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!

Wishing a truly wonderful Christmas to all my blog friends. Let there be light, love, warmth and friendship!
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The honey bee, the bumblebee, the butterflies and other pollinating insects are in danger. Some species have already disappeared never to return. Fewer pollinating insects will effect us more than we imagine right now, also in our daily economy. So it's best for all of us if there are more uncultivated places for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects. I try to apply this in our own garden. It's a start if everyone with a garden should do the same! This  quote of Albert Einstein says a great deal about what we know now and shows what a visionary he was!

IF THE BEE DISAPPEARED OFF THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE

THEN MAN WOULD ONLY HAVE FOUR YEARS OF LIFE LEFT.

NO MORE BEES, NO MORE POLLINATION, NO MORE PLANTS,

NO MORE ANIMALS, NO MORE MAN.

This is my special travel journal. It is a  compact sketchbook, only 3.5' by 7' (9 cm x 18 cm), and therefore a very convenient carry size.  As I told in my previous post, I've been in Torino for 9 wonderful days. So many impressions, but only very little space to put them down!
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I've been very fortunate to host a workshop in Torino, Italy. A city that I didn't visit yet and I was pleasantly surprised by its beauty and its old history! Since I came back, I started a new concertina book about all the fantastic things I saw. Below, you can see a small map of the city center where I taught and where I stayed in a splendid palazzo. And how much I enjoyed drawing this map as precise as possible! I'm pretty sure that I'm going to draw other maps in the future.

I love collections! I mean, I like to draw them. My father collected stamps although he was not a real philatelist. He could as well have collected posters, old soap boxes or match boxes but stamps took up less space. He only collected aesthetically pleasing stamps in terms of illustration, used font and color. Thinking of this collection, I started drawing my own. The aim is to make a new print for my Etsy shop. I finally used two of my new Microns that I bougt in America last year. I wanted to limit myself to two colors, orange and purple, colors that I usually don't use. In the end, I added a little gray watercolor to finish it. What do you think?
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I love Carolingian minuscel! These letters are wide and round and it's the internal spaces of the letters that make them work so well. This is a piece from long ago. I'm still happy with it despite of the - sometimes -  bad spacing. It was a good exercise for writing large scale. I used an automatic pen number 2 and ferric ink on thick Arches cold pressed paper.