me it is most relaxing!

This pencil drawing was made by my grandfather (1894-1967). It is a portrait that he made of his sister Anna. It is the only portrait I know of,  he was actually a landscape painter.  But I love this drawing a lot and in real life it has that velvety texture.

I'm working on a book, inspired by the journals of my maternal grandfather. The biggest part of his diaries is about World War I, but there are also stories and anekdotes of when he was a child, getting into mischief with his friends.  He grew up in a very small village in West-Flanders where his father was a forester for a castle's lord. At the age of 16, he emigrated to the USA with his parents, brother and little sister. It's been a revelation to read these two diaries and to find out how his life was. I've already made a page about his life during WWI and I hope that other pages will follow!