Recently I started a little creative project with my friend Hoi-Yin. We will be sending each other illustrated and handlettered pages in handmade envelopes. The plan is to eventually bind the pages into a little book. Here's what I send to her so far...
Next Saturday the Dutch pop choir Madame Jeanette will be performing their yearly concert for friends, family and other groupies. The singing ladies will make a musical journey through time. And I've been asked to design the flyers & admission tickets. How fun :-). Here's what I came up with...
P.S. In case you were wondering: Madame Jeanettes are really hot peppers. Not nearly as hot as the ladies in the choir though ;-).
Judith Herzberg, a Dutch poet and play writer, writes beautiful poems. Here's an illustration I made of one of her writings... Freely translated it says:
You rarely see a bird in the sky change its flight, turn, return.
This blue bird is now flying off to Esther, for whom I especially made this... I'm sure his flight will be safe and without any hesitation.
Recently I've been asked to illustrate a flyer for a pizza session (workshop) for primary school teachers, organized by http://www.scohkenniscentrum.nl/. It was a fun commission! Of course it did make me crave a slice of pizza...
Usually I work quite structured. I'm the list-making-type (including working with categories, an overview on priorities and steps to make to reach a certain goal). I like to make a plan. To put things on paper that are otherwise floating around in my brain. As if, when writing thoughts down, they become manageable. Not that it always helps me out though... But still.
Sometimes however I like doing the complete opposite. I enjoy having no plan at all. I like to just do something and wait and see what happens. It's a bit out of character, and scary too, I think. But that's part of the deal. It's a little adventure on itself...
I notice it often works that way when being creative. You can have something in mind to make (maybe just a vague idea at first). And then gradually while making it, a new idea comes to mind, and the original idea changes. Things are being added, that I probably couldn't have thought of on forehand. It just pops into my mind spontaneously while being in the process... and surprises me.
It happened with this little piece as well. I was only doodling a poppy. No plan. Just a sketch. And then suddenly it felt so alone on the page, and I added the words. And then the words seemed a bit incomplete, and I added green to it. And then there was this space between the flower and the word LIFE. And I added a honeybee. And then this is what came out of it...
I think I should doodle freely more often. It's almost therapeutical for me ;-)
I really like this quote from Martha Graham (1894 - 1991) American modern dancer and choreographer. It's something I have to try to remind myself every day. So I thought: let's write it down in black ink. That might help!
Next I turned my hand lettered version into a chalkboard one... I'm so in love with the chalkboard art look. I especially love the artwork of the talented Dana Tanamachi. Check out her website for endless chalk inspiration!
A former colleague and friend of mine asked me to illustrate this quote for her mother, as the corresponding song has a special meaning for her parents. I do apologize in advance in case this song will now get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, like it did with me. ;-)
While fooling around with white ink, I repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated these wise words by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and polymath...
My dear friend Frederike and her three blond boys are on the move... From now on her boyfriend Stefan's home will be their home too. Yay! She asked me to make them a personal change of address card. What a fun assignment! Here's how it turned out..
My congratulations to Frederike & her four men :)
Front of the house & card
Back of the house & card
I very much enjoy Roald Dahls stories. They're so full of wit and wisdom. And I just love all the gloriumptious, fantastagorically and swizzfigglingly words he invented... like snozzcumber and jumpsquiffling. :-D
Today I illustrated a lovely quote from his last book The Minpins. It's actually one quote, but I made it into a set of two cards.
Here's my humble collection of Roald Dahl books...
I joined a class about Lettering on skillshare... Skillshare is a global community centered around creativity, collaboration and learning by doing. I'm very enthusiastic about this site and what it offers!
For my class project I chose to illustrate words by Anaïs Nin, a famous American writer (1903 – 1977). My initial plan was to vectorize my work in Adobe Illustrator, but since I'm completely new at this, I now decided to use Photoshop for this project... and vectorize a somewhat shorter quote in Illustrator soon ;-).
P.S. I can't decide on which version I should send in as my final work... What do you think?
Today I illustrated this line from the beautiful Song of Good Hope written by Glen Hansard, Irish singer - songwriter and actor.
The Dutch graphic designer & illustrator Cora Verhagen from the lovely Studio Neeltje asked me if she could write a blogpost about my lettering on her blog http://www.alfabetsy.nl/, which is all about typography. What a fun surprise! Thanks for the support Cora. :-)
I just finished working on this quote from one of my favorite movie classics Dead Poets Society...
I like to listen closely to lyrics, enjoy poems and love striking lines in movies. Often I scribble down a quote that sets me thinking, makes me smile or touches me somehow. Here are some I liked from the movie Elizabethtown...
And here it is... my first blog post ever. It feels a bit like starting to write in a brand new notebook! Scary but fun :) On this blog I'm planning to collect and share drawings and hand lettering I make. I hope to gradually develop more and more my own drawing style and built up a portfolio. My Instagram on the other hand will be more like my scrapbook, where I post a mishmash of photos and sketches. So... ok, that's settled then. Here we go! ;)
Below you'll find a set of love-quote-cards I'm working on. And since it's Valentine's day, it seemed time to post a few today. More will follow though. Love quotes are for every day of the year, right?
Happy Valentine's day!
Quote from one of my favourite poems by E.E. Cummings, i carry your heart with me.
Quote from the song Time in a bottle.
Quote from the movie Sweet November
Hand lettered quote from Pride & Prejudice
Quote from the song God only knows from The Beach Boys
Quote from the movie The Bridges of Madison County
Quote from Sam in the movie Love Actually.
