Mixable Week 20: Syttende Mai 2013

These are sure signs that spring has come. Six young lambs were born at Grimerud int he week that passed. Five boy-lambs and one girl-lamb. The sheep that got to stay with my neighbor was the last one to give birth.

We celebrated the Norwegian national day. One year short of two-hundred years ago the Norwegians wrote the constitution for their own independent nation. Free from Sweden.

It´s not fair to compare one country´s big day with another country´s big day. Because they are different countries, with their own history and people. Birthday´s are

to be celebrated. Important people get to do their speech, and some make it sound like hotdogs, other make it sound like ice-cream. Hendrik Wergeland has made this day to be a celebration day for children rather than for military parades. Every little village has it´s own children´s parade. And outdoor fun and games afterwards.

Here are some photo´s of one of the newborn lambs (the one with the floppy ears):

With all the church-days and holidays, I had a long weekend. And that was good.

Mixable week 19: Springsun

After the church-service on sunday a friend came with the idea that we should go longboarding together. And so we did, on tuesday. That sunday, after dinner I biked up the hill to practice a bit. I fell off the board when I tried to tie up my hair while going

to cruise down a slope, and my confidence hit the asphalt.

On tuesday I had come down to the city an hour earlier to skate together with my friend. The sky was blue and the sun was beaming where we were on car-park. At the end of the day, I thought I had even gotten a little browned, but then it showed that my skin also had gotten red itchy spots. Sun-allergy? Again? I have had big big trouble with skin before, I hope it´s going

to be over soon this time.

For now, I make sure I cover up and stay under my bridge.

And try not to scratch.

Having problems with skin again has really put me down, I thought I was over it. I had no symptoms last summer.

I didn´t make time to write something with this one. But the idea behind this post was from an article by John Piper.

He is an introverted paster, and would  prefer to spend time alone studying, rather than to spend time with the people of his church. I recognize that.

My takeaway: Every time I "come up with" something good in my introvert-time, I have to make sure I share it with the group the next time I see them. Even though much of my time-with-God is alone time, I can still share of what I got out of it. And I kind of already do this by making these colorful drawings.

At work, thing are going a bit slow. We postponed the magazine until after the big conference that we are going to have here at Grimerud in the beginning of June. Half of our department will attend the conference, and we got some extra work in addition.
The founder of our organization is going to do a tour through Norway in connection to the conference. Many things need to be done for that tour, and a handful of those things fall on my desk.

Moederdag 2013

Gefeliciteerd met moederdag, mam!

Mixable week 18: The new king

I got to follow the inauguration of the new Dutch king on Norwegian TV on tuesday, together with the four other dutch that live here. My norwegian colleagues were so good as to give me the day off

to watch it on TV. It was formal but quick. I have sat in many church-services that were worse. 

My Dutch friends gave me a package of stroopwafels for the occasion, which I put up for sale down in Café UNO that same evening.

Even abroad, the national day can be exploited to make profits. And our youth-café can really use some more income.

Every year on the first of May, the "russetid" starts. We had the youth café open until 02:00 at night for the russ-people to drop by if they wanted.
It was mostly the church-youth that came, they had been out on the street to give free coffee and waffles to the party-goers.

For more than an hour I had tried to make a nice drawing of the royal family on the palace balcony, but I just couldn´t get their faces right. Here´s a photo of the new king, queen and their three princesses.

On wednesday I was with my biblestudy group again. This time we talked about "The Kingdom of God". The kingdom like a mustard seed and like a sourdough, it starts small but it´s sure to grow. It´s not the gardener or the baker that makes it grow, but they can tend it so it´s in the right condition

to grow well. Much like the resolution I talked about in the first week of this year (that resolution is out of the window).

Someone form Indonesia had made the snacks for the evening, homemade springrolls and pastries.

The other Dutch people here at Grimerud had made Tompouces,
it´s a traditional thing we have on our Dutch national day.

We watched the royal ceremony on the norwegian TV.

I am more sentimental about our monarchy than I would like to admit. At the least, it´s that I like the idea of kings and queens, and a family serving our country for hundreds of years, knowing the governing of the country for such a long time.

I have had lots of time with my friends, and that´s why this post came a day late. I guess no-one is going to be bothered with the delay for longer than a couple of days. Real life goes first, and real life goes on.

At work we are preparing to host a big two-week conference in the beginning of June. The founders of our organization (Loren and Darlene Cunningham) are coming here to share about the core values of YWAM (our organization). I will participate in the conference, together with 200 other people from all over northern europe. It is going to be packed.
This is going to be a great time, I am looking forward to it, even though I don´t really know how it is going to be. I count on being very busy in those weeks, so my entries on my blog will prolly be minimal or delayed.
Then, after the conference we are going to finish the magazine we were planning to have done before the conference.

Mixable Week 17: BAAA

My neighbor found a sheep in his room when he came home on sundayevening. A pregnant sheep. His colleagues had used a few hours

to prepare this prank, the whole room had been cleared and a tarp was spread on the floor. This in case the sheep was going to poo some pellets. 

Just to say, the sheep didn´t get hurt, she only got a bit stressed. After the fun was over and everyone had their laugh, the pranksters cleaned the whole thing up and put the room back to normal. And then they went for coffee.

One week until we start again with Mot Målet, so we had some time 

to install new software on my work-computer. I upgraded from OS X 10.5 to OS X 10.6 (Snow leopard). Just after upgrading, I thought I should cleanup in my font-library too, but that was a bit mow delicate process. 

Besides updating the computer, we have got the new issue of our magazine in the mail.
Click here to read it online, and see where in the mag this shows up:

Mixable week 16: JOKER

We had church-bible group again this wednesday. The topic of our little book was from John 10. Here, Jesus says that he is the good shepherd. Those in our group that have cared for sheep, cows or pigs shared their experiences first. I like how this linked "the lesson" to personal experiences. Like good sheep have learned 

to recognize the shepherd, and know him by his voice, many christians worldwide can tell stories of how they have felt and known God´s guidance in their lives. For YWAM (where I work) this is important for how we make decisions. And knowing and recognizing God still comes first. The picture is an adaption of Rembrandt´s famous painting.

The first of the "Russ" of 2013 walked into Café UNO this week, on saturday. In their crisp bright red pants. The two were originally from Kenya, having come to Norway for 13 years ago. One of them remembered me from three years ago. I had drawn them a portrait back then. It was just

to practice. The Norwegian "Russ" wear their russ-pants for almost a whole month (without washing?), in connection with the high school graduation celebration. Since I had drawn his face before, he now asked me to do a full-length tag on his pants that said: "JOKER" in big capitals.

At work, I have been working on some different small projects, some of it I might post about in a few months. After the weekend, we will start working on the next issue of Mot Målet again. The latest issue arrived in the mail only a few days ago. Soon, I can send you a link to the digital version.

This dad has been drawing something on all his kids lunch-bags for the last couple of years.
I really like that idea.

Here´s a picture of the drawing I did on the Russe-pants.

Mixable week 15: Felling Friday

On monday we finished the files for the YWAM magazine, just before dinner time. Tuesday, I worked at Café UNO as always. On wednesday and thursday we had someone visiting us from England, teaching about "the inner man". She talked about our spirit and our heart and many many things, it is bit difficult 

to condense the whole thing into a few sentences. But some of what I understood is that the regular life of normal a christian is not only about being saved and going to church, but also about letting your thoughts, attitudes and choices be changed by spending time together in prayer, worship and  meditating on certain places in the bible. Christianity is not about the people, it´s about God.

To the first post I wanted to add this short video of with the new pope. He is interviewed by the leader of YWAM in Argentina, where they are neighbors. I met the YWAM-guy a few years ago, and he said to me something like: "you have a real vivid talent". I think that´s right.

Just a few times in the year I get to do what I spent three years in school for, chopping down big trees.
On the property, we have a big spruce tree that the farmer wanted to get cut down.
He had already asked me a few weeks ago, but I didn´t have the time

to do it before this friday. It only took half an hour of sawing before the thing was on the ground,
exactly where I wanted it to fall. Whole chunks of log will disappear into our huge furnace next winter,
to heat the buildings here.

I popped the tyre on a borrowed bike on my way to the midnight-service before easter sunday.
Had to buy a new tyre for it. This weekend I got

to help the guy swap out the tyres and patch up the inner-tube. Those good old Dutch bike-repair-skills.

The tree we cut ended up in a pile to the right in the picture.

The big red thing is our furnace, that´s where the logs are going to go.

It´s meant to burn bales of hay, but all kinds of things have disappeared in there.

The snow on top of the woodpile is from the night before,

that´s how much still fell in April.

Mixable week 14: VårRock at Café UNO

Café UNO was part of hosting this years Vårrock concert/festival. On friday-evening we had performances by Kid Exodus and Casa Murilo (on the drawing). On saturday we had Ted Glen Extended and Unnveig Aas in the afternoon, some local school-bands play their metal in the evening.

You can imagine that we were very happy

to get some more local people visit the café for this event. Always good with live music and more visitors.

I borrowed out my sketchbook for an evening on saturday. A friend in a hurry wanted to show it to her friend. They didn´t have time to look through the whole thing, so they got to take it with them. My sketchbook is a very personal item, it´s like a graphic diary with lots of visual cues. It´s not too personal that I don´t show it to other if they ask

to see it. But being without it for a few hours felt like a child of mine had left for a sleep over. For the first time. A child that I had shared good moments with, and told my favorite stories and sentiments.

And because this "child" is so dear to me, I do want to share it with others. Some others, not all.

Hello again, spring has come. The winter has given us our roads back, and it´s not so brutally cold anymore to bike between Grimerud and Hamar.
Most of last week we worked on the new issue of our magazine for YWAM Norway, and on monday when sew everything together and sent the files to the printer. The magazine should be on people´s doormats in a few weeks.

This time, for the first time in three years, we have not made any children´s pages. After last year´s series with Jonah we had thought to make a new plan for the next series.
I am kind of curious to see if we are going to get any reactions from our readers for not having something for the kids this time.

Spring is also time for tax-returns. it´s the inevitable part of the business, and I don´t like it.

Mixable week 13: Calm and Breezy

This sunday was the first time I had sushi I think.

Some friends had invited me 

to it after the church-service. Back at Grimerud they were running Easter-festival for teenagers.

Once that was done, most people left for a week of vacation, and it got very quiet here.

I stayed at Grimerud during the easter-break. It was the most wonderful weather, so most of the Norwegians were out in the mountains to go skiing. I am such a high church-kid, that I felt I had to attend a service on Good Friday. My own church did not have a service that day, so I visited one of the old churches close by. They were going

to have a musical meditation, with classical guitar and pan-flute. The priests read from the bible in between the performances. It was especially the pan-flute music that gave this dark day in the church-year a calm and breezy feel.

He is risen, Happy Easter!

The last Pan-flute piece that was played in the Good-friday service was Cavatina from Stanley Myers.
It made it easy to imagine Jesus being at peace with God the father, even in the moments brutal suffering of that friday.

This week we are doing the last work on our magazine, after a very quiet week of Easter-vacation. I did a lot of drawing in this week, mostly for myself, and some commission-work too.
Here is one personal piece:

Jesus in Gethsemane

The master-penman

Here is an inspiring little video of someone doing amazing work with pen and ink.
I double agree with him that art, like this, is deeply personal. Like an handwriting, I think that you can also recognize most of my own drawings by the linework.
The things we make, for as long as they last, show a side of the one who made it. Usually a side they want you to see. But you will see the whole of an artist´s character when you get to know him personally. Spend much time with him. God is like that too, I believe.

Mixable week 12: Fire on the ice

Sunday evening, we took a trip out on lake Mjøsa, to have ourselves a little fire. We had "pinnebrød", which is bread-dough wrapped around a stick.

Although we had walked almost a kilometer out on the ice, it was still thick enough

to hold the weight of all of us and the campfire. For the next weekend we planned to make an igloo on the lake, but that will have to wait for next winter.

On thursday, I  joined "Kreative UNO" at the youth-café I work on tuesdays. We painted and drew on easter-eggs, and some other different kind of things. little flags and cards. Some of our muslim friends were not used

to painting chickens-eggs and blowing them out. Their eggs got nice smiles on them. The same evening, we also started to write our names on our new family tree. It took a half year to get done with that.

Illustrator interview of the week: Ronald Searle (90)

Dunno, posting this might mean that I see myself do illustrations until the day I die or something. Searle died a year after this interview.

This is what the fire-on-ice looked like for real.

This is the only easter-egg I drew this week.
With UNO´s known Jesus-face design.