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In early summer I started this new project. I was going to make a new concertina book about insects in my own garden. So, every day for more than 3 months, I have been strolling in the garden, looking for any small creatures. Armed with my phone, I took pictures of snails, bees, bumblebees and beetles, butterflies and spiders, flies and mosquitoes. At first I was afraid that it wouldn't be possible to encounter a wide variety of insects but in the end, I'm quite happy with the result! Until now, I may be proud of the amazing amount of 72 different creatures with the most poetic Dutch names.
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How inspiring our garden is this time of the year! At the center of the picture below, you can see the Aralia elata, a multi-stemmed tree with its beautiful autumn discoloration and, in my view, an indispensable tree for any garden. The white flowers bloom in late summer with large panicles and are quite showy and very attractive to bees. These flowers are followed by clusters of small black berries that ripen from late summer into fall and are quite attractive to birds.
I started a small concertinabook with all of the gardening tasks I should carry out this autumn and maybe winter. Fingers crossed that it doesn't keep raining as it has recently. The garden is very argillaceous and therefore not fun to walk through!
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Cet été j'ai eu la chance d' animer un atelier dans un de mes régions préférées de la France, le Provence. Le petit village nommé Lurs était un rêve de paix en pleine nature provençale et, pour cela, très inspirant.
Et oui, tous ces livres accordeon sont le travail de mes excellents étudiants. J'espère qu'ils ont autant appris de moi que moi j'ai appris d'eux! Chaque jour était un délice même avec la chaleur intense. Un très grand merci à cette compagnie internationale: Jean-Luc, Suzanne, Françoise, Sylvie, Francisco, Aurélie, Philippe, Francesca et Sylvie, et une sincère reconnaissance à Philippe et Cristine pour la parfaite organisation du stage!
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The last few days, I 've been very busy drawing houses. This will be my next concertina book so I still need to add a few more. All the houses are from the Netherlands, in their typical architectural style. Maybe I will make some more books with houses from other countries. Anyone have an idea which countries that could be? Suggestions are welcome!
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This is a big piece I made back in 2016. Since then, I have sold many small prints of it, apparently a lot of people are in love with this drawing. Last week I had a great idea to make this design into one of my concertina books. Of course, the lay-out had to be adapted because the big design is square and my concertina books are oblong: 75 cm/14 cm. For those who are interested in hearing how I proceeded, read the entire working process below.
I already have a nice scan of the first drawing of the square piece. I use my new photo editor Affinity to cut and paste all the elements, rearranging everything. Since the lettering is too big for the much smaller book, I rewrite it onto another piece of paper, knowing that the block has to fit in the middle part of the book. After that, I also scan this and then it's playtime, puzzling can start!
Once I'm happy with the lay-out, I start drawing lines for the writing on the concertina book, using my fine pigment liner. I'm doing this first thing because there's always the risk of making mistakes! After that, I print the whole book - in parts - on regular printing paper, put them on the light box and transfer the nibs in pencil, then filling everything with the black pigment liners. It takes a lot of patience because of all the tiny letters but that's no problem, it calms me down!
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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.
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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!
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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.
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This is a small herbal book from the time long before my current concertina books. I remember writing it with a quill after I learned how to cut one. Since that time, I hardly ever wrote italic again. I realized that it wasn't my thing. Uncial, however, and capital letters, feel much better to me. And I still had to discover the beautiful rounded shapes of Carolingian minuscule! Most of my books now are written or drawn in some kind of Carolingian script.
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