Glass postdoc object

I made this glass object for a few collegues of Rianne, the two girls who helped her during the presentation and organisation of the Doctoral presentation.
The themes that show in her thesis are also represented in this glass object (about 25x25 cm large).
That was an easy one for me, as I also made the bookcover itself.
The flowing colours represent the mass of biological data, the form represents a 3 dimensional grid that is the means to visualise and organize the data.

Sharkeye enters the pawnshop

Picking up the collaborative Comic Noir: "No right turn". The last few months I had little time to host it, but I decided to pick it up again. This is a panel where Sharkeye, the private investigator, enters the pawn shop where the femme fatale (Desirée) is held captive. The bad guys (Big Bad Boris and the Ninja Girl) just escaped through the tunnel to the harbour. With the Golden box and the diamond....

Maastricht Grote gracht

A quick sketch of a little house, squeezed in between two higher buildings on the Grote gracht in Maastricht.
Took me about 10 minutes to make.
Last of the drawings of the Urban Sketching meeting on saturday 16th.

Workshop "living lines"

During the Urban Sketching day in Maastricht, I gave a workshop "Living Lines". How to train yourself in making confident linework.

These are the handouts.
I first did some warming up exercises.
Then I had the group experiment in making different types of lines.
My point was, that most sketchers are too busy staring at the subject, that they forget the means that they use.
Good line work, as with good colourwork, will enhance what you are trying to tell.

I had barely time to prepare for the meeting, I sat at a restaurant in a hotel in Rotterdam, and figured out that I had to make some examples.
So I took the subject in front of me: an ugly little Christmas decoration on the table.
I did different techniques:
1: Open linework, cross or break lines.
2: Colour and line independent.
3: Watertight ink: thick/thin lines
4: Non-waterproof ink: allow the water to bleed  the ink.
5: Chinese ink and bamboo pen: the line textured: from black to grey.

Urban Sketchers meeting in Maastricht

Yesterday we (well, mainly Ruud Otten) organized a USK meeting in Maastricht.
70 persons attended. I gave a workshop about making "Living lines". The theme was to make sketchers aware of how they use/draw lines when sketching. By using line properties like strength, thickness, dynamics, crossing, or breaking etc, you can improve your drawing, en enhance the story you want to tell. I had a very good group to work with.
The disadvantage is that you don't get to draw a lot. I could barely finish this little house of a lock, next to the river. And then it started drizzling. I left it that way, sometimes you have to embrace chance.

The group.

Rotterdam Maashaven

Made this drawing yesterday morning, looking out over one of the harbours of Rotterdam, the Maashaven.
This was the view from my Hotel room, in the very early morning.

Rianne Fijten, PhD

My daughter Rianne presented and defended her thesis yesterday.
As a result she had her Doctorship, PhD. We are both very proud parents.
The thesis was "Translational Research on Exhaled Volatile Organic compounds, from Bedside to Bench". A thesis about data analysing methods to determine the chance of having a particular diseas by checking exhaled breath.

I am proud to say she asked me to design and make the front of the thesis for her.
I will come back on that process later.

We had a terrific day yesterday.

Monotype

 Monotype is a technique where you put ink (preferably bookprinters ink) on a glass plate.
Then slide a piece of paper on top, and you make a quick sketch on the back.
It's always a surprise what comes out of this.
These are four of the about 20 that I made in about 2 hours.

Braunschweig and Magdeburg

Gruelling weeks. Lot of travelling, a very heavy project and a training with a lot of homework.
It drains all my energy.
Still, a few sketches that I made this week, during my travels through Germany.
In Braunschweig, while leaving the trainstation, i saw this beautiful old steam engine. I had no time to draw the complete machine, So I sketched a detail.
The next day in Magdeburg, I saw this old lady begging for some money in front of the trainstation.
I did not have the chance to tip her, she suddenly stood up and left quickly (I don't know if that had a reason) just as I was finishing the drawing.