tinywoolf: September 2014

drawing | fish

pure bliss! these beaming september days: a family day's outing near antwerp. a fun cards game at sunset. sounds of a weekend brocante weaving its way through my studio window. a guided sunday walk through a neighbouring borough. a washing up in the sink that won't wash itself. a long hot soak in the bath while a good book in my hand lingers. {it may even slip in the soapy water...}

i did have fish on friday, incidentally. i rolled marinated salmon (fish sauce, lemon juice and black pepper corns) into rice, into nori, and had a lean feast. and i didn't take any pictures either. so the genius's gonna have to stay inside the fish bowl, as tinyWOOLF makes another exit. this is a drawing i was working on at the beginning of the week, it didn't exactly go anywhere. 't was more like an idea, floating. fish all weekend long, over at herzfrisch. & river update.

drawing | second hand

objects that have shone in other people's lives, turning up on our doorstep... looking back, i realize i've been buying second hand and brocante (before it desperately and masterfully got labeled vintage) for over thirty years, kick starting it, when i lived just round the corner from the brussels' daily flea market on place du jeu de balle - vossenplein, in the early eighties. the flea market survived the years {images left = collection STADSARCHIEF - right = "voddemet" - bastin & evrard}. it was all about richly printed, silken pj's back then.

all these beautiful, wonderful, mysterious, filthy, hard and soft, fragile goods. some things you give away again, because the object doesn't ring with you in the end. some beauties get broken (glass breakage an average of one a week, easily, in our house...). sixties and seventies curtains dying on you (but not before you make a postcard from the impressive design). cashier ladies carefully wrapping up tiny objects; others showing you the door. ... {farmer girls above will make a reapparence here, over the coming months.}

books, second hand books! we have so many books, sitting round waiting to be read. we can make books from second hand matter!... here's my first ever home and hand made notebook. it does look clever, don't it? do take a closer look. the endpaper, although a little wrinkled, sits well in the front of my notebook, does it not? okay.

turning a few pages.... uh-hoh... upside down, is it? yes, we did it : gone and glued the whole she-bang in topsy-turvy... ☻

but ha. i'll turn a blind eye, put on me sunglasses and give my own personal second hand the exit role. joke's drawing challenge theme this weekend is just lovely, lovely. it made me rush off to the thrift shop yesterday morning to still my craving and not having my camera on hand, i just drank in the scenery. for future reference. {image above and not thrifted at all: celine's necklace. "how're you celine, and don't you come up with more found objects, hear! ☻" & that hand!}. off to sniff around yours now. & RIVER UPDATE

corner view ≈ contrast

the biggest contrast has been to carefully write and stick to a workable {to do} list. my garden was top priority last week. besides keeping an even pace in house renovations, i want to take illustration seriously. stating this goal makes me go weak at my knees. sitting down to it and taking drawing seriously is the starkest contrast ever to my usual laid back attitude.

yes, it has been labour weeks out in the garden and for once i truly, madly, deeply enjoyed every minute of digging, pulling, transferring and watering. in fact, i could hardly wait to get back in and hollow more, after every interval. as i moon over those efforts this morning, i lumber upon metaphor.

i've not before felt the green thumb as such, maybe because i didn't let myself. the analogy sits in the exact process of digging : when i draw, all is fine, until i hit the hard rock of moving upwards. i enjoy all directions, and upwards is a bummer. is it? like hell it is. but i now wonder, if i can conquer the earth (of my garden), can i step up upon the ladder of prospect (of drawing) and lose the snakes indeed?

supposedly kicking off on a cartoon course next week, i got word the course will be postponed till the january. feeling deflated a bit, what else does it mean? can i do something to tie/tide me over, keep me going, keep the home fires burning while they're lit? i think i'm going to need you all, dear readers, on my path of unearthing.

thoughts such as these because my river project is moving towards its last quarter, and i feel a little apprehensive. embracing the very thought of a new, functional project for 2015. not quite revealing my intentions yet, i think and hope the view will be an exciting one. i'd love to meet up with y'all, from time to time. jane's corner view, francesca's hosting. ☺