O... kay...?

One part of my internship(s) is doing a project for the city Oss.
We got this project through Ingrid Friesen. A little bit odd to do, but I'm enjoying it very much because of the style I chose I can practice a bit more with digital techniques.

The project we have to do (me and Andrea) is to design pictographs for the city Oss to acompany internal programs within the future. It will be a set of four images in total. The reason that it feels a bit odd to do is because it is not exactly an illustrative job, but more of a graphical one. I'm afraid i've not balanced that out very well, since it definitaly shifts more to the graphic than the illustrative side, but hey... what do you expect with an assignment like that?

In the end, the workforce at city hall will get to deside if they prefer my designs, or Andrea's. I'll keep you posted on the outcome of that.

Leadership

development

Magical...

On the first of september I started my final year of studying. This means that the next couple of months I will be an intern. Thank the gods not the coffee making kind! The first of my internships (I'm going to do several) is with Ingrid Friesen, a freelance illustrator. Together with my classmate Andrea we go to her about once every two weeks.

One of the assignments we got was to design an illustration that was to be painted on a drainage tube that serves as a plaything for children at a primary school in Oss. In the end it really turned out to be a wonderful combination of our different input and a mix of several techniques and materials.

Before we started it looked like this:

Not very inspirational at this point.

The theme we chose for the tube was magic and fairytales. Since this is not the only object that's going to get a lick of paint we wanted to have a theme to tie everything together. At this time the other objects aren't ready to be painted yet (a sandbox and a playhouse), so that is something for the future.

When we had finished this is what the drainage tube looked like:

Ingrid's side

Andrea's and my side.

My personal part of the project.

A couple of days after Ingrid finished the inside, since we didn't have time to do it on the day we were there. If you want to see the results of that, visit her blog.

We got loads of positive reactions (up to the point where it got annoying, haha) but it's good to know it was so appreciated what we were doing.

And last, an overview of the mess we made:

numb

Again, it's been a while. I've been painting lately and I'm going to share the result with you. It's a triptych of three self portraits. This is probably one of the most personal things I've ever made, and only a few of my closest friends know what it means. It's partly inspired by the roman saying "inter arma enim silent musae". Which means "in times of war the arts are silent'. I was thinking about putting the saying in the triptych itself, devided over the three canvasses, but decided it would only draw away attention from the portraits itself and disturb the solid areas. So it'll just be the title to the piece =).

bad, bad, bad

I've been a bad blogger and I really should update more. I'm not going to bore you with all the reasons why I haven't (except if you really want to know, but I doubt it ;) ).
One of the reasons I will tell you though. It's been carnaval around here a couple of weeks ago. It was wonderfull. I made a quite ellaborate costume that, in my opinion, looked absolutely wonderfull. Someone took a picture of me in which you can partly see it.

 

So now if any of you who are reading this don't know me in person, you can now somewhat see what I look like.

Another thing that has occupied me is shoes. And not in the girly sense of; OH EMM GEE I need like three pairs of that and four of those like right now, but more in the sense of that my normal shoes for milder weather are completely falling apart (I'll spare you a picture of that). They were basically just like Vans prison issue sneakers. After searching just about everywhere in the city and online, I have not been able to replace them (I'm not giving up though, I will find a pair eventually). That led to buying the cheapest pair of sneakers I could quickly find. Since I don't find these interesting one bit, I decided to draw on them, so they would at least have something different and personal. So, I now present you with... transition shoes:

Definitaly better than the holey pieces of shit I was walking on before =)

shut the fuck up and listen!

I've got several sketch books and in one of them I stick pictures from magazines, newspapers, etc. that I find inspiring. I've started this because the pile of newspapers and magazines was getting to big. It just started feeling silly at one point to keep so many of them just because of one or a few pictures. Yesterday I was going through a magazine and saw an ear. It was an exceptionally large ear. So I cut it out, and started drawing around it.

just stuff

It's been a while. I thought life would be a bit more quiet, I guess I was wrong, haha. Last week we (my study colleagues and I) had a workshop hosted by an animation artist. That was nice! In the mean time I have three other projects to work on and even though we just started, deadlines seem te be scary close. Besides all that, I also still have three classes. So PFFFf, it's a lot, but it's wonderfull. All this work keeps the presure on and I feel like I'm learning in a really fast pase at the moment.
Luckily I still find a little bit of time to see some of my friends. The picture I'm posting has to do with that. I know the four people in this picture and have seen them the last few days, but they never knew I drew this... let's hope they won't see, and if they do, that they don't mind ;).

finally some rest

After a few heavy weeks, the stress has finally gone. Most of the deadlines for school have been met and I'm satisfied with the grades I got. Also, my website http://www.sammyfoppen.nl is now online and working!

To make up for posting so little the last two weeks, I'm going to give you a series of 4 pictures today. These were part of one of my exams.

it's been to long

Hi everyone! Sorry it took a while. I'm better now. I haven't posted the last couple of days because this weekend was my birthday, hooray! And I'm in the middle of examweek at the academy. So the whole week is going to remain quiet. I do have something for you today though. My lovely parents gave me a tablet for my birthday, I'm so happy. This picture is the first try to test it out.

It's a mash up of birthday thoughts and part of my costume for carnaval (which is in a month =D).

female counterpart

So, I'm still ill. Got the flu, which is especially handy since i'm having deadlines at the acadamy, yay -_-'.  But the rest and tea will do me good and hopefully I'll be a bit better tomorrow morning.

The subject of todays picture is the female counterpart of the picture of the god I posted yesterday. These are two collages, which hang on my wall. The reason why I'm posting these yesterday and today is because this is (next to the computer and tvscreen) the view from my couch. Good thing it's a good view, I've been seeing it a lot, haha.

Here's a picture, it's a god

I'm ill, so I'm not going to wright much, but will go back to sleep. Girl night yesterday was fun though.

...

I'm not going to share a picture with you today. First of, because I don't really have the time to draw you something and second because I'm in a bit of a non-mood, so it's hard to choose something from the drawings I've allready made.

Tonight I'm going to have an old fashioned girls night with two friends. I'm actually quite excited about that. The last time I was on a real girls sleepover must have been when I was 13 or 14. Only now we get to do it with booze, so it's even better. I hope you'll enjoy your saturday evening/night too!

I'm gonna drown...

Don't worry, I'm not getting depressed or anything. Just started drawing a picture of a girl underwater and before I knew it I got the lyrics to a song in my head (I'm gonna drown...) and there she went. She's not quite dead yet, but she's accepted it. Maybe a handsome lifeguard will come and save her if you want to imagine a happy ending. (I'm not going to though, she's dead to me ;P.) I do have a feeling that this character will make a reapearence somewhere, I really like drawing her.

pencil and ink

*deep sigh*

This comic is based on true events.

Yeah, this happened. My washing machine has died on me. And I kid you not with the amount of steam, I could hardly see. I don't know what has happened to it exactly, but I think it has something to do with the heating element. I had the temperature on 40°C (104°F) but when I wanted to touch certain parts of the machine I couldn't because they were too hot, as were the clothes inside. So the water must have been near or at boiling point. I did manage to turn it off though. The water inside had turned black, but that might also have something to do with the fact that I was washing black clothes, I don't know. Fortunetaly it looks like most of my clothes have survived this adventure, except for one sweater. Bad news is, I was finaly managing to save some money, and now it can all go towards a new washing machine, GRRR!

inspiration

Sometimes inspiration only comes when you realise you really don't have any. Probably since I haven't been busy with images but with words the last couple of days, so I have to get drawing again to start the inspiration flow. That's why I drew a little sketch, made for you readers, and to get rolling again. It's a monster eating away at my head/inspiration.

just in time

It's allmost 12 o'clock here, but it's still tuesday.
I've been working very hard on a paper. I'm practically done though and really looking forward to bed. Because of that, this image:

It's actually one of a series of twelve, but I felt this one was very apropriate to how I'm feeling at the moment.
Good night everyone and sleep wel!

monday blues

for those of you who've got it and just don't want to get out of bed:

I myself have mixed feelings about this monday. On the one hand I see the shitload of stuff I have to do this week, but on the other hand I know that wednesday is going to be the worst, and things will get a bit easier after that point.

So, how are you feeling about this monday?

oh my god, not the children!

At the moment I'm working on a childrens book, together with my mom. She writes and I draw. This is the first time i'm doing such a big project, and I'm definitely liking it. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what techniques I'll be using, but as soon as i've figured that out it won't be so much of a problem making all the images since all the sketches are allready done.
It's a story about two characters, called Ka and Siem. (The names sound less silly in Dutch, and that is the language we're writing in so...)

This is one of the material tests I've made. It's combination between pastel chalk and silk screening.
Before I've tried aquarel and silk screening and gouache and silkscreening. I'll probably end up using all these materials in one image, I'm just trying to figure out the best harmony between all the techniques.

phew

My website is done! Now I'll just have to wait for the registration to come through completely and www.sammyfoppen.nl will be online. I'm thinking it'll probably be on monday.

Because I had to scan a ton of images to put on the site, I now have more than enough to show you here. So the prognosis is that the current trend of an image a day will continue! =)

The picture is from a newspaper, I've drawn and painted over it to create a new context.
The translation of what it says underneath the picture is "ah, what's a little bit of rain...".

new website

I´m working on my internet pressence (also one of the reasons why I started this blog). Part of that is updating my personal website. I have one allready, but it's quite dated and I'm not satisfied with it anymore. Last evening I registered my own website (http://www.sammyfoppen.nl). It's not online yet, but hopefully I'll manage to do that on monday. I've allready started with the design and the picture I'm posting today has to do with that. You'll be the first to get a preview!

This will be part of what you'll see when opening the webpage. Made to choose in which language you´d like to view the page (dutch or english).

Break

Sometimes repetition in an image can be a good thing. But today it's anoying me. (I'm talking about the picture I've posted yesterday matching the banner.) So that calls for a third post! With a picture again, ofcourse.

To make a start...

The last three days I've taken part in a workshop, together with my classmates (I'm still studying, third year illustration at the arts academie). We've made a very large collage. Since this is the thing that has occupied me the most over the last days the first picture I'm posting here is a detail out of the larger piece. I've decided to use it as the header of this blog aswell, untill I find something more suitable.

in a way it must deceive me

All my life I've longed for more.

I look for a way to push at the edges of what is acceptable, in all aspects of my life. This made it clear for me that a carreer in "the arts" was probably the best option for me. After long consideration and orientation I chose to become an illustrator.


Displaying my illustration work, that is the purpose of this blog.