What's cooking? part 2

"There's only one thing in life worse than being almost forgotten and that's being completely forgotten" to misquote the great Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde.
Such fate seems to have fallen upon Anton Heijn, who illustrated the cookery pocket book "Fijne Hapjes van Margriet" (Delicate Titbits by Margriet) in 1964. Margriet is the same women's magazine I wrote about in What's cooking? part 1.
The illustrations in this book are rather good. I quite like Anton Heijn's decorative style with that slight cubistic twist so typical of the mid twentieth century.
Anton Heijn's illustrations are of such quality and graphic beauty that it's most unlikely that his work was only published in "Fijne Hapjes". Yet, searching the internet, I could find no reference to him other than this cookery book.
And that, my dear friends, is not good. Not good at all! Although there's no doubt other work by Anton Heijn must have been published somewhere, it somehow has fallen into oblivion.
Of course I will keep my eyes and ears open for any information about the elusive Mister Heijn and his work. However, should you happen to know anything, I will be glad to hear from you.

What's cooking? part 1

I've got quite a few cookery books. Not because of I'm so fond of cooking. Au contraire, dear blogreaders! No, it's because of the illustrations in those books.
I do have to say that I'm not a real cookery book collector. I don't go to auctions or search eBay hoping to acquire rare and undoubtedly very expensive editions.
In fact, most of the books that are on my shelf were once the priced possession of my dear late mother. Other books I just happened to find in second hand stores, not paying more than a few pennies. Coincidentally all the books are Dutch and not so coincidentally all from the 1950s and '60s.
Although not collectors items, these cookery books of mine are crammed with the most beautiful illustrations and I think they deserve to be brought back from oblivian. What better way than to use this weblog to do some good work?

The first cookery book illustrations I would like to bring to your attention are by the hand of I. Spreekmeester.

Although almost forgotten nowadays, Isidore Leonard - a.k.a. Ies - Spreekmeester was a well respected Dutch illustrator in his time. He made numerous illustrations during his lifetime (1914 - 2000), but I remember him best for the four Little Golden Books (Dutch edition) of "de Vier Kleurpotloden" ( the Four Colour Pencils) he made in the early 1970s. And of course the cookery book which is this blog's topic.
The Margriet cookery book illustrated by I. Spreekmeester must have been part of many Dutch households in the middle of the last century. Margriet is a women's magazine that has been around since 1938. For those not familiar with the Dutch language; Margriet is a girl's name as well as the flower known as daisy, which also happens to be an English first name. Now isn't that a coincidence!?

The magazine also published a variety of cookery books. I don't know exactly when the first edition of the book with Spreekmeester's illustrations was published. I've got the thirteenth edition from 1962. Searching the internet, the earliest edition I could find is from 1955, but I'm not to sure about that being the real first publication.

It strikes me that the illustrations by I. Spreekmeester are very witty and imaginative, sometimes a little weird and even a bit gruesome. That's remarkable considering that Margriet has always been, with all respect, a bit fuddy-duddy. The illustrations didn't seem to bother the Dutch mid-century's housewife though. I guess she could appreciate a little bit of fun whilst looking up a recipe for daily supper.

Opa's iPod

One of the recent jobs I worked on was making an image for a poster for an exhibition in a museum called De Dubbelde Palmboom.

De Dubbelde Palmboom is a museum especially for children. It's situated in an old warehouse in Delfshaven, a small harbour in the city of Rotterdam. This might be of special interest to those descended from the Pilgrim Fathers. Delfshaven was actually the starting point of the voyage of the Pilgrims to the New World. They set sail to Southampton on board of the Speedwell in 1620. In Southampton they boarded on the Mayflower and the rest of the story is all too well known.
Well, that's enough history class for now!
The exhibition in De Dubbelde Palmboom is called Opa's iPod (Grandad's iPod) and is all about apparatus which are familiar to today's grandparents, but most likely unknown to the youth. This exhibition give these ignorent young brats the oppurtunity to observe and even experience those wonderful devices of yesteryear.
The children can play with the first Atari computergames, listen to the radio (with broadcasts dating from various decades), send morse codes and they can even have a go at an old fashioned telephone switchboard.
There's also a grammophone player on which the youngsters can spin some records, although I have to say - being a passionate record collector myself - the record collection of the museum is not much to go for. I guess that won't bother the youth of today in the least though.
Unnecessary to say that the exhibition will be lots of fun for kids and probably their parents and grandparents too.

I think it's also great fun to combine a drawing with a photograph and so I was very pleased the museum asked me to do something like that for the exhibition. These pictures are going to be used for promotional purposes.


That's it for now, dear blogfriends. Next time something quite different!

Batmobile part 1

Some of the visitors of my website and this blog will recognize my name from the record sleeves I did for the Dutch rockabilly trio Batmobile. I did those sleeves many many years ago and, as you can imagine, I have improved myself quite considerably over the years.
Although the record sleeves of Batmobile are not representive for the work I make nowadays, I thought it would be a nice idea to open this weblog with the six album covers I've made in their good ol' vinyl years.
Mind you, those three geezers gave me my first real paid assignment way back in 1985 and gave me the oppurtunity to make a little name for myself, whilst hopping along on Batmobile's road to world fame.


Batmobile's debut album was released in 1985. The original artwork was stolen from the archives from the record company by an ex-employee and sold to someone else. I don't know who has the original artwork nowadays, but I know who stole it. Shame on you!!!


"Bambooland”, Batmobile's second album, was issued in 1986. I'd made seperate working drawings for each colour, but they were so complicated that the printer preferred to use the colour sketch I made to make the colour seperations clear. Luckily I did a good job on a very detailed sketch, but I still had to learn a lot about technical requirements for a printer. Ah well, that's the price you have to pay being self educated. You learn while you're doing it.


I used a black and white postcard for inspiration on the “Amazons From Outer Space” album from 1989. Alas, I don't have the postcard anymore and I forgot which British village or town was pictured on the postcard. Nevertheless, the shop of J. Sowden, fish salesman and fruiterer, did - or even so still does - really exist!
Unfortunately, the original artwork of this album also mysteriously disappeared. If anybody happens to know where the original is now, I would appreciate it if that person could inform me of its whereabouts. I hope it didn't end up in a trashcan. I spend many, many hours working on this album cover!


When I made the sleeve of “Batmobile is Dynamite” in 1990, I was very much inspired by a Dutch cartoonist duo known as Windig and De Jong. Be sure to learn more about these ever so funny men on this weblog in the future.
The figure with the chef's cap on the right might seem a bit perculiar for those not familiar with Dutch folklore. However, those who are well acquainted with our folklore will immediately recognize Flipje, a character trademark of a Dutch brand of jam. I notice now that I made a few slight mistakes in the detailling. The original Flipje has curly orange coloured hair and his hands are made out of leaves. I guess I couldn't find a picture of the little fellow at that time and had to do it all from memory. The cat on the album cover is in fact my dear beloved pet named Ora, who sadly passed away in 1992.



The sleeve of “Sex Starved”, also from 1990, is made in a period when I experimented with a much more expressive style. I tried it for a few years, but in the end I concluded that it wasn't my cup of tea after all and returned to a clean cut cheerful style, which suits me much better.
Again the original artwork dissappeared without a trace, so if you can give me any clue ...?


With the making of “Hard Hammer Hits” in 1992 I got some help from a befriended graphic designer. With his help I was able to live up to all the specific requirements of the printer and the result was excactly as I hoped it would be.
Please note that the explicit photographs of certain parts of the human body on the back of the album cover were not my idea. You have to thank the sophisticated gentlemen of Batmobile themselves for that.
One might notice that the front sleeve is much influenced by the work of Preston Blair, probably best known for his work for Walt Disney Productions. I'd bought an instructional book for animation by his hand. Although I never made an animation, I can tell you that I sure have learned a lot studying the book over and over again.


Preston Blair died in 1995, so he will never read this blog. Nevertheless, I sure would like to thank Mr. Blair for sharing his knowledge and craftsmanship.