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.

 At the end of last year, for several weeks, I used an app on my phone to record bird songs. I was quite curious about how many different birds would come to our garden or fly over? Every day, early in the morning, I put my phone on the windowsill for about 15 minutes and I must say, I was rather surprised about the result: 34 different species until now. We are not so very far from a few nature preserves and the birds are not all coming into the garden but still! This was a good starting point for a new concertina book and ... I learned a lot about birds, their names and how they look!

My latest concertina book is the prime example of achieving a satisfying outcome despite of having little or no inspiration. I started with the vintage safety match box - found on the net - because of the sunflower. The writing and painting tools followed. And in the end I added the calendar where I filled in everyday temperature, measured promptly at noon. The whole book forms a unity because of the color yellow. The more wintertime approaches, the more I feel the urge to use warm color schemes because it makes me forget cold and mist and rain and the early dark of winter's evening.

I like to draw plants in a medieval way ánd I love this poem from Edwin Morgan about strawberries. And so, the two came together in my sketchbook. Don't know if I'm going to add some colors or not, what do you think?
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Back in 2000 I designed this poetic text for a headstone. At the time I just started drawing Roman capitals. Looking back now, I'm not too disappointed but spacing between letters and words could be a lot better. I don't like the ligature on the second line and the tail of the R is too weak. This design would benefit to be improved :) The text is from a German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. Here it has been translated in Dutch, and I'll try to translate  into English, as good as I can : 

It is time
It was a great summer
Now put the shadow on the sundials
and let the wind float over the fields

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Two pages in my sketchbook. I have been re-working a stamps collection and chose for a limited color palette of 3 colors: orange, blue and light blue. I'm inspired by existing stamps but don't copy them. Some details are left out, certain fonts are adjusted and, anyhow, colors are customized. For orange and blue I used fine microns, light blue is executed in colored pencil. 

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!