Netherlands
Sitting on Dick Bruna's chair and other cultural highlights.
Hello and happy autumn to you all!
I’ve been thinking lately about the cyclical nature of my creative process. This year built up to a very busy summer. After the release of Little Lion Girl I knuckled down to finish illustrating an epic book. I lined up lots of audiobooks* and hid away from the world to get it done. Recently when I went into Walker Books to look at the exciting initial test proofs, I had vivid flashbacks of stories I was listening to whilst illustrating Sean Taylor’s poems. (I’ll tell you more about this unique project before we know it, but you can get a big old glimpse in the final slide over here on insta)
Does that happen with anyone else? It takes a while for the strong association of image and sound to fade, because the George Clooney episode of Desert Island Discs popped into my head when I glanced years later at a particular spread from my debut book Hiding Heidi! : )
I must admit, I do enjoy it when I’m totally consumed by a project and get into a groove of constant output, (of course it’s not sustainable to stay in that deadline mode for the entire year!) After the euphoric realisation that the impossible has happened and the book may actually be finished**, there’s a decompression phase that happens when I slowly exhale and re-enter society again! I’m often a bit depleted in lovely fresh inspiration and have to venture out to fill the well again!
I was lucky enough to have a stack of Eurostar vouchers gifted from kind friends and family last year, which helped fund a trip to Holland at the end of September - here follows a few random cultural highlights for you… (and for me to process and remember some of what we got up to!)
The studio of Dick Bruna - Utrecht
Like many people, I grew up loving Dick Bruna’s books and it was a highlight of the trip to spend time in the reconstruction of his studio on the top floor of Centraal Museum in Utrecht. There were videos about his early book cover designs, his creative process, daily routine and the influence of Mondrian and Matisse on his timeless work.
We were invited to open the drawers to discover some of his archive and the specially selected limited range of coloured paper he used to create the artwork.
To quote the official miffy website “There were also colours he never used. Purple, for instance, which he felt wasn’t a real colour”.
There was also a video of him getting helpful feedback on a drawing from his wife. He cared so much about every detail of a composition, the subtlety of an expression and getting his characteristically “Shaky” line just right.
You can watch Dick cycling up to his studio and getting on with his work here. His bike was actually on display too!
Stedelijk Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and Design
There’s a fascinating history of dolls houses in the Netherlands. We saw ornate 17th century examples in the Rijks Museum, but this was my favourite one in the Stedelijk. Note the use of Bauhaus inspired tubular metal chairs out on the balcony.
Colours of Amsterdam
I’d never been to Amsterdam before and as soon as we got off the train I was instantly struck by the rich chocolatey browns of the buildings. I always enjoy it when a city has it’s own unique colour palette and Amsterdam’s was perfect for autumn.
I’ve been known to buy a colouring pencil from an art shop as an easy to pack memento of a trip. (For example - dusky pink from Bologna, Golden Gate Bridge orange from San Francisco etc etc) And I came home from Holland with a perfect dark brown chalk-pastel pencil, which has already become my favourite.
As well as her world famous diary, Anne Frank also wrote short stories, she called them ‘my Pen-and-Inklings’. It was a moving experience to see an exhibition of her short stories illustrated by 46 illustrators from all over the world. I was drawn to the illustration above by Emily Hughes. You can read more about it on Emily’s instagram, where she mentions “Anne wrote that she wished she’d been able to draw —to get her imaginings out fully”.
A tip from Van Gogh
I picked up a tip at the Van Gogh museum…
“To avoid wasting expensive paint when trying out colours, Van Gogh used small balls of wool that he kept in a box. They helped him find appealing colour combinations for his paintings - hues that intensify one another or different shades of the same colour”.
Karel Martens / Every day is a new day
We spent a rainy hour or so snooping around The American Book Center in Amsterdam, eavesdropped on an interesting panel discussion about a fantasy graphic novel and also picked up a tear-off calendar for 2025 by Dutch designer Karel Martens.
“…originally constructed using his signature method of printing letterpress monoprints from found metal forms, and then digitized to comprise 365 compositions in total. Every day is a new day!”
Karel Martens also did an interesting textiles collaboration with Liberty earlier this year. I was lucky to see the little display at the Liberty store in London where along with the display boards (see above right) there was a screen showing this film (below), which captures his wonderful Amsterdam studio and process.
I’ll conclude my Netherlands post with a bracing coastal walk! (Dick gets everywhere!) and some flea market finds. Needless to say we packed a lot into nine days including cycling in vegetated dunes (shout out and thanks to my cousin for being a brilliant local guide!)
A huge thank you as ever for reading The Woodcock Dispatch, I’ve certainly stayed true to my initial aim of doing ‘occasional’ posts! : )
I hope my trip has inspired you too?
Fiona
P.S -
*Some of the audiobooks I enjoyed listening to whilst illustrating the latest book are - Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, You are Here by David Nicholls, The Riders by Tim Winton, The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose and Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. (Many borrowed free via the library app!)
**I know I said ‘finished’ the book. Thinking about it, we’re about to see the final proofs, so there may be a tiny bit of tweaking still to do! : )
Two quick facts for you - the Woodcock bird is called Houtsnip in Dutch and Miffy is called Nijntje! : )
AND as a final Halloween gift - might I suggest you head to Tor Freeman’s brilliant scary Inktober alphabet series here!
Oh brilliant Fiona - yes I get exactly that with drawing and sound, such a strange phenomenon, I have synesthesia and I’ve always put it in the same bag! And I’m with Dick on purple! Your new book sounds exciting!
Wonderful post - I’m so envious of your trip! It looks and sounds fabulous! 🤩 xx