Green Ink

Moved!

2011-05-17T01:33:00.003+02:00

Hey all,
like all the cool kids I'm leaving blogger and moving over to Tumblr, so from now on you can follow me here!

Something new

2011-04-26T00:08:00.005+02:00

Here's something I made as a little distraction from other drawings.

Sketches

2011-04-22T20:48:00.002+02:00

Sometimes when you're working on something you have the misfortune of liking a different sketch than your art directors or editors. Such as this one.
Oh well.

(The challenge is now of course to turn the sketch they like into an illustration you like as well)

Gallery Nucleus

2011-04-22T20:22:00.007+02:00

A couple of months ago Seb Mesnard asked me to contribute to his Edward Scissorhands 20 anniversary blog. I made this piece for it: http://scissorhands20th.blogspot.com/2010/12/kim.html
As well as a blog Seb also organised an exhibition with the fine folks at Gallery Nucleus, who in 2009 also hosted the Where the Wild Things are exhibition based on Cory Godbey's blog: Terrible Yellow Eyes.
For the show I made a slightly altered version of my piece. (I printed it out without some of the snow and then painted it in again).
You can see that here, along with all the other fantastic pieces. http://www.gallerynucleus.com/gallery/exhibition/292

And recently I was asked by them to provide some work for their online exhibition Power in Numbers. I made these two pieces, and there are two others in the works!

And I'm happy to report all of those pieces are sold too!

Poetry parade

2011-04-16T10:01:00.005+02:00

Last night I finished four illustrations for the new Querido childrens poetry anthology. This is the third year I've participated on these wonderful books. Editing and art direction as always by the inestimable Ted van Lieshout.

I can't the show the complete illustrations until the book comes out in the summer, but here's a sneak peek.

2011-04-07T04:13:00.004+02:00

Here's part of something I've been working on the past few days. Unfortunately I've kind of hit a wall with it. Frankly, it's a big mess, so I'm shelving it for the moment while I work on some commissioned (and paid!) work. Hopefully I can have this finished before autumn:)

Stumptown Cartoonist Show card

2011-04-07T04:01:00.001+02:00

Stumptown Cartoonist Show card, originally uploaded by Studio JFISH.

Hey, I have a couple of pieces in this show! So if you're in the neighbourhood do stop by to take a peek.

Prints for sale!

2011-03-11T02:30:00.007+01:00

Hey everyone, this has been a long time in the coming, but if you ever wanted to have a print of one my drawings for yourself, you can now get them from here: http://www.society6.com/studio/greenink/store They're totally not expensive, and this week the shipping on the smallest two sizes is free.
And if you do, you'll be helping me pay the rent!

I posted the drawing above before, but here's a cleaned up version.

In unrelated news, I've started a tumblr to collect interesting and inspiring pictures I find online: http://groeneinkt.tumblr.com/

New Orleans

2011-01-11T06:59:00.006+01:00

As I've recently mentioned I moved to the United States a while ago, and not long after my arrival I married my fiancee. Then I got very sick and had to go the hospital for a week and about two weeks after that we went on our honeymoon. First we went to Pennsylvania to visit my wife's family and afterwards we went to New Orleans. Now I thought rural Pennsylvania was quite lovely, but New Orleans has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the US, if not the most beautiful.
So here are some sketches I did while there.

Kim

2011-01-08T02:34:00.001+01:00

Here's a piece I did for Seb Mesnard's Edward Scissorhands tribute blog: scissorhands20th.blogspot.com/ (Hard to believe that film is already 20 years old!)

The Stockholm Subway

2011-01-08T02:28:00.003+01:00

I completely forgot about this! This is a drawing I made last summer for singer Bram de Wijs. It's an illustration for his album Blah Blah Blah Yeah Yeah Yeah.

Seeing as how I've wanted to make some artwork for a cd for a long time I leapt at the opportunity.
It was rather fun to make something that didn't need to correspond strictly to the text or be suitable for young children.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-22T07:29:00.003+01:00

Is what terrorists say; Merry Christmas from me!

A night among polar bears

2010-12-16T03:54:00.005+01:00

As previously mentioned here are some of the illustrations for the last book I did for the striped books series. As the series progresses along with the readers this book was for kids of about ten. So the story is slightly more mature than the one I did last year. Instead of a guinea pig saving some kidnapped kids this one is about an Inuit boy who winds up marooned for a night on an iceberg where he's forced to shoot a mother polar bear (!).

New book!

2010-12-15T06:31:00.006+01:00

This arrived today, all the way from the Netherlands. It's the last striped book I illustrated. In fact I only completed it late october, I was rather later than I should have been because I was trying to finish another assignment and then I was very busy because I moved to the United States in october as well.
Then I was late another week because I had to spend a week in the hospital. It was rather a nuisance. But despite not having eaten for days and with numerous tubes going in and coming out of me I managed to finish it.

I'll do a blog post tomorrow about the actual illustrations.

From the archives again.

2010-12-15T05:29:00.005+01:00

Just a fat pinguin I did for my friend Marije's site Dikkepinguin.nl

From the archives

2010-12-15T04:03:00.005+01:00

And by archives I mean giant pile of paper sitting in an old suitcase of course.
This is a drawing I made for an illustration I never finished a couple of years ago. It was for a news paper in the Netherlands. They were doing a weekly feature on their children's page where they had an illustrator making pictures for poems. I was actually the first to do it, and it was quite a fun job.
This one however got the better of me, I couldn't get the colours to work and a day before the deadline I had a different idea that worked out much better than my initial drawing ever would have.
This is one that was published.

Boekie boekie -Catching up part 7 (!)

2010-12-10T08:35:00.009+01:00

Here's an illustration I did over the summer for Boekie boekie magazine. It's for a story by Anna Woltz called The secret of the Ice cellar. It was part of Boekie boekie's special 'Castle Groeneveld' number. Everything in it had something to do with the castle.
Like this comic by Jeroen Funke from Lamelos: http://www.lamelos.nl/weblog/2010/12/09/victor-vishnu-en-het-spookkasteel-huuuuu/

This drawing was quite a pain. I never got the foliage to look right (it still isn't quite what it should be), and it turned out my screen wasn't calibrated properly so it took forever to get the colours and the contrasts looking acceptable.
Then they told me that the size wasn't entirely right and I needed to shift everything around.
By the time I was finished I could have illustrated a small book. Twice.

As you can see the top version looks somewhat different from the one below. These two are still the original versions, before the size had to be altered. But between the messing with contrast and colour profiles, I really lost track of which version I prefer.
Probably it's the one that's inside my head and which the ones on my screen will never quite match.

My name is Hare - Catching up part 6

2010-12-08T07:37:00.005+01:00

I drew the brush, the paint can and the daubs of paint here. Oh my!

Over the summer and start of this autumn I worked as assistant illustrator on a computer game for children. Something I'd never done before.
The game was called Mijn naam is Haas (My name is Hare). There were already several games about Haas on the market, all of them about an inquisitive Hare and his animal friends. They're designed to help young children increase their vocabularies, and they were making a new game.

I was asked because of the similarity between my work and that of their original illustrator: Wouter Tulp. He had already designed the characters, defined the style for the most part and loads of objects used in the game. However he wanted to devote more time to other projects, so I was asked to take over some of his duties.
And since this was something I'd never done before I thought it might be worth a try.

I worked three days a week in Amsterdam at the studio, where I had the pleasure of seeing my drawings immediately handed over to the animators who set to work on getting it in motion.
In the three months I worked there I drew an incredible amount of things, some of them trivial, but most of them rather fun. I've always enjoyed drawing plants, and that was a large part of what I got to do.
In the game the player gets to shape the landscape the story is taking place in, so many objects and props were required for that. Under the guidance of the Art director Daan Velsink I set to work on those.
Below is a large collection of those things.

As much as this was a job of subsuming my ego and adapting my style and work to the requirements of the game, it was made more than worth it by the pleasure of working with a group of wonderful and dedicated people and of course by seeing my own drawings come to life in the actual game!

ps. Needless to say the copyright of this lies firmly with me and Mijn naam is Haas.

The Little Leaf ~ Catching up part 5

2010-12-02T07:05:00.008+01:00

These are some of the illustrations for a new book in the 'Little Striped Book' series. As opposed to the books I've previously illustrated in the series, which were for kids who were starting to learn to read, this one was for (even) younger children. So I had to adopt a style that was suitable for that. I'm not sure I really changed that much, the requirements of the story put these illustrations firmly in a child friendly-zone, what with the talking leafs and all.

To make up for it I promise that the illustrations I did for the next striped book are appropriately more butch and gruesome. But seeing as how I finished the last book in april and it didn't come out until just now, I won't be able to show much for a while at least.

As always you can purchase the Little Striped Books from their site: www.degestreepteboekjes.nl

bits of 8 bit

2010-11-30T23:58:00.006+01:00

A while ago I got a rather fun request, Diego Garcia wanted to redraw one of the monsters I sketched for my last contribution to Picturebook report.
Now I can't find that drawing at this point, it's out there somewhere on the internet. But you can see Diego's work here: http://radstronomical.blogspot.com/, and here: http://themoviethegame.blogspot.com/
and here: http://drawedgoods.tumblr.com/
(along with doodles by such talented folk as Jordie Bellaire and Reed Bond).
It was there that he drew this: http://drawedgoods.tumblr.com/post/1718569194/borlo-is-a-halfling-ranger-twang-twang-arrows-b
And I thought it might be fun if I in turn were to redraw that.
So here we are, that's my roundabout way of explaining this post.

EDIT - here's Diego's version of my doodle.

Boekie boekie diary continued ~ catching up part 4

2010-11-29T03:26:00.013+01:00

As promised, here's the back cover illustration for the Dutch children's literary magazine Boekie boekie date planner/diary for 2011.

Here are some of the sketches I made for the front cover.

Fox and Hare ~ Catching up part 3

2010-11-29T03:23:00.001+01:00

Fox and Hare, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

This is more work for the boekie boekie diary. These were drawings that you can cut out and then use to create a little diorama. There were more characters, so you can also use them to make your own little puppet theatre of sorts.

The Neverending Story sketches or: Catching up part 2

2010-11-29T02:14:00.006+01:00

These have been up on picturebookreport.com for a while, but this was my last contribution there. Since then I've been frantically busy, hopefully I'll have some time in the near future to finish my next drawing.

Querido poems ~ or: Catching up (part 1!)

2010-11-28T04:34:00.010+01:00

Okay so this has been a while. But then I've been rather busy. More on that later.
But here are the illustrations I made for a poetry anthology for children published by Querido. It's the follow up to the anthology I contributed to last year. That one is actually in reprint, since it did very well and won a small award.

Also check out some of the illustrations my friend Pyhai made for the book as well: http://snagt.net/childrens/illustration/nacht/

Oh and you can buy it here! http://www.queridokinderenjeugdboeken.nl/web/Boek-5.htm?dbid=29008&typeofpage=134707

The Three Gates

2010-07-31T14:44:00.002+02:00

New post on www.picturebookreport.com !

Boekie Boekie diary

2010-06-20T22:27:00.003+02:00

More about this soon!

The Neverending Story, part II

2010-06-17T14:04:00.005+02:00

After their meeting in the forest the will o’ the wisp, the rock biter and the other creatures resume their journey to the Ivory tower. Where they find countless other beings from every corner of Fantastica. Everywhere the Nothing is consuming the land, and ominously the childlike empress herself has fallen ill.

She has chosen a champion to find a cure for herself and Fantastica, someone who will have to undertake the Great searching. She has given him her sign, a golden necklace of two snakes biting each other’s tails, called AURYN.
The hero she has chosen is the boy Atreyu.

So here we have Atreyu on his little horse Artax. He’s still at the beginning of his quest and he’s now reached the glass towers of Eribo. I wanted to show something of Fantastica before the Nothing swallows all of it. Though the little creatures in the bottom left have been displaced by it already.

As you can see I’ve decided on a slightly different style after the somewhat improvised drawing last month. The colours I’ve chosen are the colours the book is printed in: red and blue.
So I’ve changed the first one accordingly, I hope you still like it.

2010-06-02T12:08:00.003+02:00

Something I made for my grandmother who turned 92(!) last week.

Yokai Party

2010-05-27T23:10:00.005+02:00

Recently I made this drawing for the Fieperdepiep magazine, who I have to thank for giving me almost complete carte blanche. Which basically is illustrator's dream, isn't it? I had been wanting to draw some Japanese fairy tale monsters for ages, so of course this assignment was a real gift. I went through whole lists of descriptions and pictures of traditional creatures from Japanese folklore, and later had a lot of fun with putting them all in there.

I was also hugely pleased to find out there's a very old tradition in Japanese art of depicting monsters' parades, called Hyakki Yako. So what I made is essentially a continuing of that.

Here's a version of the drawing with every creature named and numbered.

If you live in Holland you can pick up the Fieperdepiep magazine at any good bookstore or well stocked Albert Heijn supermarket for 5 euro.
Otherwise you may also purchase it from the Fiep Westendorp webshop.

Once I have a webshop myself prints of this one will of course be available. And as S. Britt suggested perhaps jigsaws as well!

Finally, here's a somewhat embiggened version for your perusal.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1170/4622341489_fc6593a22f_o.jpg

Picture book report, part 1

2010-05-27T22:54:00.003+02:00

This is my first illustration for The Neverending story. I posted it last week on picture book report, and I'm just going to quite myself for a bit.

The Neverending Story starts with the theft of the book named The Neverending Story by Bastian Balthazar Bux; a fat little boy who was hiding in an antique bookstore from the bullies that chased him home every day. Finding himself fascinated by an old leatherbound book with two serpents entwined on the cover he surprises himself by putting it in his schoolbag when the store’s owner, mr. Koreander isn’t looking.
Realising he is now a thief, he decides he can never go home anymore and hides himself in his school’s giant disused attic. He puts an old musty blanket over his shoulders and starts to read the mysterious book.

Which whisks him away to the land of Fantastica, where a Will o’the Wisp named Blubb is making his way through the vast Howling Forest to the Ivory Tower of the Childlike Empress. In the woods he meets a Rock biter: a giant whose kind eat nothing but stone, a night hob and a tiny. All three have come from different regions of Fantastica with the same mission, to tell the Queen about the Nothing that is eating away at their land, and to ask for help.

Sitting in the forest they share stories of how the Nothing suddenly appeared. Where once there were lakes, trees and hills, there is now absolutely nothing. The eye can’t even see it. Scariest of all is that those who come close to these areas find themselves irrevocably drawn to the Nothing, coming closer and closer until they are swallowed by it.

At first I had meant to make a fully coloured drawing, but obviously that didn't happen. I'll post more about the whole process later. In the meantime I'm looking forward to tackling the next drawing soon.

New Book!

2010-05-15T09:04:00.005+02:00

These past months have probably been the busiest time I've ever had. But this week I wrapped up work on my current assignments, though the picturebook I'm making is currently sort of on hold.
But I did finish the illustrations for another book this week. It's for the striped books, the series of children's books I've previously illustrated two other books for.

Unfortunately as is usually the case, I can't show you everything I've done yet. I don't know when the book will come out, and the other stuff I've done will have to wait for the summer.
But here's a tiny preview from the striped book. It was the first time I've had to draw for a book for toddlers. Which was somewhat of a challenge.

Still I'm looking forward to the moment where I can show you what I've made, I think some of the pictures for this book are among the best work I've done.

Before I forget, next week I'll be posting my first illustration for Picture Book Report!

Querido poems

2010-05-10T16:26:00.003+02:00

Like last year, I was asked to make some illustrations for the children's poetry anthology published by Querido. Here's one of them.

Also take a look at what Sebastiaan and Pyhai made, so you know you have to buy this volume when it comes out later this year!

Sneak Peeks

2010-05-01T19:11:00.008+02:00

Here are some parts of things I've been working on that can't really be revealed yet. Well, not entirely.

Stone Giants, Will o' the wisps, Minusculi and Night Alfs

2010-04-30T23:36:00.007+02:00

Here are some doodles for the first characters in Fantasia. After Bastian steals the book from mr. Koreander he reads about the meeting of these creatures in the forest. They're all on their way to the Ivory tower to tell the Childlike Empress about the Nothing.
I have a pretty clear idea about the first illustration I'm going to make (the wednesday in the third week of may), but I blame Sam Bosma for making me want to sketch more. He puts so much effort into development, I was actually convinced it might be a good idea to not go with my first gut feeling.
Oh well, I can't say it wasn't a good idea.
So blame might have been a bad choice of words.

Stone Giants, Will o' the wisps, Minusculi and Night Alfs.

2010-04-30T23:36:00.000+02:00

Yokai party

2010-04-28T18:30:00.004+02:00

This is a part out of a quite larger drawing made for the Fieperdepiep magazine.
This one took rather a lot of time to make, though I have to say it was educational. Fortunately I had been wanting to make a drawing with japanese monsters for ages, so it was loads of fun to do as well.

I'll post the entire drawing when the magazine comes out.

A Picture book report

2010-04-27T11:07:00.006+02:00

Finally after a grueling ten days or so I can make this announcement. Starting next month I'll be illustrating The Never ending Story, one of my absolute favourite books, over on www.picturebookreport.com.
This wonderful project was started by Meg Hunt an illustrator in Arizona with a veritable slew of talented people, like Sam Bosma, Laura Park
, Israel Sanchez, Kali Ciesemier, all illustrating one of their favourite books. Unfortunately S. Britt, one of the participators, had to step down, because he wanted to pursue a personal project full time. A great shame as his work so far has been stellar.
But at least this means we'll probably get something even more fantastic from him.

However he asked me to take over his spot on the site, something I was of course keen to do. Who doesn't want a chance to illustrate any book of their choosing simply for the joy of it?
Naturally, choosing which book to illustrate was very hard. There are just so many that I can think of images for, or at which I would leap at the chance to do something with them. The Wind in the Willows, Ronia the Robber's daughter, Gormenghast, The Black Cauldron, De brief voor de koning, Erik of het Klein insecten boek, The Brothers
Lionheart, suffice it to say it was a long list.
But when I thought of The Never ending Story it seemed almost obvious. It hasn't really been illustrated before, so apart from an atrocious film from the eighties, there were no previous visuals to go up against.
The Wind in the Willows has E.H. Shepard already, that's a comparison I don't feel I would come out looking very good.

Now of course I have to come up with an actual approach for the whole thing. I decided to step into this because I had been looking for some personal project to sink my teeth in while in between commissioned work. I've also been wanting the push myself in some new directions, as I feel that lately my work has been going a little stale. Or rather my development had stagnated a bit. I've never been busier the past month. I've learned a lot and gained new confidence in what I make, but it had been at the cost of doing new things a bit. So this is something I'm looking forward to a lot,
and I'm very grateful for S. and Meg for giving me the opportunity.

In other news, there's lots of new work I'll be posting soon and in a few months I hope to be moving to Oregon so I can be with my fiancee, though that won't happen untill the fall.

Top of the morning to you!

2010-03-08T13:58:00.000+01:00

Jan Jans en de kinderen

2010-03-08T13:52:00.002+01:00

Jan Jans en de kinderen, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

This is a comic I made for a tribute book for Jan Kruis, a Dutch comic book artist who is famous for his series of weekly comic strips Jan, Jans en de Kinderen.

He recently received the Marten Toonder award for his work.
I, along with a slew of other illustrators and comic book artists, redrew one of his comics for a tribute book that was presented to him as well.

For more information on Jan Kruis look here: lambiek.net/artists/k/kruis.htm

2010-02-20T13:17:00.003+01:00

You should watch this, it's the best. (the good part starts around 30 seconds in)

2010-02-20T12:46:00.007+01:00

Higglety Pigglety Pop

2010-02-20T12:46:00.004+01:00

Here is a preview of the stop motion/puppet film of Maurice Sendak's Higglety Pigglety Pop or there must be more to life. One of his best books about the terrier Jenny and her search for finding some meaning in her life beyond getting everything that she wants. It's going to be included on the dvd of Where the Wild Things are, as Spike Jonze produced it. It was directed by the Canadian duo Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.
They also made Madame Tutli-Putli, an amazing animated film you can see here.

More information than you require

2010-02-20T12:37:00.005+01:00

This is a moleman as described by John Hodgman in More information than you require.
Here is Hodgman interviewed at brief length about his subject of study.

That is all.

Doodles

2010-01-29T20:55:00.002+01:00

2010-01-28T19:56:00.001+01:00

24 hour comic day

2010-01-26T20:07:00.006+01:00

Continuing with the unearthing of things made a some time ago, these are some pages from the 24 hour comic I drew last october.
I had never participated before, in 2008 the organisers here at the comic book museum in Groningen couldn't get enough participants so they canceled it. But last year they found just enough people.

It was a rather odd experience, as much as I spend my days drawing and doodling, I can usually take a break, or go to bed.
But forcing yourself to just buckle down and start drawing and not stop until you've done 24 pages is something quite different.
In the end I'm glad I did it, it's nice as a sort of test, though I'm not sure I'd do it more often. I think I prefer some more time to think about what I want to draw. As a result I don't think my comic stands up as a whole, but there are some nice enough drawings in it.

Oh and I was done in 17 hours.

oh and happy new year.

2010-01-25T20:48:00.004+01:00

While cleaning up and doing a lot of tidying I found this drawing which I'd never posted. It's from 2008,
and I always intended to add some digital elements, but never managed to finish it to my liking.
But seeing it again I think it's nice enough without anything added.

2009-12-28T11:32:00.002+01:00

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

2009-12-24T09:46:00.006+01:00

Now excuse me while I drive everyone crazy with too many Burl Ives christmas songs.

and the winner is...

2009-12-15T11:43:00.005+01:00

Okay, this turned out to be quite a bit more Jon Klassenish (I.e. more blatantly ripped off) than I had intended. But here we go, the five lucky people to receive one of the five Kip en Kuikenshows are:

Jordie
Cory
Samacleod
Leolietje
Katriona

If you send me an email with your adress I will mail the books to you as soon as possible.
It is of course entirely in Dutch, but I hope you will enjoy looking at the pictures.

Thank you all for entering, it's nice to know so many people want free stuff.
I mean of course, it's nice to know that you all like my doodles.

Forest persons

2009-12-08T00:26:00.001+01:00

forestpersons, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

Something I made for my agency's garage sale in Rotterdam. I painted them with gouache on bark, just so you know.

New Book and a giveaway!

2009-12-07T12:24:00.006+01:00

Hey all,
continuing with the catching up, here's another post regarding recent goings on. This saturday while engaged in sawing and hacking wood all day (for the stove) the mailman delivered a box filled with the last book I illustrated.
I made it this summer, well actually it should have been spring, but I was in America getting engaged to someone wonderful and that somewhat lessened my productivity.
But the art director didn't mind my tardiness (so much), and here it finally is.

The book is about a young boy whose mother has won the lottery, so naturally some bad guys decide to dress up as tv-show presenters and kidnap him under the guise of taking him to the studio. It's all very exciting, and the end is happily as happy it can be.
Oh and there's an important part for a guinea pig too.

I was trying out all sorts of new things while making it, which is also why it took so long. I'm not entirely happy with every illustration in it, but there are some pictures in it I'm quite fond of. And I learned a lot while making it.

Now, since I don't exactly need 25 copies of the same book (my bookcases are full enough as it is) I've decided to give away 5 of them.
If you leave a comment here and tell me your favourite book about kidnapped children or boys and pets, I'll pick five winners.

Edit - Alright I'm changing the rules a bit, as I can't actually think of any childrens' books about kidnapped children myself either. So it's just boys and pets.
I know plenty of books about that, so I'm sure you have a favourite one as well.
So I'll pick five people who comment, with a little preference maybe for those who can name a good book about stolen kids.

The deadline is next monday at midnight (14-12 western european time).

I'll announce the winners next week.

Here's what you can win:

Felters!

2009-12-06T17:38:00.011+01:00

While working on the Fiep project (I can't help but calling it that), it was my intention to create some animations. Obviously I never made those, or I'd be crowing it from the roof. With the lack of time I had this year I never got further than some storyboards and a few puppets.
I wanted to make stop motion animations, as those have always been my favourite kind.
Throughout the years I had made puppets, so it seemed a good fit. But my usual way of making puppets was by sewing them or moulding them out of tissue paper, wires and rubber cement. None of which had the desired qualities I wanted.

Which led me to needle felting, with that I could get them exactly as I had in mind.
So I bought some heeps of wool and a couple of needles and got to work.
The animations remain unmade, but the puppets were some of the best fun I had working on the project. So for months I've been needle felting when I get the chance.

I've made some characters for the Fiep project, and some for my friends. Last week my agency had its annual exhibition/garage sale and I felted four puppets for that.
I was smart enough to take pictures of them, as three of them are now gone.

Which I guess means, that I should start making more.

Finally

2009-12-06T17:38:00.010+01:00

A little less than a month ago I finished and presented the project I did for the Fiep Westendorp Foundation, or rather the project the Fiep Westendorp foundation gave me the opportunity to do.
Long time readers of this blog may remember me making reference to having been awarded one of the three Fiep Westendorp stimulation awards in november 2007.
Now two years further down the road the project has been finished.

But those circumstances are of course just the framework. The grant they gave me allowed me to devote my time to working on a project of my own invention. A dream opportunity for any illustrator, so when I heard about it I jumped at it. The only thing was that I had no idea what I wanted to do. The only project I sort of wanted to work on was a picture book about Saint Nicholas, a murderous inn keeper and a boy who was pickled and brined. Not something I felt would have been the most suitable way to obtain the grant.

So over the summer I came up with a project proposal that included my favourite things to make and draw, yet remained vague enough so as not to bog me down to one thing for to years.

The project I proposed was a picture book and a stop motion animation. It was to be a collection of stories about a set of characters. I described it as one half Winnie the Pooh and one half Jan Svankmajer.
Amazingly enough they actually thought this was a good idea, or at least that I showed enough promise to succesfully turn this into something worthwile.

Which meant that I had to actually get to work. And I discovered that making a book when you basically have every option is a lot harder than it seems.
For a year I sketched, doodled and wrote, and collected enough material for probably two books.
I took the stories I liked best and got to work on making the final versions in january this year. My intention was to work on it in the spring so I could devote the summer and autumn to an animated short.

I could have started earlier of course, were it not for two important objections; namely, first I am a procrastinator of enormous prowess, but mostly it took me a long time before I felt I had a good sense of what the project should be.

In the year I had worked on it, I had had a lot more work as an illustrator and consequently developed my work a lot. So my conception of the project had developed along with it. For the better too, as the final result is far better I think than what I had initially in mind.

But in February I had a terrible circumstance happen in my family that swallowed up a lot of time. I was engaged in lots of arrangements that needed to be made and every inclination towards drawing was snuffed out anyway.
So when May came around I found myself going back to America and having to do the illustrations for a childrens' book first.

By the time I was home again and ready to get back to work it was july.
I feel I'm starting to make this sound like a list of excuses, but basically you have my year in a nutshell here: a long series of distractions, some awful, some absolutely wonderful.

For most of the time past couple of months I worked on the book, drawing and redrawing the stories. I found out that I was the hardest client I ever had. Never satisfied and always changing his mind.

Then about a month before the presentation my appendix almost burst and I had to go the hospital for several days. Completely interrupting my schedule.
So the nice brisk stroll towards the finishing line became a last minute dash.

However in the end I managed to finish the project on time and basically the way I wanted it to be (just a shame I had a blackout during my speech).

Now I know, that none of you come to this blog for the text, so here are some of the illustrations for the project. It's called Tales from the Marsh, which is a dull English translation of its Dutch name: Kleine verhalen uit de moeraskoffer.

You can find nearly all the illustrations on my site: www.groeneinkt.nl
(it's gotten a complete redesign).

Confounded evolutionary remnants

2009-10-26T16:16:00.003+01:00

Not much by way of updates lately due to a very uncooperative appendix. I've been in the hospital for a couple of days and the whole recuperating thing is a bit more messy than was expected. So I won't be updating for a while as I've got a very busy schedule until the 13th of november.
After which I'll have plenty of new things to share with you.
Untill then, here are some mushrooms I did not make up.

In other news

2009-10-01T20:51:00.002+02:00

The Terrible Yellow Eyes exhibition at Gallery nucleus is apparently quite a succes. So If you're in the Los Angeles area and haven't seen it, you absolutely must. And If you have 350 dollars to spare, you can still buy my drawing.
Cory Godby did a write up of his adventures visiting the exhibition, you can read about it and see pictures of what must've been a most excellent evening on his blog: http://lightnightrains.blogspot.com/2009/09/terrible-yellow-eyes-show-california.html
(His blog is worth a visit anyway, as he's a great artist and he always has something interesting to say about his process).

More Boekie boekie

2009-10-01T20:44:00.004+02:00

This is an illustration I did for the new Boekie boekie. It's for a story called Love in the Cake, which sounds a lot better in Dutch.
Oh well

(Here's a bigger version)

Needlefelting

2009-10-01T20:31:00.002+02:00

I've always liked making puppets, but have always used rather idiosyncratic materials such as tissuepaper, rubber cement and straw, apart from more normal fare such as fabrics, and while I've usually been fairly succesful. The results were never what you might call very cuddly. But a couple of months ago I discovered needlefelting. For those who don't know, it's a technique whereby you shape a fairly solid mass from wool by repeatedly pricking it with a special needle, creating a shape of felt.
It's a very enjoyable thing to do, I imagine the same way knitting must be. And the results so far have pleased me no end.
Currently I'm working on several puppets which aren't finished yet. But here are a couple of my first critters.

Underground tea and mushroom cakes

2009-10-01T20:26:00.003+02:00

Doodles by the oodles

2009-10-01T20:11:00.011+02:00

More than a month without blogging! Unforgiveable almost,
but one is so busy and one comes down with the flu every now and then too.
But to get things going again, here are some recent doodles and sketches.

(I've been rewatching the old Star Wars movies, hence the ewoks. And one of those litle guys is supposed to be Cat Rackham, one of my favourite webcomics by Steve Wolfhard)

Terrible Yellow Eyes - III

2009-08-20T12:01:00.004+02:00

Hurray!
Cory the enterprising founder of the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog has managed to arrange an exhibition at Gallery Nucleus in California. They're going to be showing a selection of work from the site and mine is among it.
Have a look here: http://www.gallerynucleus.com/gallery/exhibition/214
(the picture above is by Cory, go visit him at www.corygodbey.com)

And now, so that this isn't too dry a post, here's the new trailer for Where The Wild Things Are.

Oh my!

2009-08-18T19:54:00.005+02:00

A while ago I made a drawing inspired by Maurice Sendak's beloved book Where the Wild Things are. That was for the blog Terrible Yellow Eyes. And last week I was inspired to do another. I'd been working on drawings on the computer for days and wanted to take a break and just put some pencil on paper.

Now as you may be aware of Spike Jonze, the director of the brilliant Being John Malkovich, is set to outdo himself with a movie based on the book. As a very wonderful promotion tool he started a blog called We Love You So. It is of course about all things Sendak, but also tons of other interesting stuff. I every now and then take a look there and today I was very much surprised to find my drawing at the top of the page.

I'm very thankful of course, it's not something you expect. You can see it for yourself here: weloveyouso.com

A book with my name in it!

2009-08-14T12:10:00.011+02:00

And the names of lots of other people. I was was asked by Ted van Lieshout, the writer, illustrator and national treasure, to do some illustrations for an anthology of children's poetry he was editing.
I made three in total, you can see them in my portfolio. The one above is my favourite.
The book is available now and you should absolutely go out and get it. If not for me, do it for the poems by Hans Hagen, Linda Vogelesang or Edward van de Vendel. Or for the illustrations by, among others, Gerda Dendooven, Jaap de Vries, Benjamin Leroy, Ingrid Godon, Willem Lagerwaard.
And then there's the cover By Sebastiaan van Doninck.

So, hop to it! Go support the starving illustrators of Holland and Flanders!

Globus Magnificus

2009-08-12T22:38:00.005+02:00

This was going to be a long post about this picture, but blogger ate it. But I did this illustration for Boekie boekie in April and I forgot to post it. I think it's one of my favourites,
though I still don't know about that fist.

Goodness

2009-08-07T21:44:00.003+02:00

Here is a link you must click on: Here
It's the trailer for the new film by Terry Gilliam, which I hope is enough reason for you to go see it immediately.
If not, it's followed by the trailer for Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox.
That's basically my two favourite filmmakers in one go.

This is going to be a good autumn.

Edit Here's the trailer, embedded and all.

Adventures in Boekie boekie land

2009-08-03T23:05:00.007+02:00

This is the third version of an illustration for the cover for the next Boekie boekie. I was approached to do the cover and in my enthusiasm I drew an illustration that would wrap around the front and back.

I based my first version on that sketch, essentially I elaborated on it. The issue was to come out around the time of the national week of children's literature (de kinderboekenweek), the theme of which this year is food. (I have something else coming out around that time which is also all neat and themed) And the Boekie boekie editors said this issue was to be called "Hungry like a wolf". Being a big fan of Red riding hood and wolves in general I was more than happy to do something with that. I have to say though that they always have great stories and ideas to illustrate, so I'm generally very pleased to do something for them.
And I was very content with the way the illustration turned out.

Unfortunately being in Oregon at the time I had forgotten that the back of the last Boekie boekies had been taken up by something which wasn't a cover illustration. So my illustration was to be cut in half: 'or' did I 'want to redo the picture, to make it fit?' So after a load of reshuffling I've now arrived at this new version.
I still like the first version a lot, but I'm pretty chuffed with the new one. It's probably my favourite completely digital thing.
As I was not at home when I made most of it, I lacked a scanner, so going digital was the best option.
Anyway, look for the issue when it comes out in october (I think)

Did I post this already?

2009-07-24T22:22:00.002+02:00

It's the Scone cat (sort of, he's never looked less like that picture these days).

2009-07-17T21:23:00.001+02:00

Boekie Boekie and other projects

2009-07-07T12:26:00.006+02:00

So I've been pretty busy lately, working on a new book for Pica which is finished now, after much scratching of the head and going back and doing things over. More on that will follow when the book will be published, so not for a while.
Meanwhile here are some details of my illustrations for the next Boekie boekie, which I think will come out in the 'kinderboekenweek'.
Also out by then will be a children's poetry anthology, with poems by a great number of Dutch poets and writers and illustrations by a host of illustrators (does anyone know an appropriate collective noun for illustrators? A blotting perhaps, or a scrawl?) All edited by the venerable Ted van Lieshout. I made three illustrations for it, so those will be uploaded at some point as well.

Terrible Yellow Eyes

2009-06-19T17:29:00.007+02:00

Having stayed in the United States for rather a long while, I'm now back in the Netherlands. I had a roaringly good time, and quite a busy one too. In fact things can now be called frantic, but that's beside the point.
Mainly I wanted you all to know that you should go to Terribleyelloweyes.com, a wonderful blog devoted to Maurice Sendak's amazing book Where the Wild Things are (or Max en de Maximonsters for those who know the book by its Dutch title). The talented Cory Godbey has been putting together a collection of pieces from illustrators all inspired by the book, and he was kind enough to let me contribute. It's an amazing site, with work by some very wonderful illustrators.

Some details.

Another idea I had.

The Goat boy is kind of my favourite.

These guys don't really have to do anything with this, but I had fun doodling them.

2009-06-10T07:07:00.007+02:00

2009-06-10T07:07:00.006+02:00

Where man has Oregone before

2009-05-27T19:53:00.002+02:00

Painted Hills, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

I'm in Oregon at the moment, have been for three weeks actually, and will be for another three. Things are grand, I'm very busy with a new book for Pica (and there's no end in sight in terms of illustratin').
The weekends are free for traveling though, two weeks ago we went to the desert and saw the painted hills.
Go to the Flickr for more pictures.

(and from the title of this post I guess you can deduce what film I saw last)

Moss man

2009-05-27T19:46:00.001+02:00

P1070259, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

This almost looks like something I would draw.

Boekie Boekie - Morning walk

2009-04-22T11:27:00.003+02:00

My illustration for the new Boekie boekie magazine. My inspiration for this one was Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi, who is simply brilliant. (I should be ashamed for even mentioning his name)

A pack of ghost wolves is gonna hunt you down

2009-04-06T23:50:00.005+02:00

For the non altered version see here: http://twitpic.com/2xijb

Brace and buoy the livingroom

2009-04-03T13:41:00.003+02:00

Just an idea

2009-03-26T16:18:00.002+01:00

Catching up - part 2

2009-03-25T23:55:00.008+01:00

These came a while ago, it's the book I illustrated last year.
You can see the first few pages here
Sadly you can't get the book in stores, as it's part of a series distributed to schools and such. But you can order it here) from the publisher's site.

(So much for this being an ad-free site)

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-03-25T22:21:00.005+01:00

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is one of the books that made me choose to become an illustrator. Most people here know it as Max en de Maximonsters, a far worse title than the original, but ...oh well.
At any rate, after a really very long time the 1st trailer of the film-adaptation was released today.
And before you say; 'really? Do they have to ruin every book with another stupid movie?',
Sendak personally reserved the rights to approve the director. And so the film fell in the hands of Spike Jonze, who you should know as the director of Being John Malkovich.
So, now that you are properly prepared,
here you go:

I can't wait!

Edit - There's an annoying commercial attached to the video. I'll replace the video as soon as I find a different one to embed.

back home - Catching up part 1

2009-03-20T00:00:00.004+01:00

Today I came home with lots of things. Most of them came from my father's house,
but some of it was mine before. Namely a bunch of prints and drawings from the Zone5300 exhibition in november.
And here's something I never had the chance to put up here. They're leaves I found last autumn.

The place where ducks walk on fish

2009-03-11T23:43:00.005+01:00

I made this recently, it's inspired by a unique occurence near the village of Linesville Pennsylvania. It's gotten me thinking about doing a series of pictures about roadside attractions.

2009-03-10T19:25:00.005+01:00

sweets

2009-03-09T01:38:00.001+01:00

sweets, originally uploaded by groene_inkt.

I think I like looking at sweets more than actually eating them.
This has been a blog-entry to see if blogger is still being weird (the technical term).

Green Snagt

2009-03-09T01:30:00.005+01:00

Drawing made with Pyhai (Who has a new site!)
This was a lot of fun to do, mostly because it didn't involve sitting behind the computer.

pssst

2009-03-09T01:24:00.007+01:00

You didn't see this, alright?

The hardest illustration ever

2009-03-08T21:32:00.010+01:00

Okay, that title is a bit of an exaggeration, but I don't think I've ever tried so many different approaches to one picture before. It's for one of the stories for the Fiep-project.
Because of last month's tumultuous events I had to take break from working on it, but yesterday I finally finished the final version (I wonder if I can use the word final in more ways in this sentence).
Originally I wanted to make a drawing with ink and brush, but nothing I made came close to the mood I wanted. So after trying about half a dozen different approaches I came up with something altogether different. But something I'm quite pleased with.

3... 2... 1...

2009-03-02T14:37:00.004+01:00

And we're back.
For the moment. Things have been blisteringly busy, and for the most part not for the best of reasons. But here's part of an illustration I worked on till the dead of night to meet its deadline. Though I didn't mind, it's one I'm quite pleased with. It's going to appear in the next Boekie boekie and it's big!

Now, to do some sketches for another little job. (I'm so happy to be drawing again)

At this time we are unable to

2009-02-20T11:45:00.002+01:00

Blog properly. Things are rather busy and blogging is a bit of a luxury. You may however find me on Twitter. There are drawings there too.
So follow me here: http://twitter.com/Groeneinkt

Digging things up

2009-01-30T14:46:00.003+01:00

I'm redesigning and updating my site at the moment. While working on the portfolio pages I noticed this picture wasn't really to my liking. So I tweaked it a bit.
It's from a comic I never finished,
...nor ever will probably.

(yeah I know: lazy)

half a sketch

2009-01-29T17:27:00.004+01:00

Something I'm working on, which you won't get to see yet.

Meet Maximilian von Nibelheim

2009-01-04T20:09:00.003+01:00

What do you think, too Tim Burtony?

Unfinished projects

2009-01-04T17:38:00.006+01:00

As a kind of end of the year 'what am I actually doing?' activity I made a little list of the things I'm working on at the moment, things I have been working on and things I will be working on.

Some of those things I've posted here before. One of them I won't blog about until it's a little more certain that it will get finished and a few are still very much up in the air.
Two of those things are two comics I conceived. One a story inspired by a Beirut song. And a story I came up with for 24 hour comic day. Unfortunately that event was canceled here in Groningen.
But it's definitely a comic I feel I should do.

And finally there's the Fiep Westendorp project. that's going well. The book will probably be finished this spring.
Here's a taste.

2008-12-23T17:14:00.002+01:00

Big Doodle Bang

2008-12-22T21:04:00.006+01:00

A Recipe

2008-12-22T17:30:00.003+01:00

For the accompanying article head over to Green to the Last Bite.

2008-12-22T00:07:00.001+01:00

Coraline

2008-12-19T11:23:00.004+01:00

You know a film is going to be good, when they have this among their promotion material.

For more: http://coraline.com/

Nicholas Nickleby

2008-12-15T10:38:00.003+01:00

Watched the film version of it yesterday. Very Grand Guignol, great fun.

For Opera lovers and trekkies?

2008-12-03T14:18:00.001+01:00

This is too curious not to embed.