Illustration Friday - Clumsy

...it mostly happens in the last stage of the drawing.

Agfa ISO-Rapid IF

It is difficult to imagine how pictures were taken in the pre-digital ages. For instance in the early sixties of the last century. The Agfa ISO-Rapid IF had no build-in flash, so when you had to take a picture indoors a flashbulb was needed. One at the time, manually putted in top of the camera and then manually adjust the shuttertime.

After you've taken the picture you didn't know instead everything would look in print as you'd imagined it. Only after developing the film and printing on paper you could see the result. It was better to take two pictures of the same subject, just to be sure. So you had to replace the used flashbulb, threw it away and put another on top of the camera.

Taking pictures then was an expensive hobby. Now I know why my father didn't use that camera very often. It sure helped to keep this camera in the excellent condition it is today, though.

Illustration Friday - Confined

When you want to make an illustration of a subject which is basically black with aluminium parts, you're automatically confined in doing it in black and white.
For instance this camera, which I drew with pen and washed it with black ink.

My First Camera

Things you find when you're cleaning your attic. For instance a box full of old camera's. When I was twelve years old I won my very first camera on a fancy-fair. I still know that I was somewhat suspicious about it, because I didn't expect it to work. After all, it was a price won on a fancy-fair and prices won there didn't had the reputation of being reliable.
It was the Agfa Autostar X-126, a plastic viewfinder camera for 126 (Kodapak) film cartridges. On top you can mount X-flashcubes. I don't know if these are still available, nor do I know what that camera actually costed back in the seventies. Nowadays on internet the asking price is around fifteen dollars.
I made a lot of pictures with it, although I see now on the few photo's I still have in my possession that they were all a bit unsharp. But what could you expect from a give away, eh?

Splashy New Year!

All the best for the year's to come to you and the ones close to you.

Drawings From The Past

This will be the final post with the last four drawings I made back in 1994 for an exhibition which was going to be held, but never took place. In previous posts I've mentioned the reasons why the exhibition never took place. Because this all took place about 15 years ago, memories can be different from what exactly happened and you get curious about what experienced others , but I lost track of the people who were involved with that project, so I can't check the facts.
Anyway, the top drawing was an interpretation of an typical alley in Leiden, influenced by the work the Dutch illustrator Anton Pieck made. Although you might say that didn't work out.
I also tried to make two drawings of buildings in front of water: always a challenge.

A high level of "Addams Family atmosphere" when I look at them now. The building below is an old part of the city wall, build in the 14th century.

And I'm not sure in what era the buildings of this last drawing were build, but it must be about two hundred years ago. I couldn't find any information about this place, mainly because it's in Rabac, an old village in Croatia.

That's the beauty of an archive: you're surprised when you get a glimps of old work and get curious about when, why and how you've made it.

Going To The Chapel

Back in my hometown there still is a monastery. I made this drawing as part of the exhibition that never took place in 1994. I thought it was a nice building to draw, especially because the village was very expending then. Many houses were build and it looked like the public garden surrounding the place had to make place for a new road and parking places. Luckily that plan never worked out.
During my childhood days I remember seeing nuns walking in our village. My father always used to say: "A nun on the square, brings rain in the air". Of course this was a joke, but sometimes he was right and the day after we saw a nun it started to rain!
Years later my father was frequently asked to play the organ in the monastery's chapel, or, as he sometimes called it: "he had to play with the nuns". A bit naughty, my father isn't he? I remember one day, when I was already adolescent, the organ in the chapel was out of order due to maintenance. My father asked me to help bring in a wooden pipe-organ, owned by a fellow organplayer in our village who was willingly enough to lend out his very expensive pipe-organ for free. All for the good cause, of course. His only demand was that the organ was transported by me. Why, I don't know, I guess because I had a big stationcar at that time. Anyway, everything went well, until we had to bring in the organ into the chapel and my hand got stuck between the organ and the posting of the door. Before I knew it I said something very inappropriate at that time and place and I still can remember the look on the face of the nun who was accompanying us. I'm still very sorry, sister.