Shelved

A while back I finally got around to putting some shelves up in my studio to display my collection of zines and illustration related magazines. And recently I finally got around to taking a picture of it. I now I'm finally getting around to actually blogging about it! I'm pretty pleased with it, I wouldn't go as far as to say it ties the room together, but it definitely brightens the place up. 

(click to enlarge)  

 

On the upper shelf, from left to right: The Illustrated Ape, Can your Monkey do the Dog by yours truly, The Cardigan Heart by Lizzy Stewart, Skelet Man by Geeske de Graaff, Brain Blood Volume 2., by Ian Watson, Did you know that Flapjacks can Rhyme? by Sarah Edmonds, Birds of a Feather by Saskia Haex, Monotonos by Albert van Nood, ...

On the lower shelf: a couple of zines I bought at Desert Island in Brooklyn NY, a zine I got through my subscription to Zine of the Month, Nobrow magazine, Egel & Ballon by Jeroen Funke, a couple of issues of A Sick Zine and Zo Ordinair by Gees Voorhees.

Special mention goes out to A Sick Zine, a zine that was born in 2010 during a workshop I taught with Geeske at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Tonight the boys of A Sick Zine will be presenting their fifth issue - De MEGAZINE - in style at Roodkapje, Rotterdam.  The release will coincide with the opening of an exhibition on A Sick Zine, which is up till June 17th. They also made a great video to show you how the zine is made. WITHOUT THE USE OF A COMPUTER (this was the golden rule in our workshop and I'm happy to see they're still sticking with it)!

Their zines usually sell like the proverbial hot cakes, so (pre-)order from their website!

Marbelous Wood

Things are slowly starting to come together at the new studio. The butt ugly carpet has been ripped out and my roomie and I have painted our space. Big question now is what to do with the bare wooden floor?? While looking online for some inspiration and (low budget) solutions I came across this beautiful floor by Pernille Snedker Hansen, a Danish designer. She uses a combination of an old Japanese technique called suminagashi and a Western style marbling technique to create a wood grain-like effect in amazing colors.

   

Watch Pernille at work:

Definitely no low budget solution, but certainly inspirational...

StustustustuSTUDIO!!

I've signed the contract so it's official: as of January 1st 2012 I'll have a studio space in the Morgan Arcade in Cardiff! With 12 other illustrators, designers and artists I will move in on the second floor of this beautiful Victorian arcade. I'm very much looking forward to having an 'office' (which means home will be a home again) and 'colleagues'!

The lipphone

Look what's gracing my desk as of today!!

Finally hunted one down for £3.99 at a charity shop. So happy!

The Hut

I recently came across a story about Roald Dahl's writing hut: the shack in the back of his garden in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where he wrote all his children's books. The family has started a fundraising campaign to move The Hut from the garden to the Roald Dahl Museum (also in Great Missenden) to prevent it from becoming a total ruin. It will be taken apart brick by brick and rebuild and then decorated it in exactly same way as it was. Great!! But. The costs: half a million pounds. Needless to say this caused somewhat of a stir...

Roald Dahl had The Hut built in the late 1950s. He was a man of discipline and routine: he went there everyday for 30 years. Nobody was allowed in! He sat in an old wing chair, that had belonged to his mother, with a writing table on his lap. It rested on a cardboard tube to tilt is slightly. According to Quentin Blake he had a sleeping bag to keep his legs warm in winter. At 12.30 he had Norwegian prawns and half a lettuce for lunch and had a Kit Kat for dessert. I don't know why, but I was touched by the fact that he liked to have a Kit Kat every single day.

On the table he kept all sorts of stuff, among which his own hip bone and a ball he made of tin foil candy bar wrappers ∨. Genius or what?!

Will we ever be able to 'room raid' The Hut?? I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens to it (well, or if you're a little bit more pro-active and got lots of cash lying around you can find more information about the Save The Hut-campaign here)..