Hanze Art

For the Summer, a number of drawing by me will be on display at the railway station of Deventer, situated in the east of The Netherlands. Many thanks to my friend Marcel Herms and Petrichor editors for inviting me to join this very cool project commemorating the city's historical past and its part in the Hansa union (a distant predecessor to the EU, one could say)
 

Falling (2)

A sketch for a painting. I am thinking of a long banner-like format. With Rogier Van der Weijden and Dieric Bouts in mind, i wanted to make some kind of statement on the precariat.

A patchwork of mini paintings

 Some more snippets of my research on Hieronymus Bosch. This print of The Last Judgement by Allart Duhameel was likely done after a model by Bosch. Duhameel was working as an architect as well as an engraver. The two men must have been good friends, as they have borrowed elements of each others' work.

But my point here is not to prove that they have done so, but that Bosch's paintings were often like a patchwork of mini paintings and that this was common practice around 1500 AD. In this print, i found a detail that was repeated elsewhere. Somewhat to the right at the foreground, among the many funny-looking monsters, a little guy is leading a parade while making a phallic*) gesture.

The same guy turns up at the feet of Saint Christopher on another print by Duhameel! Without the flag and the dragon's tail, but it's the same character.

It's now easy to imagine Bosch and his family collaborating on their paintings by piecing together several designs and sketches, in stead of the cliche'd situation of the master who designs everything and then leaves the boring bits to be painted by assistants. 

Many elements from The Garden of Earthly Delights look like intials from manuscripts anyway.

One problem i am still left with is how paintings were copied on a different scale. I suspect some sort of pantograph ('tekenaap' in Dutch, or 'drawing monkey') was used, but the official reading is that it was invented roughly a century after Bosch's death.

*) Possibly the sign of Asmodeus, but not sure about that. 

Twin saints

Working again on my book about medieval saints, because it's now possible to do it in full colour. The digital revolution has not been kind in many ways, but one of the nice side-effects is that the difference in price between black & white and full colour was greatly dimished.
This is a random page from a random chapter taken from the book, a six-pager about twin saints Ada and Oda. I am not trying to forge the use of colour in manuscripts, though. (If you want perfect forgeries, Alkbazz is the man to call) The art is just inspired by that particular use of colour contrast.

GULA

Last weekend I was at the comics festival of Lucca in Italy. It was an exhilarating experience! Little did I know it's the third in size in the world. Despite the crowds it has a relaxed and homey atmosphere. The city itself is small and compact and ancient. I would say I prefer it to Angouleme.
Anyway, I had been invited as a part of a Dutch delegation of comic artists, including Sam Peeters, Jeroen Funke, Dace Sietina, Barbara Stok, Tim Enthoven, Milan Hulsing and Bart Nijstad. Our presentation involved some painting action. The theme was the seven deadly sins. I picked gluttony to use it as an excuse to do some more cannibals. Each of us did three paintings in three days (except Barbara who kept a diary in comic form).

I think this one came out the best, with the Romanesque swirls I like.

This autofagic guy is too clumsy to go hunting and it's not getting better.

The big ones eat the small ones. This one was the first I did. It probably shows my rustiness at the time. We were tired from travelling, plus I paint only now and then...
More photos of the festival were made, but they will pop up at some other spot if all works out.

Walking with Death

Hello!
Here's a new illumination I made after a drawing (uh scrapboard, isn't?) by Marcel Ruijters to continue our work which will be first shown here in Forcalquier, south France.
This is a painting on parchment (from goat) with animal glue and handmade colors which are : azurit, minium, cinaber, lead white, red, green & yellow ochre, indigo, carmin, Naples yellow.
It's done following 2 models : an anonymous manuscript from Paris (1410) & Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, both typic gothic style.
I tried to find something between unfinished-like from first manuscript, and perfect volumes in the other one.
Also I don't make gilding, that's quiet unusual for this genre, but not rare. I was much interested in doing this background.
I could have spent more time on it of course, here is 6-8 hours, like I said I'm looking for irregular painting, not too much complete & perfection...
I post 3 pictures to see different steps, going up with colors & finition

At Marcel : hope you like it !!!