This is another one that hung around for about 6 months, waiting to be finished when really it was finished all along.
Bike trouble
Jakarta: History of a Misunderstood City
Cover illustration for ‘Jakarta—History of a Misunderstood City’ by Herald Van Der Linde.
I once lived in Jakarta, so it’s good to have a picture on a book about it. The illustration used is part of a much longer pen and ink drawing I made a while back. Big thanks to Anita Teo @marshallcavendish.
Expat hotline
This one went on for ages. I drew the table and the guy on the phone about 6 months before but then gave up on it.
I do that sometimes. Starting the picture is the exciting part, but that feeling fades so I end up sitting on stuff. However, as I was on a roll from the last picture, finishing this one happened quite easily. Funny how it goes. (Also shown here is the first rough version.)
Korzybski’s structural differential
This one started out innocently enough: a little drawing of a mother in law’s tongue plant. But along the way it swelled into a depiction of Korzybski’s structural differential—the idea that you can never truly know anything, only a very filtered version of it. Information comes in, information goes out, while most of it just floats away.
Twiske trees
Drawing trees again today with Katsia in Het Twiske. Maybe not as many as I’d hoped for, but hey. Available now, by the way, as a print from Etsy.
Orange from seed
Happy little orange tree—white gouache and white pencil on black paper, and black and grey ink and HB pencil on white.
Grown from a seed I kept from an orange I ate at my mum’s house last year.
Oaks from seeds
Happy little oak trees: white gouache and white pencil on black paper, and black and grey ink and HB pencil on white.
Two little oak trees from acorns I kept from a visit to England last September.
Avocado from seed
Happy little avocado tree—two versions: black and grey ink and HB pencil on white, and white gouache and white pencil on black paper.
Another of my growing-stuff-from-fruit-I’ve-eaten experiments
Apple from seed
Happy little apple tree—two versions: white gouache and white pencil on black paper, and black and grey ink and HB pencil on white.
Lately I’ve been trying to grow plants from seeds I keep from supermarket fruit. This is one of the first that came alive. It blows me away that these things happen. It took six months to go from the seed to this plant, so you have time to get used to it. If it happened in six seconds, you would scream wow every time.
The New Normal
“Now everything’s a little upside down.”