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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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We love to play board games and regularly organize game evenings with the children or with friends. These two games below are very old and are part of our cultural heritage. And since I love everything that is legacy of our ancestors, I made this concertina book with illustrations and some background. I used gouache in order to obtain an opaque color but the two french knitting dolls are worked in watercolor.
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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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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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I started a new pattern journal on June the 20th 2022 after having finished 2 other journals. It is a challenge to invent over and over new patterns. In my first two books I used only 2 colors, yellow and black and orange and black. Here I try to use 3 colors, grey, orange and apricot, not always possible as you can see!
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This cute little Chinese doll in kimono has always been on the shelf in my bedroom since I was a child. Drawing it was the best way to try out my new Posca pens. I choose some matching colors and here we are, a new page in my sketchbook!
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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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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
