Streetview

This weekend we were visiting friends. They have bought a new house (almost two years ago)and finally our diaries matched to see eachother. My friend is captain on the 'Stad Amsterdam', a big ship which is making a world trip right now. The ship has two captain's and every eight weeks they switch, so they can have a sort of familylife with their wife and children. Althought a sailor don't want to stay to long between four walls.
Anyway, as usual it's very hard to think of something original to give as a present for people who moved to a new home. This time I thought it would be nice to make a drawing, frame it and give it as a present. First I wanted to make a drawing of my friend's old town, or ship, but than I thought of Google Streetview. I found out that there were pictures of their little town available on internet. Sadly enough Google didn't have pictures of their street, so I couldn't make a drawing of their new house. But from the other side of the water which flows through their town, Google Streetview had made pictures. I took the angle shown below, although I didn't exactly known which house was theirs. Of course I didn't make a phonecall to check that out.

When we arrived at their place, I suddenly saw that their new home isn't visible from this angle, because of the tree in the foreground, so I didn't draw their house...

Luckily enough they liked the drawing very much and especially the story behind the 'making of'. They had not heard of Google Streetview untill yesterday, but were very surprised and interested in this new tool on the internet.

The Scale Of Things

Most older buildings and houses are much more fun to draw than newer ones. Perhaps because the scale of older buildings are mostly more 'human'. Except maybe in first sight for religious buildings, like cathedrals, churches and The Haya Sofia. But just look at this monastery in Istria. Although it's much bigger than the houses surrounding it, it still has this human-like proportionary in it's arches and squares. Even the tower don't look disproportional. Not that the builders wanted it that way, but purely because it was than technically impossible to build a bigger tower. Perhaps that's a good thought in these uncertain economical times: keep things in proportion, keep a human pace.

Once there was...

It's a pity that most local authorities think that they're doing a great job. For instance putting a mall on the place where this magical villa was situated in my hometown village.
When I was a young boy, I was very impressed by this place. I still remember what the weather was like the first time I saw this house: after the rain had fall and the sun was peeking through some clouds. I've tried to capture this in the drawing.
I had to make the drawing by photograph, because the place was destroyed soon after I had seen it for the first time. The local authorities replaced it by a big, white, square building. Because the village lacked a supermarket... And in the whole village could no other place be found to build it! Truth is, that this villa was situated next to the townhouse and there was a need for officespace, which -of course- could be build neatly above that supermarket. So the village had it's first, big supermarket and the civil servants didn't have to walk far when they had to be in the townhouse. Make sense, don't you think?

Not The House Of My Father

Another advantage of cleaning up archives, is the joy of finding drawings which were long time forgotten. For instance the drawing I've made of this cottage in the village I was born. I'm not sure in which year I've made this pendrawing, but it must be around 1994, cause it's made with the same sizes and drawingpaper I used for the drawings I made for the exhibition that never took place (read my previous post).
This cottage stands on the corner of the street where my father was born. His elderly house didn't look a bit of what it looked like when my father lived there, so I choose this house as subject of my artistic needs. The house my father lived in was also in use as a bakery and a little shop. My father started his own bakery when he got married and my uncle inherited the bakery my grandfather started. Over the years the building was reshapen to the demands of modern entrepeneurship and architectural ideas of how a bakeryshop should look like. That is: according to my uncle. That didn't turn out to be a pretty sight, as you might expect.
Luckily my father had some very old sketches in his possession, which were made in the 1930's by his old neighbour. Using these sketches and some old black and white photographs, I've made a coloured pendrawing. This drawing still hangs on the wall above my father's organ, back in my parents house.

Black and white with pen and ink

After I'd made several drawings for the local newspaper, the editor-in-chief told me that the readers were very pleased with my drawings. As a result the publisher used them for greeting cards. People could buy them in a set of six different drawings. The editor-in-chief also told me that his brother knew a gallery where they might wanted to have an exhibition with my drawings. Wow, that sounded great!
I was a bit naive and forgot to ask "who, where, when, why?" and started to make several drawings in pen and ink instead. Below you can see what kind of detail I'd put in it. I soon found out it was hard labor to make these kind of drawings. But it was worth it, I thought. And they sure looked better then the drawings I made for the newspaper!

The location is Istria, where I've been in the summer of 1988. It was part of The Republic of Yugoslavia. With very angry-looking soldiers at the border, checking your passport for a very long time without saying a word. It happened to be a nice holiday, though. I've met friendly people, the weather was splendid and the drinks and food were very low priced. At the end I've treated the whole group of about 25 people on the greatest icecream they've ever had. And still had money left!

I've brought my sketchbook with me and with the help of several photographs I could make this drawing back at home.

Of course the exhibition never took place. Due to several problems with local legislations and other very important management and business terms, the gallery never opened and so my drawings ended somewhere in my archive. Until now, because I now can use my blog to share these drawings with you.

Illustration Friday Music

This week's topic on Illustration Friday is 'Music'. When I think of music, two things come up in my mind: The Blues and on the same level of interest: my saxophone.

One drawing doesn't do right to the wonderful looks of a saxophone. There are so many nice cornerings, valves and other parts that, when they work together, makes such a wonderful sound. So I highlighted a few parts of my saxophone.

This is my second Selmer Bundy II tenor. The first one was stolen after burglars had 'visited' my home. It took me a while (12 years) to get over it and buy another one. Now I have a black epoxy, second hand instrument, but it sounds just as great as the first one I had.

Local drawings

The first drawing which was published in the local newspaper was the old painters academy. The building was build in 1500, but the academy was founded in the 18th century. Between these dates there were several changes made to the original design and lay-out of the building.
The academy was founded by the Dutch painters Frans van Mieris and Carel Moor. Nowadays it's still in use by a painting and drawing society, called 'Ars Aemula Naturae'.
Note the amount of bricks I drew on request of the editor-in-chief. I'm still grateful to his contribution to the art of drawing... Not.
The credits for research goes to Henri van Aggelen, a pensionada. He was banker in Switzerland, but after his retirement he finally had time to study the history of normal day life in the city of Leiden, his hometown. He had a particular good sense of spotting human interest facts in the story behind an old building. Much to the delight of the editor-of-chief, although he didn't quite liked Henri's idea of writing some articles about hidden brothels. After all, it was a Sunday's paper and he was a little afraid that this sort of articles might abuse the advertisers.