Gemma Plum's Blog

Drawing from life?

Gemma Plum — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 14:55:58 +0000

I love to draw and I love to draw from life. Preferably twice a week I join some friends and we draw life models. I draw Dimitri as he takes a nap, and I draw the cat as she follows his lead… BUT I would love to draw from life outside. Capture some refined lady as she is hoisting heavy shopping bags, find some children playing serious games, catch distinguished people napping in the train. I would love the practice and the progress. Sometimes I just do it, I take out my little Moleskin and my fountain pen and in the blink of an eye I catch someone not paying attention. But mostly I don’t dare… I don’t know why. Maybe I’m shy, maybe I’m just afraid of how people would respond if I stare at them too long.

But I’m working on a plan: First I’ve started drawing feet. It is very difficult to catch exactly the right character of a shoe (well, I admid, I have a shoe-thing) and people usually don’t mind if you stare at their feet. Secondly I started drawing from imagination in public, see how people react to a drawing individual. If all goes well I’ll gradually dare to stare more and draw freely in public…

Some parts of pages from old Moleskins. About a minute per drawing, moving targets, nervous artist.

New Studio!

Gemma Plum — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:36:25 +0000

In the meanwhile I have been busy back stage. We moved house to a beautiful little city with a lovely historic city center. Here I will have a whole floor to myself. At the back of the house (with french doors to the garden) a fabulous studio, where I shall be working full time as of april 2011. The front of the house has a little gallery in the artist area of the city center…

Dimitri painting my wall…

Prehistoric Cities…

Gemma Plum — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 10:53:42 +0000

It has been a while, time for an up-date… The children’s book I’ve been working on is finished and got some great reviews! I tried to get a bit of the Lascaux-cave-painting-feel in the (non-toxic) etches and I really enjoyed making them. Usually I work with computers but it was great to get my hands (and all that stood in my path) dirty again.

(Almost sold out but still available at Bol.com.)

Coming soon: illustrating a childrensbook

Gemma Plum — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:07:59 +0000

In the book store: IK HAAT POLITIEK

Gemma Plum — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:58:55 +0000

IK HAAT POLITIEK. A beautiful book about politics with my illustration on the front cover (and the back and inside). Available in Dutch book stores and on bol.com. On the 9th of June (election day in The Netherlands) publisher …tutti hopes to enter the Guinness Book of Records with a reading record. Get a free reading sample on youtube.com.

Rotterdam 14 may

Gemma Plum — Sun, 16 May 2010 10:25:47 +0000

This is a photo of a dummy of the hand printed book presented on may 14 in The War and Resistance Museum of Rotterdam. More photo’s will follow.

CD-Cover art, is it a book?

Gemma Plum — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:27:35 +0000

Designing the cover art of Motiv Loco from RSJF was great! I invented this machine of instruments powerd by a Harley Davidson motor to illustrate the groove and the power behind this superb instrumental jazz band.

Visite my behance portfolio and click if you appreciate the work.

Book of letters

Gemma Plum — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:12:56 +0000

After reading Alphabet. The History, Evolution and Design of the Letters We Use Today by Allan Haley I decided to use to play some… There is only one made. It never went in production.

Zen and the art of illumination

Gemma Plum — Thu, 13 May 2010 17:15:15 +0000

When the classic zen and the art of bowmanship (in Dutch Zen en de kunst van het boogschieten) went in reprint (again) I was asked to redesign it and illuminate it. That was an honour; I loved that book. It’s a book about the experiences a German philosopher who taught philosophy at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, Japan who decides to study kyudo, Japanese bowmanship. In his introduction he explains that the book is not suppose to be an how-to-book, since he has no clue. Nor is it supposed to be an historic book about the origin of kyudo. It is just his personal journal about learning a sport which strives to perfection by endless repetition.

Of course ancient woodcut images of Japanese Samurai were out of the question, that would make it look like an historic book. Nor would modern pictures of Kyudo suffice; he studied kyudo from 1924 to 1929. Furthermore modern images of people practising bowman-ship would give the book an How-to-feel. I decided to go for illustration. One pose repeated over and over again. The part which took him four years to perfect: the drawing of the bow. It worked, I drew two more: the preparation for the drawing and the release for the title-page and the last page…

The 4 dimensional book

Gemma Plum — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:07:08 +0000

A book is not just a pile of pages, it has volume; a third dimension. But that’s not all, it has a fourth dimension as well: reading a book takes time. A book has a structure, a route, a sequence. Either it begins on the first page and goes on till the last page is reached or it’s a more complicated matter and some kind of navigation (like a content page or an index) is required to travel back and forth through the book to the desired destination.

With this in mind I started my graduation at my second academy; The Willem the Kooning in Rotterdam. I collected all information I could find about the evolution of the book hoping I would get to know more about its form and its future. Al these facts I arranged around a navigation system which emphasized the books fourth dimension; a time line.

I used transparent pages to illustrate not only the third an fourth dimension but the way every fact is based on what happend a moment before has an impact on what shall come to pass.