School of Unusual Children

 

Dance marathon

 

Shoot out action

Somehow, 'tits, fries and shooting' does not have just the right ring to it. English is not always the better option. Anyway, between a good friend and me it refers to the unpretentious action movie genre. 
 

Random page

Like it says on the label: a random post of a random page.

 

Sketchbook time = dream time

A new sketchbook cover. (number 95) Mostly white paint on black canvas, as usual. Based on a very weird find on Pinterest: 

 

Cafe Bipkop 2

 

Streetview

 

Swimming in sketches

 

Hûh? Eh...

Into unknown territory.

 

Richard Gerstl

From my current sketchbook. Probing new ideas for a future story. Perhaps some of them will eventually hatch. Also, a caricature of Richard Gerstl appeared. A tragic Viennese painter who committed suicide after a failed affair with Mathilde Schoenberg, wife of the famous avantgarde composer Arnold Schoenberg (whom he has been giving painting lessons). Good painter, btw, and I feel a little bit guilty of making fun of him.  Interestingly, he had been taught by the very conservative Christian Griepenkerl (a delightful name) who had also been giving Egon Schiele a similarly hard time - and who rejected Adolf Hitler from entering art school. That is three strikes!

 

Sketchbook #90

Started a new sketchbook. Number 90. 'Argh! Just when we were winning!'

 

Hotel Blanc

From my sketchbook. When i was thinking about what to give this post as a title, I thought of the song 'Hotel Blanc' by Edward Ka-Spel, which is one of the most surreal pieces in my collection.
 

Everything Hangs Together - the cover design

The cover design for my upcoming book. Again, it will be in Dutch only (sob). It is sceduled for the spring of 2025. The title translates as Everything Hangs together. The story is quite complex and I won't go deep into that, but basicly it deals with the tension between random chance and interconnectedness. IRL you do not want to accept much of the latter, bc that's paranoid. On the other hand, in narratives, random chance is perceived as weak.

 

Live music in The Golden Glove

Page from my upcoming book. I could not resist the reference to The Golden Glove by Fatih Akin. (If you haven't seen it, it's about the grimiest bar in post-war West-Germany)

 

From sketchbook 89

 

After Tardi, after Frémiet

Emmanuel Frémiet was a sculptor from the 19th century who did work often depicting wild animals. Gorillas were only discovered in 1901. He did one piece which was most likely the direct inspiration for King Kong. Jacques Tardi used it as reference and now I do the same.

 

Tintina remix

Page 4 (out of 4) of my contribution to Tintina and the Bilderberg Shitbox, remixed for a different purpose. It's kind of fun to 'remix' your work like that, as if to leave it to readers to figure out what was the real story and what the fake news. Musicians do it. And painters in the premodern age did it. (causing a major headache for art historians) It is also a theme: often, my characters clash over their worldviews. No-one knows the complete truth. They fall for myths and half-truths. It makes them more human (as bizar they might look). A hero who knows everything and does everything right, is boring anyway.

 

Behold the daughters of the firmament

From my latest sketchbook. Found a chest with Ecoline watercolours again that was gethering dust in a corner. I used to use those in the past. They're too bright to my current taste, but in a sketchbook you don't set any rules for yourself and I kind of like the purple sky that came out of this.

 

Sketchbook 89

The front of sketchbook 89. White ink on black paper.
 

Funshopping

My heroine Pola Kazoni having reached middle age by now, goes funshopping, but how much fun is that really? Background based on a photo of pre-war Rotterdam.