Goslar, Münzstrasse

Business trip to Goslar, Germany.
We had a nice hotel in the centre of the town, so just before breakfast I was able to go out and make this sketch. Sketchbook A4.
Took me a little more than half an hour.
It's a passage on the Münzstrasse.
On the other side of the street there was a kindergarten, I was nice seeing parents bring their kids all the time that I was sketching.

No right turn: chapter 6

As you may remember, we are still working on that collaborative comic: "No right turn".
We got as far as chapter 6. It's a story about a detective (Sharkeye), the Cops, a little Chinaman called "Chen" and a Russian Mobster called Boris. And they are all running after a golden box and its key.
Contribution in this chapter: Jane Perreira (South Africa), Eric Brandsma (Netherlands), Wes Douglas (Chicago), Roger Klaassen (Netherlands) and Nik Ira (New York).
The story is by me.
On Issuu the story so far (50 pages already!)  https://issuu.com/norightturn/docs/no_right_turn_20170425

Amputation

A little more tha a week ago Mila, our young black cat, came home with an injured paw.
A severe wound up to the bone. It was already infected, and the Vet gave her a week of antibiotics.
It didn't work, the infection spread, so he was forced to amputate the toe of her back foot.
She is recovering slowly, even though she is as naughty as ever.

Boris talks

The comic No left turn is proceeding slowly. we arrived at chapter 7, the final one (except for a short epilogue).
I made the first panel of the chapter, where the intricate lines woven in the story are bound together.
In movies this is the time where the villain explains to his victims what is going on, and why he did what he did.
In reality a serious villain would shoot the victim and talk later.....
In contrast to a movie that is a difficult task for a comic: you have large amount of texts, so you need a strong image to bind them together.
I started with setting the text on the page, then found that the page had to be black, and figured I only wanted to show Boris.
And yes, Frank Miller was a huge inspiration for this one.

Culemborg a/d Lek

Time for experiments again. I made the below sketch very quickly, grey fountain pen and pentel bruspen, washed out. 10 minutes max, just for composition reasons.
Then I took a self sharpened bamboo stick with pure chinese ink, and made the drawing in my large watercolour sketchbook. It did not go smoothly, either the ink blotted, or it was too light grey. To much distance between deep black and grey tones. Something to figure out.
Then I added the negative space with a wash of sepia acrylic ink.
I am pleased with the result, but there is stil room for improvement.

Boats in the rain

After the founding of theUSK-nl association we all went to town to sketch. Culemborg is a nice old Dutch town.
But the weather was horrible, torrential rain. So we found a restaurant with a huge covered veranda, and a fantastic view over the river "Lek" and a harbour for pleasure boats.
I made this while sipping on a good Triple Affligem (Belgian Beer). And good company. :)

Stichting Urban Sketchers Netherlands

Yesterday the Association "Stichting Urban Sketchers Netherlands" was officially founded. After 5 years of ever expanding activities, we needed a legal base. It is difficult to organize activities with over 70 persons without contacting municipalities as a formal entity. The same for sponsors, donations etc.
Even more, we as a group would like to organize a symposium in the Netherlands or Belgium somewhere in the coming years, so we need a legal base to do that.
The board consist of 5 persons: Ruud Otten as chairman, myself as secretary, Roger Klaassen Financial, and Wiltfried Pathuis and Gail Anne Howard as other boardmembers.
In good USK fashion I made this sketch during the "reading ceremony", where the notary goes through the regulations and explains them.

Alfa Romeo Montreal

We had a birthday dinner in Geleen, but I was half an hour early. There was an Alfa Romeo cardealer (Coumans Geleen) across the parking lot, with this beautiful 1971 Montreal in the shopwindow.
One of the most beautiful cars ever made.
I even chatted with the dealer himself, always nice to talk to enthusiastic owners.
I only had my 20x13cm sketchbook at hand, I had to draw across the spine.