Purpose in Life

I'm a bit busy lately, so I don't have much time for drawing. Alas. This week I was doodling in the little sparetime I have. The guy you see in the sketch came out as a result of that. After I've sketched him I thought: "Hmm, funny dude, but what will he do? What is his purpose in life?" Then I thought that he will be fixing old Citroen 2cv's. After this conclusion the completion of the sketch didn't take much effort anymore: one thing leads to another.

Another Big Drawing

 Last year I made a sort of still life drawing of the brushes I mostly use, in pen and watercolor on postcardformat. It looked very recognizable to me (being my own brushes, of course) and had a certain 'tension' in itself which somehow appealed to me. After some time I wondered how it would look like if I made a big drawing of the same subject. Basically I only had to enlarge the pot in which the brushes are placed in, I thought. So last week I picked up my pencils and pens and started drawing. Below you can see the result, in pen and ink on A4-format.

Now I only have to have the courage to put some colour on it and not spoil the character of the drawing. That's what I'm always afraid of: the moment I pick up the brush to colour a inked drawing. It's some sort of point of no return.

Samba Flute

The samba flute, or: Apito, is the whistle used in samba music and other Brazilian music styles. It is important in organizing and conducting the band. The band leader makes various signals to mark the beginning or end of a specific part of the music and/or movement. Using the two toneholes on each side of the flute the whistler can produce different tones in combination with duration and intensity.
I used to have a samba flute myself when I was once playing keyboard in a band. Only mine was a plastic flute and didn't look as good as the one I've drawn here. I found a picture of this wooden one on the internet and it looked good right away. I don't known if it sounds as good as the plastic one I once had, which sounded loud enough to be heared above the PA, but sometimes you choose for the looks instead of the sound.

Windmills

A windmill is a nice subject to draw. It has an outstanding form which is very recognizable and gives it a presence of it's own. There are several styles to draw a windmill. It can be done in color, as you can see above, or in black and white with pen and ink. This last technique is my favourite, because it pays more respect to the subject in my opinion. Usually forms follow function, but in this case drawing style follows subject.

Both mills are situated in Leiden, a Dutch town. Molen De Put is a re-build mill in the center of the town near the house where Rembrandt was born. The mill is a replica of the one in which Rembrandt´s father worked.

The other mill, drawn in black-and-white, was build in the 18th century and once situated far outside the old towngates to keep the farmland dry. It is still operational, but only for touristic purposes.

Fast Food: Chicken Nuggets

Spareribs

Sometimes you make associations with the most unlikely combination of subjects. For example, I always associate spareribs with "the date that never took place".
In my dating years there were girls I was dying to date with, but they never wanted to date me, and there were girls dying to date me, but I didn't really want to date them. And there was the category of girls which you could date without ever having to fear your friends or parents opinion about your choice. In that last category I was almost ready to cancel a date when suddenly that girl introduced me to a friend of her to participate in a nice friendly night out with some sparerib-eating and later on hanging out in a new club with a somewhat obscure name. That could be interesting!
Sadly enough I developed a terrible cold a few days before the date, so I had to cancel it. Guess what: the girl met the love of her life that night! Poor, lonesome me. So, every time we have spareribs on the menu now it's always a bite with a funny taste.

Joe Cocker

The first time I noticed Joe Cocker was when I heared him sing the openingsentence: "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" from the 1970 Lennon/McCarthy song with that same title.
I found it a very intruiging sentence, mainly because in our elderly home, where I heard that song the first time on my little transistorradio, it would be quite an achievement to come in through our bathroom window. Not much later, reaching my puberty years, I couldn't help imaging what kind of beautiful girls I wished to climb through that same bathroom window. But, of course, that never happened.
Coming of age, Joe Cocker (born in 1944!) still rocks on, although I doubt he will be able to climb through windows nowadays.