Your majesty

As I told you last year, I will not be able to attend your birthday party at April 30. I hope you appreciate my portrait, instead of me singing our national anthem with orange ribbons in my hair...

Year 1 Show

It is over. I gathered some loose ends, helped painting the school and setting up the Year 1 Show and that was it. My first year at Max the Mutt is over. What a year...

Setting up the Year 1 show was a great opportunity to review all student work submitted: there was a lot more work than could be shown at the exposition. The school had a video made, which will be shown at the school's website, I believe that all work will be photographed, and yours truly shot an impression of the opening. For those of you lucky enough to live in the GTA, the show will be open during this week, for opening hours please see the school's website

In the meantime, I will show you some of my personal favorites.

 

Representational Painting teaches to paint what you see, through a time-consuming process of meticulous scanning and comparing values and colors. Though I had painted before, I had never learned it the proper way, and I really loved this class. Above are shown the main still life and homework paintings from the first semester (black and white) and the second semester (color).

  

Principles of Drawing teaches the basics of the basics, that is, the systematical construction of a drawing through the careful measuring of distances and angles, using construction lines and plumb lines. Shown are a self portrait, a drapery study and a copy of Dürer's 'Study of the Robes of Christ'.

  

Beginning life drawing teaches the foundation of life drawing from Kimon Nicolaides' 'The Natural Way to Draw', through exercises that challenge you to perceive the model through all available senses. Above I have shown modeling exercises in Conté and ink, and a compilation of gestures.

Design and composition teaches how to seduce, entertain, charm, guide and teach an audience through the smart use of visual design elements like grids, cantilevers, triangles, curvilinear and color, both through analyzing existing designs in a journal and through applying these principles in new designs. Shown is a color design for a CD cover.

Perspective and Structural Drawing teaches the basics of one-point, two-point, three-point and four-point perspective. This was my least favorite class, probably through a clash with the mathematician inside me and the artistic approach taught here. Above is shown a city scape in three-point perspective.

Color and Water-based Media introduced us to color theory, through Itten's seven color contrasts, and the use of gouache, water color and acrylics. I did not learn a lot new concepts here, just got another opportunity to play with color, which is always welcome. Here I show an exploration in the contrasts of value, complement, hue and simultaneous. 

Also, we had lessons in History of Animation, and Acting and Improvisation. Both were a pleasant experience, but they did not yield anything that I can show here.

This past semester, I received a High Pass for History of Animation, Principles of Drawing, Perspective and Structural Drawing and Representational Painting, and I even got a Pass with Honors for Life Drawing and Color and Water-based Media. It was a good year.

Operation 'Switch' - Finale

I bought a ticket and picked a date, three days before departure, to leave my apartment. It left me a few months to reduce my belongings to something that could be stored and transported to Canada, if needed. That is, no furniture and nothing with a power plug. The clock was ticking.

I put a whole series of advertisements on Marktplaats, and waited for potential buyers. Selling all I had appeared more time consuming and frustrating than I had ever expected, because not only was most of my furniture not worth a dime, but, moreover, the vast majority of prospective buyers was either not serious or downright unreliable. Most of them did not respond to emails, with some I reached an agreement, but they never showed up, and some changed their mind last-minute. There were a number of pleasant surprises which kept me up and running, like the gentleman who bought my nice Stokke Peel fauteuil for €1000, and over the summer I saw my apartment getting emptier and emptier. I kept one option in reserve: the local thrift store was willing to come and get all leftovers.

Two weeks before departure I had a farewell dinner with my family, for whom I had written a book 'Over mijn Schouder' about me and my art, to leave them something personal for the time they would not see me. They loved it. When I arrived in my almost empty home I realized that the final phase of Operation 'Switch' had started. That final week was a killer week.

It started with removing the carpet throughout the apartment. Twelve years earlier I had instructed the men who installed it, to make sure it could be removed easily, because one day I would have to restore the apartment into its original state, and at that day I would no doubt be very busy, in the middle of a removal. I had never expected that these words would ever prove to be prophetical. Neither had the carpeteers, so in my study and bedroom they had glued everything to my concrete floors with their strong super glue. While it had taken me four hours to remove the carpet from my living, where it was glued onto felt-like under-carpet, it took me one day to clear the study, and I did not even have time to clear the bed room.

Two days before I had to leave my apartment I sold my bed and I had a farewell party with friends, and one day before leaving was a day of total madness. The thrift store came to pick up my washing machine, lots of small stuff and my fridge. That is, weeks earlier they had told me they would take it, but that very day, they refused to take it because it was twelve years old. My explanation that I had to completely empty my apartment that day did not impress the men at all. However, when they discovered the small cart I had used to move things around, I told them they could use my cart to move everything down to their van, if they took my fridge, which they finally did. The man who bought my computer arrived at the same time as the man who bought my monitor, so they could both see everything working, and in the evening I sold my car and moved a stack of boxes to a self-storage facility.

The day I had to leave my apartment I first hired a car, and then drove two car loads of trash to the local rubbish dump. It had started to rain so hard that I was soaked by the time I returned, and it appeared to be impossible to load all things I had wanted to bring to my family into the car. And just when I realized I would not make it in time, my landlord called me to apologize he would be late. I accepted his apology and we arranged that I would leave my keys in his office next day.

With one more day to go, I took my time to load the car, clean up the last things, post a few letters and make a few last phone calls. That night, I went to my mother to leave a car load of things like a printer, a vacuum cleaner, a three-piece suit and all other things I had kept for those interested, and the next day I returned the car and the keys of my apartment.

After a real short weekend with my family, it was time to say goodbye and my brother-in-law brought me to my hotel in Amsterdam. The next day I took the bus to the airport, and the rest is history.

Operation 'Switch' had taken more than one year to complete and, to quote Dickens, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. It exhausted me, physically and psychologically, and it made me realize once more I had turned over a new leaf. A whole new leaf.

Never too old to be young...

This week we watched the classical 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' in our 'History of Animation' class, preceded by a 'Making of...' which featured a number of scenes and songs which never made it into the final cut. It's a must for all animation students, and I'm really happy our school takes time to screen it!

One of the songs which did not survive is 'You're never too old to be young' and it was exactly this song which triggered old memories. It must have been my seventh birthday when I got a single with songs from Snow White, and this week I recognized that 'You're never too old to be young' was one of them. That is, the melody was the same, but the text was 'translated' as "Ik ben maar een dwerg, is dat erg?", which means something like "I'm only a dwarf, ain't that bad?"

Those days my parents had bought themselves a new stereo set, which featured a rather primitive changing mechanism for singles, and I had never seen it working until a friend of the family dropped by, who spent some time to get it working. And right when the first single moved into position, my mother interfered with a hurried "Ah, yes, it's okay now, I see how it works, thank you very much" but it was too late and she turned deep purple when a cheerful "I'm only a dwarf, ain't that bad" filled the room.

This week, 37 years after, I felt some of the embarrassment my mother must have felt. I can only hope our visitor, a little person himself, did not feel too bad about it...

Operation 'Switch' - Startup

I started a long list of North-American art schools worth investigating, including Ringling in Florida, CCAD in Ohio, SCAD in Atlanta, Watts Atelier in California, and Sheridan and Max the Mutt in Ontario, Canada. It felt liberating to allow myself to look everywhere, without self-imposed restrictions or preconceptions. The sky was my limit but, of course, I had to be practical.

Right when I started to believe that Ringling, with its tuition of about $13000, might be affordable, someone clarified that this tuition is per semester. Top art schools in North America are expensive, and for most of these I severely doubt whether the education is worth its tuition. From a practical point of view, this made pruning down my long list a lot easier. Also, I had prepared a questionnaire I sent to the art schools listed, and quite a number of schools failed to respond. The Max the Mutt Animation school in Toronto was one of the schools that responded with a genuine interest in me, and I put this school at the top of my short list.

I was able to keep my short list short, mostly because the majority schools are not affordable for me, without any financial support, but also because I'm a bit wary about the political climate in the United States. I soon narrowed my search down to Canada, down to Toronto and decided to apply to Max the Mutt in the Fall of 2007 and, in case I was not accepted, to apply to Sheridan in the Spring of 2008.

In the meantime, my time with my employer had come to an end. A farewell dinner, presents and a farewell card, where my boss wrote that he would remember me when he saw the next Tom and Jerry cartoon. Now, it was portfolio time.

I took a month to prepare the required portfolio pieces, including an interior, an exterior, a drawing of my hand, still lifes, pages from my sketchbook, and cartoons. For the interior I choose Gouda's beautiful St. Janskerk, and for the exterior I went to Rotterdam's old water tower 'De Es'. This was more challenging than I had hoped, in a time of the year when days are getting shorter and colder, and I caught a nasty cold. I went to the Rotterdam Zoo 'Blijdorp' to add some animal drawings to my sketchbook, and I spent a few hours in the local mall to add some more life drawings; it was fun to see how much animals and people have in common. Concurrently, I prepared and passed the required Test Of English as a Foreign Language, and scored a nice 110 out of 120. I submitted the application package and moved my attention towards 'Wullie'.

Wullie was the name of the freelance company I had founded to get the flexibility to alternate between making money and operation 'Switch'. In December I got my first project, which involved programming a robot to cut huge slabs of concrete, which was a welcome diversion for someone who had always spent his time on relatively abstract, financial and logistical programming jobs. And then, I got great news: I was accepted by Max the Mutt!

It meant the start of period of formalities, mainly to sign contracts and to apply for a Study Permit, and to prepare my actual move to Toronto. This moved on quite smoothly and fit in neatly with Wullie. The first project came to an end, I failed to find a second project, because companies are reluctant to hire a freelancer who is ready to quit his job and leave the country. Disappointing as this was, it finally appeared a blessing in disguise: planning to move to Toronto is one thing, but actually moving is another thing...

Joseph Gillain

The usual colourful cover of 'Robbedoes' had been replaced by a simple black and white image, featuring a circle of cowboys staring at the empty spot in their middle. It was the summer of 1980: Jijé had died.

Joseph Gillain was the founding father of the 'Marcinelle School' of Belgian Comics, characterised by living lines and a great sense of humour. Quite a number of the heroes from my younger days, i.e. Franquin, Morris, Peyo and Giraud, had learned the art of comics from this one mentor, who is not only the spiritual father of Jerry Spring and 'Blondin et Cirage', but who can also be considered the spiritual grandfather of even more popular characters like Gaston Lagaffe, Lucky Luke, the Smurfs and Blueberry.

The special edition of 'Robbedoes' included a short overview of Jijés life and work through interviews with his pupils, radiating a warm affection towards their teacher. One fact mentioned has remained with me ever since: Gillain taught his pupils to draw without looking at their paper. As a 14-year old this grossly impressed me: someone who can draw without looking at the paper must be really really really good. And now, at the age of 42, I still think so.

This week, the second term of my education at the Max the Mutt Animation School has started. Yesterday I got my final evaluation over the first term. I got a Pass for 'Design and Composition' and 'Perspective and Structural Drawing', and a High Pass for 'Acting and Improvisation', 'Beginning Life Drawing', 'Principles of Drawing' and 'Representational Painting'. Of these, 'Design and Composition' and 'Acting and Improvisation' are finished. New courses will be 'Colour and Water-based Media' and 'History of Animation'. The other courses will continue into the second semester, although the teachers are shuffled around, to allow students to get a new view on old material.

Today I had my first 'Beginning Life Drawing' class by Vivian, a respectable lady who follows Nicolaides' 'The Natural Way to Draw to the letter. Other than my previous teacher she encourages us to draw without looking at the paper, in order to train our observation, as opposed to training our memory. This morning I once more felt the wisdom of this approach, and I promised myself to stick to it. It may mean a short dip in the development of my drawing abilities, as my eye-hand coordination feels a little below par, but I believe it is worth the effort in the long run. Let's see what happens...

Sneak attack

She did not see it coming. Neither she, nor her little girl had a chance. Even the security guard, happily chatting with his colleague, was completely clueless. I doubt he had noticed me, and even if he had, he would never have suspected that I was not just sitting there sipping my mocca. Months ago he had once spotted me, when I was careless, and asked what I was doing there. Just drawing, sir. And I showed him my sketchbook. Just drawing. Right.

I am not sure what made me choose her among the crowd at the Dufferin Mall. Maybe it was her walk, which explicitly involved her hips and shoulders in a rhythmical movement that waved through her body, ending in her beautiful dark brown hair. Or maybe it just was her child, holding her hand, riding the same wave. Two is so much more challenging than just one...

Cat Stevens sang that the first cut is the deepest, and I could not have expressed it better. With a quick confident stroke I made it to her spine, and as soon I felt I tapped her life force, I left her for a while to move to her daughter. Young and playful as she was, she escaped the first few slashes, and it took me three or four more strokes to get that wonderful feeling of life surging through my fingers, hands and upward. Knowing that I had gained control in a few seconds, I moved back to the mother, securing her bouncing hips and, as in one movement, her shoulders, along her arm back to the girl to catch that jumpy curly style of energy. It was over in less than a minute, and the last thing I remember was the soft feeling of her hair and a loosely falling coat. I will keep my trophy.

All that reminds me of that beautiful lady and her daughter is a quick scribble in my sketchbook, or a 'gesture' as it is usually called. Gesture was introduced by Kimon Nicolaides in the 1930s as the primary impulse of subject matter, the emotional response, the unifying element or, more poetic, what the wind is for the trees that it bends. His "The Natural Way to Draw" has been required literature for art students ever since. My instructor Nina teaches to approach the gesture inside out, starting at the core and working from there to the outside, like a sculptor sticking his clay onto a wire frame and I believe there is wisdom in these words.

I still feel myself being distracted by relative details like folds in skin or drapery and other external features, so I really need to urge myself to go for that spine, which gives our brain hands and feet, and to search for the hips and shoulders that make us rock and roll. And yet, I feel this is only the beginning of the story, since the gesture is so much more than just an anatomical skeleton. Years ago, when I first met Nicolaides, I concluded that gesture is that which cannot be drawn, and I still believe this is essential.

As for now, I will keep studying the gesture, through the daily work in my sketchbook. I'm not alone, as this is required practice for all Max the Mutt students. We are with many, lurking from the corners of Toronto malls, subway stations, busses, streets and parks. We want you, your impulse, your energy, your gesture. You will never see it coming, and it is over in a minute. At most. You will never be safe. Nowhere. Your life will never be the same...