Illustration Friday: Float

There's nothing so annoying as envy amongst farm-animals. Some guy wrote a book about it. I forgot the name of the book. Anyway, pigs are the worst. They always want to be in charge. And have the biggest meal. In this case the joy about his balloon of this boy is totally neglected and about to burst like a soapbubble.
I'm against pigs. OK, I'll go on a diet. That's to say, soon. Well, later, perhaps. Could be this year. This life for sure. I hope.

2x7

Here she is. An angel in disguise. My youngest daughter who turned 14 today. Her first birthday without her mother. Spritually grown to at least 16, due to her experiences with her mother's sickness and death. But today 8 years old in the way she is excited for the celebration of here being here in this life and the love we feel for her. It's an intelligent thoughtfull girl, which really can express her feelings and plays a mean violin. Me and her sister really enjoy her. We want more.









and More.

Another job search

Another circus-act who is in search for a decent job. On the window an add is taped, which says "WANTED - MALE OR FEMALE - CAR MECHANIC".
To point out that when your outfit is not fit for the enviroment you try to enter, it will be difficult or impossible to get the job. When that outfit is the colour of your skin or the size of your nose, they call it racism. When it is the way you express yourself with clothing, what is the name for that? Clothism? Toggism? Dollism? Looksism? Expressionism?

Sketchbook1

Two Sketches I did yesterday. The first one I call KEITH HERRING (= HARING in dutch). Does not look like him, just wanted to change the classical "macho with a touch-look" which is common in illustrations of male mermaids(merman?).

The second one is a fox riding it's possible diner.
Which reminds me of two illustrators who gave the fox an lively face in my head and eyes.
William Steig in his books "Doctor De Soto" and "The Amazing Bone". On this site a small tribute to him with some drawings throughout his life.
And ofcourse the foxes of Quentin Blake.
These two illustrators gave the fox besides a cunning side, a vunerable one. Victim of their own tricks.

Acrobat in search for a new job

Illustration for a schoolbook.
Made with ballpoint and processed with Photoshop CS2 and Painter IX.
Picture me acrobatting(I do not mean Adobe acrobatting) images for clients. As long as you like the people you work for or with, that's fun.
Got to keep practising beside your showwork, though. That's hard work but gives sometimes the most fun.

Illustration Friday: Fresh

It's astonishing and fun to notice how often the subject of Illustration Friday gives me the opportunity to react from my personal life at that moment. In the week preceding the DREAMS topic, there was a thread about dreaming on the dutch illustrators forum "Illusie"(Illusion). As a result I remembered more of my dreams that week. I used 2 of my dreams to send in 2 entries that week. EMPTY, ESCAPE, ROOTS and REFLECTION are other examples
of a close connection with life at that moment.
FRESH is another example. I have been using an anti-depressiva since june 2004, To cope with the devastating situation of the sickness of my love, which lead to her death. It was prescribed to me, a week after she had undergone her second brain-tumor operation. I started to feel as if I was part of a film, instead of everyday life. I hated to do it, but it worked. Now life is slowly starting to get real for me again. The backdraws are not as frequent anymore as they were. 5 weeks ago I pointed out to my doctor I wanted to end the use. I was told to cut back in the following manner: I used one Paroxetin (Seroxat) a day, first two weeks a half a day and the next two weeks one half every two days. I took my last half last Saturday the 17th of September. It was difficult at times, leading in the weeks to feel as a trafficlight. One day depressive, the next day joyful. But especially the, in a very real way, experiencing of joyful things and positivism about parts of my life gave me the impression that life under medicin had been to smooth. And this week I had my moments of experiencing reborn again, in other words: FRESH.

PS A study for Seroxat shows it should increase the number of suicide.
PS Last week at Illustration Friday I was entry No.50, this week No.100. Unintentional

50 years “De Boerderij”

Weekly I make one illustration or more for “De Kinderboerderij” (the Children’s Farm), which is children’s section of “De Boerderij”(The Farm), a magazine for those who work in the agricultural sector. Published by Reed Business Information (formerly it was an Elsevier Business Publication House, but they decided to focus on the sientific market) I draw a lot of cows, goats, dogs, pigs etc., which behave like people. I plan to show my drawings regularly on this blog.
“De Boerderij” exists for half a century and to celebrate that, they publish a special paper to accompany the magazine. For the children section they have 10 interviews with farmkids about their hopes and views for their lives in 10 years. Preceding the spread with the interviews I was asked to make a full-page illustration to start the section of Farmer’s Life, of which the children’s page is a part.

Drawn with ballpoint(Bic - Fine) and processed in Photoshop CS2 and Painter IX

Dutch, please

To the director of VOORDIEN bv, who complained about our blog being written in English. Her photo on this blog shows her in a very serious mood. But do not be mislead, she is a vulcano of joy.

Dear Dien

You are so right! It would be nicer, easier and more beautiful to use the Dutch language. However, since the internet is an international exchange medium, and our company sees the international market as their goal to sell old water, we consider it necessary to communicate in English. In our company this is an unaninmous decision. With a exception of the coffeeboy. We gave him our permission to start de oud water blog with a freely translated content, similar to the English one.
Our only restriction is that his task may not suffer from it. Considering that at this moment he rarely meets the goals for his task and that a certain kind of charming laziness is part of his personality we do not think it will start before long.

We thank you for the interest in our blog and taking the the trouble to comment on us.
On behalf of the OLD WATER company: the director and yours sincere, Lex van de Oudeweetering

PS Dini Teunis is a dutch copywriter, a close friend and my nurse

Me, Myself and I

On my second day, a short introduction.
I'm Lex vd Oudeweetering, illustrator - living in the Netherlands in the town Amersfoort, which is situated about the middle of Holland. I live in a box with a roof, as I call it. Here in Holland we call the type of home, literally translated, a "see through house". Small garden in front, somewhat bigger in the back. My workplace under the roof, which forces me to have two ventilators on full power during the summer to prevent sweating to death and ruin my drawings or keyboard. As you see in my picture I eat more food than I would need for daily energy. Shame on me. I'm 52 years, father of two daughters, one sixteen and one nearly 14. Their mother and my partner, died on january the 14th this year, after a blooddisease and in a little more than one year three headtumors demolished her. We miss her presence, her clear blue eyes and the bright light that radiated from them.
I was born in Amsterdam, where I lived and went to school, finally resulting me to graduate on the "Gerrit Rietveld Academy" as a designer. Which I never was, really. Always been an illustrator/comicmaker.
The comicside of me has evolved to from the most important side of me to the lesser important one. More and more I feel an Illustrator, even if I make a comic. In 1988 I moved to Amersfoort, expecting our first daughter to come. In the last twenty years I've grown from a introvert insecure man/boy into a insecure man/boy, who enjoys himself and the people he loves.

Illustration Friday: Escape

Hello.
Today, 19 september 2005 is the day I start my blog. I'm curious if I will be able to publish it 5 days a week. Have some plans to fill it with. But mostly in my head. And it's a mess there. Does'nt that sound interesting. Every week I try to react on the subject of Illustration Friday. That's a good one to publish weekly.

Greetings Lex