Another Strook with something I drew, read, and listened to.
Drawing
As a child, I loved to draw, but in my teens I disappeared completely into pixels and code. Ten years ago, I decided to start drawing again. Analog. I took a drawing course that focused on Indian ink. The first thing I made was a grizzly bear.
In the years that followed, I drew regularly again, but without a clear style or subject. This meant that I was never really satisfied with what I created. However, I did develop a preference for black-and-white work with the thinnest fineliner I could get (0.2 mm!). I also became increasingly inspired by 19th-century natural history drawings. Not entirely satisfied with a drawing of a bear, I decided to draw the same bear entirely with dots:
This was the style I was looking for. Most of the work I have done since then has been with tiny dots. By focusing on one technique, I was able to further develop my skills under the name Strokes & Dots. It is challenging, painstaking work; one wrong dot and the drawing is no longer correct. This way of drawing is also time-consuming. I am currently working on an A4-sized sea turtle with a Micron 005. I have already put hours of work into it, but it is still far from finished.
In a subsequent drawing course, I also learned to work with charcoal. This technique is coarser and allows much less control over the details. So it's a nice technique to learn. Of course, the first thing I made with this technique was a (polar) bear:
Reading
It should be clear what my favorite animal is. But, actually, I know very little about my favorite species. In Wij, beren (We, Bears), written by Lotte Stegeman, the eight bear species tell their own stories. Just like Lotte's other wonderful children's books about animals, this book also teaches you a lot about their behavior and way of life. And despite all the serious threats they face, the bears fortunately still have their sense of humor.
'For centuries, the wildest stories have been circulating about us. By 'us', I mean the eight bear species in the world. We are said to be dirty, cruel, terrible, and bloodthirsty. Or people think we are cuddly animals, like bears in cartoons and fairy tales. But none of that is true. We are fed up with all the prejudices. The panda is not a slow-witted fool, the average grizzly has better things to do than devour people, and no, a koala is not a bear. We could go on and on. That's why it's time for our real story. One that actually makes sense." - Brown bear in Wij, beren (We, Bears)
Lotte created the book together with Marieke ten Berge. She used various techniques, such as etching in zinc or copper, and making prints on Tetra Pak. The result is a beautiful book about bears. And inspiring—I'm going to look for an etching course.
Marieke ten Berge's work will be on display in the coming months in the exhibition 'We, bears – finally our real story' at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam.
Listen
Music lovers will rightly expect me to write about the band Grizzly Bear here, but I haven't listened to that band much myself. I'm going for the song Bear by The Antlers - it starts sweetly and ends like a wall of sound à la Arcade Fire.
If you want to hear more from The Antlers, give the album Green to Gold a spin on a relaxed summer evening.
See you next week!