Ship full of questions

I am still struggling with the sketch of Cornelius Playfull's ship. Somehow I have the feeling that it's not very clear in this stadium on what scale I'm working. I mean: the scale of the ship versus the children. I am not even sure if I'll draw three or five children. I'm always told that 'three is a crowd', but on this ship I get the feeling that five kids makes more 'crowd' than three. But keeping that in mind I don't know yet where I can place five children logically. And what about a shark? Or a treasure? Or an island in the background? Questions, questions, questions.

Illustration Friday - Open

Drawing exercise

"Once upon a time ago" I tried to make a living by drawing. But things went a little different as planned and I had to change course. For years I didn't draw at all, but recently I took up the old pencils and digged up the old sketchbooks. I also bought a teaching book "Capturing Texture by Michael Warr" which I can recommend to anyone who loves drawing and painting.
I wanted to use the book to pick up my old drawing pace, but luckely enough I must say that there's so much coming to me that I hardly find time to work out every idea that's coming up. Of course the internet is nowadays a big source of ideas and drawing techniques. But I must say that an old-fashioned book can be inspiring as well. Not to ignore the fact that pictures look better in print than on the screen of your computer.
The exercise above was about drawing a piece of white paper on a white background with only an HB pencil to be used.

Old sketchbook

Sometimes you need a new sketchbook. The third one this year, already. As I was looking what I've made so far, I came across a sketch I made several months ago. I made this whole scene up. I was curious if I could place some things of personal interests in one drawing. The Citroen DS, a cyclist, a paraglider, all in a typical French countryside setting. Maybe the Alps or Provence, I don't know. I think that the atmosphere of the whole drawing is in this case of more importance than if it's actually an existing location.
Maybe I find in the near future time to work this theme out. I think it has potential. (But without the weed on the second floor of the building)

Christian Michelle

As I told before Madame Michelle runs Hotel Croixville together with her son Christian. I am not exactly sure about his age, but my guess is that he must be at least 55 years of age. It is hard to get any information out of Christian, because he speaks only French and knows only a few German words. The only Dutch word he knows, by the way, is: "geitenkaas".
As far as I concluded out of a brief encounter I had with him in the lobby, Christian was never married. He had once a fiancee, but his mother was not very fond about his choice of heart. She did everything in her power to make the girl realize that there were far more better husbands-to-be than her one and only son Christian. After the death of Christian's father, monsieur Alphonse Michelle, he and his mother had to run the hotel together and Christian never had taken the opportunity to have a go at other girls.
If I understood him correctly there was about twenty years ago a German family staying in the hotel with their daughter. She was celebrating her 30th birthday in the hotel and Christian's eyes lightened up as he told me what happened afterwards that birthdayparty. I couldn't follow it completely, but it had to do something with the showers on the camping. I think.

Work in progress

Yesterdaynight I worked on the sketch of Cornelius Playfulls ship. I added C. himself, but still do not know where to put his friends. On deck, behind the wheel, swimming? There are to many options, I'm afraid. Making an illustration is not just drawing, painting or anything else, but mostly taking decisions what to do or not. Sometimes I find that the most difficult part of an illustration.

Illustration Friday - the Blues

Mondaymorning at the office
That's the real blues
Only several mugs of coffee
Can fade that feeling away.