Lineanongrata

Peter enjoys teaching Little League Darts so much!

 

For fear of being stupid - Or: You can't write Devanagari with a lot of bangles on your wrist

Among many other fears (cooked carrots, hair in the sink, giant spiders that somehow have eloped from their natural amazonian habitat and now live in my closet...) I am afraid I might end up dumb.

Seriously. I spend all my days alone, sometimes only talking to the lady at the checkout counter in my grocery store. And, yes, my mother. Thrice a day. But still, that's a lot of time alone, and although I usually enjoy working on my own and not having to talk to anybody I am also afraid I might end up communicating like the Yeti. You know how it goes. You're standing right there, ready to pay for apples, bananas milk and some bread, the checkout lady asks you something and you answer somewhere along the lines of

'Huh? Huhhhuuuuuou!'

Because you're kind of out of practice?

That's why I'm learning Hindi and Devanagari (that's the written form). At least I'll be able to communicate with the checkout lady in some language. It's most reassuring, believe me.

Ah, but seriously. I really am afraid of not knowing, of being not educated. It haunts me that I didn't understand anything about India. At all. One day I think I might go back and be better prepared.

And so you can find me in the evenings, reading with great application and the utmost concentration every a, aaah, e, i, o and au in every text I can find in Devanagari script.

Have you tried to learn how to write again recently? It's an interesting experience.

 

 

 

Greece - The morning after

For those of you who are not European and maybe don't follow the political and financial drama that unfolds around us as closely as we do: Greece, broke if it were not for money coming from the European Union, voted last weekend. Understandably people are unhappy with their economic situation and the heavy budget cuts imposed by the rest of Europe. Both the extreme left- and the extreme right-wing parties profited from the situation, the ultra-right 'Golden Dawn' party gaining 6,97 % of votes.

If it weren't so sad I'd find the name pretty for a political party.

The way things stand I'm curious to see where things are headed, both for Greece and the rest of Europe.

Noblesse oblige - and a thought or two on inspiration

Noblesse oblige.

Just a couple of lines, a bit of color and - voilà - a new illustration. It looks so easy and like so little, people wonder why we're paid to do this kind of work. And really, who would call this work?! Your three year old niece, too, draws like Picasso?

Illustrators, everybody knows that, sit or walk around, waiting for inspiration to strike. Otherwise we don't do much. My young students often tell me they can only work at home because they don't feel inspired at school.

And you know what? There are those moments when I just sit down and something strikes me and I create an image or - even better - a series of images that are beautiful and great in absolutely no time and ... and these are the most beautiful moments in my professional life. The most rare moments, too. In the last six years I've had maybe two?

All the rest of the time I sit. And sit. And draw. Erase. Draw. Erase, shred to bits and pieces, draw, erase, pull out all of my hair, howl at the moon...

The rest of the time I throw away most of my work. This version of 'noblesse oblige' is the 5th. I had the idea and battled with it for an entire week (off an on, I always work on more than one piece at a time). It wouldn't work, whatever I tried. By Friday I felt like a complete failure, let me tell you. Telling myself 'what the hell kind of illustrator are you?!'

The answer came by Monday when, with a satisfying 'click' (or a ear-splitting, heart-wrenching howl if you're more dramatically inclined) everything fell into place - and this is the illustration I wanted to show you. All along.

I'm a working Illustrator. I work every day of the week. Otherwise I would forget what I do for a living. Otherwise I would never advance and I would not get better at tweaking ideas to my will and pencil. This is my job and if I waited for inspiration to strike I might be retired by the time I create another good illustration! And what the hell kind of illustrator would I be then?!

Jorinde and Joringel

Do you know the fairytale 'Jorinde and Joringel'? Or I guess in English it would be 'Jorinda and Jorindel'. If you don't, you can find it over at the Gutenberg Project.

When we were little our adopted Grandmother would read it to us sometimes in the evenings, just before we went to bed. I still remember the illustrations in her edition and I also still remember how it felt to sit with her in her small apartment (right above the place where we lived), feel the warm sun of early summer evenings slowly fade into dusk and let the excitements of another day wane.

I rather wish it were summer already, don't you?

 

the magic hat

'The magic hat' is a fairytale I found recently, neither author nor country of origin was indicated. This is a very short version:

The hunter Kejan finds a beautiful fox in one of his traps one day. The fox pleads with him, saying that if Kejan would only let him live, he, the fox, would give him a present that will always protect the hunter.

After some thought, Kejan the hunter lets the fox go. Just before he disappears, he gives Kejan a tiny hat.

'This is supposed to be this great gift that shall protect me forever more? The fox has tricked me!' thinks Kejan. He puts the hat on his head to prove that it is really good for nothing. But low and behold! The hat grows until it is just the right size for his head!

'Well, well', thinks Kejan and puts it back in his pocket, absentmindedly. 'It surely is a magic hat after all.'

On his hunt Kejan suddenly finds himself in a bad storm and thinks he must freeze to death, so icy are the gusts of wind. But when he puts on the magic hat for a bit of warmth it suddenly grows larger and larger, until it is like a tent around the hunter, protecting him from the storm and keeping him warm.

Another time Kejan goes on a seal hunt with his brother. All of a sudden Kejan's canoe is dragged underwater and beneath the drifting ice. His brother does his best to pull him out but the ice is heavy and large and it takes him minutes to pull his brother from underneath it. He thinks that his brother must be dead. But no, Kejan has put the hat on just in time and, like a bubble, it has caught enough air beneath it so that Kejan could breathe and is still alive.

I tell you, the two brothers were really grateful for that magic hat!