Last week we received some new boxes from Philip’s Biscuits -an excellent artisanal bakery at the center of Antwerp- and one of them was even filled with fresh cookies! The paint wasn’t that fresh anymore, since I created this dog already in 2004 (but he finally found his way to the lid of a beautiful black box).
The trouble with images can sometimes be that the visual is better then the content, but in this case -I can assure you- it’s the other way around (unless you’re on a diet). Either way, the image lasts longer.
I haven’t forgotten my mum’s birthday yesterday and -since she did her best educating me well- I’m not gonna reveal her age here, but about a year ago we had a big party to celebrate ‘a round number’….
Cleaning up my archives (to prepare the new gallery on this site, soon to come!) I bumped upon the images I made for the occasion. Here’s the invitation (not valid anymore, but still from the heart).
I’m saving you the menu & name cards, but in between the glasses & plates also stood these table cards with names of places that have/had importance in her life (and some in mine as well)
Looking back at these overnight-compositions brought back sweet memories. I guess I’m getting older too.
All the way from Hungary to Brussels this week, came not only rumors about a hyperactive prime minister, but also a literature-magazine paying attention to the newly translated ‘Otto a Hoban’(didn’t find the right accents on my keyboard).
At the inside, the magazine almost looked like a special issue focusing on middle-aged, male children’s books illustrators from Flanders (Belgium). Of course, I don’t understand a word of it, but apart from a picture from my childhood and an interview about my earliest Xmas memories, there were also souvenirs (and cute pictures!) of the very young Klaas Verplancke & Carll Cneut.
Who is who, by the way? (tip : when was the Kodachrome invented?)
What could be more appropriate to kick off this new year then a new calendar?
Here’s one I made (as a volunteer) for the school our sons attend. I recycled some winter-stuff I had in store after my Japanese adventures and from a postcard I didn’t use. I also added a winter-version of the logo I made for the school in September. Inside all the pupils born during that month, pose with their birthday-numbers and my contribution is limited to these 12 bird-month-numbers I was working on for a counting-book I made in November-December.
(mark the changes in the colors of the sky, although it seemed to be eternally grey and rainy here lately)
After a poster & other derived products for the ‘Tomorrow starts with chemistry’-exhibition in November, the CEFIC (European Chemical Industry Council) asked me to design a new year’s card with references to the spheres I used in the former communication (to symbolize the different fields of daily life in which chemistry has impact and will have even more in the future)
The spheres became big balls hanging in a huge Christmas tree with Santa shuttling through the nightly sky between them, throwing presents… a very Happy New Year 2012, indeed.
Another nice little present for Christmas I found in our mailbox, this time from Germany. Hanser Verlag, who already edited Otto (fährt Auto), releases a German version in february 2012 of ‘l’ABC de TOM’ (that I originally made in French, in 2010). The big horizontal, calendar-like format has been replaced by a proper regular book shape and my absurd attempts to French humor are now eloquently ‘übersetzt’ by the great Harry Rowohlt. 
They even added some publicity for the author and his Otto-character. Ganz toll! (I gave this copy to my father, whose German is far better than mine)
Last week I received some pictures from a Japanese shopping mall where the usual Xmas parafernalia this year seem to be replaced by images of strange characters and European-style houses (enriched by the inevitable balls, golden chains and other seasonal kitch)
Even the shopping bags are dressed to the occasion …
…and so is the Christmas tree.
Here’s a little present I found in our (real) mailbox this morning. I made this image -now featured on the cover of this week’s Brussels cultural agenda- 2 years ago for a traveling Tati-tribute-exhibition. Last year it was printed on a postcard by Plaizier and that’s how it found it’s way (with some minor adaptions) to the magazine.
Inside, my latest Otto-title (in Dutch) is mentioned as a present-tip in the Xmas-shopping-guide (and 5 copies are offered for free by publisher Lannoo to the fast ones that mail the magic word Otto -and their address- by dec 19 to win@bdw.be)
The entire month of October I’ve been working mainly at nighttime since I had a client at the other side of the world. The whole project was linked to the reconstruction of houses in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami in Japan and it was kind of weird to make images based on a story I hardly understood (due to the language barrier)…
… but at a certain moment it became clear that I was working on a book-project (again!) and that it had something to do s with Christmas…
if you want to see more of it
click on one of the moving windows of the main house and then on the last icon in the row -the blue one- and after a small pause you’ll be able to scroll through the booklet… (unless your Japanese is better then mine and you find your way just by reading the instructions)
After all the spin-off projects (sketches, booktitles, bookcovers, entire books, school logo’s, banners, birthday cards, e-mail wishes etc) I think I have the ‘moral duty’ to show the actual mother-project behind my alphabet-series of the last 3 years. The green tree of life with 26 pieces of fruit (animal-shaped letters or letter-shaped animals?) that French toy- & decoration-manufacturer Djéco commissioned 3 years ago and that finally got into production this year.
The painted originals turned out to be harder to print on wood then expected and not every single letter has become what I would have preferred, but at least the A, B and C look nice. That’s a start.
