Bart Slijkhuis from go news website www.baduk.info recently interviewed Peter Brouwer and myself about our new go book Weird and Wonderful, Volume 1: Extraordinary Moves by Professional Go Players. Bart asks us about our discovery of the game of go, our videos for BadukMovies, the writing process of the book and our favorite chapters of this first volume in a series of three.
You can watch the interview by clicking here (redirects you to YouTube).

They say that all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, not long after finishing the October issue of the European Go Journal, my work for the magazine abruptly came to a close after nine successful editions. If it were up to me, my designing and proofreading work for the Journal would have continued on for a long time, but it is what it is. 

The last three covers I created can be viewed above, and in more detail below, for which I used artworks of three different artists: Alizée Chabin (France), Aleksandra Khokhlova (Russia), and Gonca Mine Çelik (Turkey).

Alizée Chabin (Kalyptane) made two illustrations especially for the occasion, adorning the Journal's front and back. In the Art & Photography chapter of the August edition, she writes:

"The painting that I made for the front cover is titled “Feeling Cosmic”. We see a go board, standing on top of the cliffs of Saint-Georges-de-Didonne. The position on the board shows the final game of the Transatlantic Professional Go League between Ilya Shikshin 4p and Ryan Li 3p, reviewed in this issue. In the distance, the historic warship “L'Hermione” from the 17th century, whose home port is Rochefort, sails off. I took some liberties in the drawing: the landscape is missing the wooden fishing platforms on the seashore and the plants in the foreground don't actually bloom that way. The painting for the back cover is titled “Le Phare du Bout du Monde”, which translates to “The Lighthouse at the End of the World”. It shows the lighthouse off the coast of La Rochelle, which is a replica of the one in Patagonia (Argentina)." 
​

The September cover was special in the sense that it is the only one to date that has a front and back that blend into each other, since they are part of one and the same artwork. I stumbled upon this drawing on Aleksandra Khokhlova's Instagram, and she was kind enough to let the Journal use it. In the magazine, Aleksandra explains where the inspiration for this artwork came from: 

"This illustration depicts my impressions of a go tournament. Before making it, I took part in
the championship of Siberia that brought together around 50 go players with all kinds of
personalities: loud and silent, brave and careful, self-confident and modest. I wanted to capture
all of this, and so in the breaks between my games I drew sketches in my notebook. After the
tournament I colored them at home, and a new artwork was born.
To engage with this artwork, you can self-reflect with the question of “What kind of go player
am I?” Are you a brooding kangaroo, a happy ferret, a cocky bird, a doubting monkey, a beast
that watches, or a hare that sits with its back towards everyone?"
​

For the front cover of October, I used a drawing by professional illustrator Gonca Mine Çelik that I'd first spotted in a Turkish go magazine called Taslı Yol ("Stony Road") a few years ago. In the Journal, Gonca describes her artwork, titled "Emotions of Go":

"I struggle a lot during a game of go, and this drawing illustrates how much of a struggle the
game can be. Go is a real challenge to one’s character. It provides so many ups-and-downs,
and pushes you to your limits. One moment you can feel very happy, then very sad the next. To
handle that, you need to be strong mentally. I think every go player will recognize this sentiment
and might even be able to identify with my illustration."

 
For the November edition, ​​I had already asked Ofer Zivony (Israel) to create a portrait of Stanislaw Frejlak 1p, the freshly promoted professional go player of the EGF. I also contacted Zoé Constans (France) for the December edition, and I had plans to use a wonderful illustration by Clémence Bécaud (France), sent in by her husband Hugo Maussion (who created the cover of the July edition). My hope is that you'll be able to see their artworks on the covers of future editions.

My art lives on inside the Journal for just a little longer. In the November edition, all subscribers that receive a physical copy will also receive a Christmas card with it, designed by yours truly. There are six variations of the card, making each one a limited edition collector's item (see below). 

So long, EGJ, and thanks for all the fish!

I've added a new category to my website: ORIGINALS (FOR SALE) under PORTFOLIO. Have a look by clicking here.
On this page I plan to regularly add the originals of my artwork, which are for sale. You will be able to purchase them by clicking on them, which will redirect you to my shop on Etsy. 

Yesterday I scanned and uploaded 6 of my drawings. I have over a hundred drawings made between 2006 and 2021 that I still need to scan, take proper photos of and put online. It's a big project, and it will take some time. 

If you are interested in buying an original from me rather than a print, keep an eye on my social media (Instagram and Facebook) and my Etsy shop: I will slowly start selling art that I've never  shown to the world wide web.  

Since February 2021 I've been working together with Artem Kachanovskyi 2p to create the European Go Journal, a monthly magazine about the game of go. The magazine includes news from recent European go events, notable news from the Asian continent where pro tournaments are more frequent, game commentaries, interviews, and recurring chapters like "Art & Photography", "World of Tesuji" by Alexandre Dinerchtein 3p and "Thirty-Six Stratagems" by Dai Junfu 8d.

My tasks for the journal are varied. I am the lead proofreader/editor, I adjust details of the layouting to improve looks, and I design the cover of each edition.
The creation of the covers is a lot of fun. I try to use different go-related artwork from as many different people as possible to showcase the diversity of the go community. This blog post looks back on the covers that I've made so far and gives a sneak peek into covers that are yet to come.

​So far six editions have been published, with artworks by the following people:
​

• February 2021 features 'Hope' by Camille Lévêque (France), one of the illustrations she produced during Inktober 2020. It is inspired on a game between two professional players and hints at themes of renewal, creativity, and learning.​

Below a sneak peek of what is yet to come.
Currently Alizée Chabin (from France), who is also known online as Kalyptane, is working on a custom cover with a nautical theme - front and back - for the August 2021 edition. 
For the September and October issues, I found candidates in two amazing artists from Russia and Turkey. September will most likely have a cover made by Aleksandra Khokhlova, whose art I spotted on her Instagram account. The October issue will suitingly be adorned with autumn colors - I saw this illustration of a girl fighting off her mental demons in a Turkish go magazine called Tasli Yol (translates as "Stony Road"). That was a few years ago, and it was printed as a small picture. It is made by professional illustrator Gonca Mine Çelik and deserves to be in the spotlight.

On the 22nd of May I was invited by artist Joanna Klęczar to take part in an art share on social media, posting one of my artworks every day for a week. Normally I do not take part in challenges on Facebook, but this time I thought it would be a good excuse to look at my old folders/sketchbooks and share some art that I made in the past.
I have so many old works lying around, so choosing which to share was tough. It proved impossible, so in the end I randomly picked a drawing each day.
I took pictures and uploaded them on Facebook and Instagram. These are the results.

I am working on updating my website and including more of my work. A lot of it is not online yet and many old drawings remain to be scanned. Want to see more of my (old) work? Anything in particular? Let me know in the comments below.

This blog post is the second edition of Looking Back, in which I look back on artwork I have made in the past.
​
Soon the 2018-2019 edition of the Dutch Go Association Yearbook will be published. Each year the Nederlandse Go Bond (NGoB) publishes such a booklet in which the most important seasonal go happenings of the Netherlands are recorded, along some major international go news. 
As is becoming tradition, my go art is on the cover! This time it is my raccoon dog who drums his belly, a pun on the Japanese name of a famous tesuji combination of two stones played on the first line, capturing the opponent's group of stones in a spectacular way. The green marbling pattern was created by hand in 2019, then scanned and cleaned up digitally.

The raccoon dog on the cover of the 2018-2019 Dutch Go Yearbook is the fourth in a series of covers I have made for the Nederlandse Go Bond that feature animals, go positions and paper marbling. Here are the previous three:

And a picture of what the three booklets look like next to each other:

The cover of the 2017-2018 NGoB Yearbook features my go butterfly, which originally was a logo that I created for the European Youth Go Championships (EYGC) of 2015 that took place in Zandvoort.
The patterns on the wings of the butterfly show several tesuji shapes, such as the crane's nest and a snapback.

The 2016-2017 edition, probably my personal favourite so far, incorporates my drawing The Tortoise Shell, a pun on the Japanese name for one of the strongest shapes in go called 亀の甲​ (the tortoise shell): a tortoise rocking the tortoise shell on his tortoise shell.

For the 2015-2016 yearbook I chose a design featuring Lee Sedol's famous move 78 that made AlphaGo go on tilt in game four of their best of five match in 2016. Lee Sedol lost the overall match to the computer program by 4 to 1 games, making AlphaGo the first computer to defeat a top level professional in the history of go. This wedging move by Sedol resulted in the only victory in the matchup for the Korean and became a symbolic victory of human capability.  


If you look closely, you might notice a difference in the look of the elephant cover with the following editions: the elephant is black and white, since most of my artwork was still black and white in those days, but also unlike the subsequent covers the marbled background is one shade of colour and blends together with the go board. The original was blue and white, but an editorial decision was made to change it to brown. The future editions were not altered, showing a small difference in style.

Technically the NGoB Yearbook series with my artwork on the cover started with the 2014-2015 edition, for which my drawing called Fighting Spirit was used. I don't really consider this volume as part of the series, however, because it stands out from the rest. It is completely black and white and as I had not yet discovered paper marbling, there is no exciting background. On top of that, the actual go drawing ended on the back side of the booklet instead of the front. See pictures below. I also include some examples of what each yearbook I illustrated looks like on the inside.  

My go art has also been published on two magazines of the German Go Association, called the Deutsche Go-Zeitung. The Raccoon Dog Drums His Belly and Fighting Spirit make their first appearances on the first DGoZ volume of 2015 and the second DGoZ ​volume of 2019.

Do you run or write a go editorial, magazine, bulletin, leaflet, website, book, you name it? And would you like to include my art? Please leave a comment!

Today I want to introduce a new part of my blog called Looking Back, which I will use every now and then to share artwork that I have created in the past. As the first post of Looking Back, I would like to share a series of 12 go artworks that I have made so far. 
This ongoing series features animals, paper marbling (known as suminagashi in Japan and ebru in Turkey) and the game of go (known as igo in Japan, baduk in Korea and weiqi in China). Several of these designs refer to the names of patterns and shapes in the game of go that often are derived from nature. For other artworks I took inspiration from famous go matches or gave my own twist to commissioned work.
I sell these designs as postcards and posters in various sizes. This project started little over a year ago, when I realised I want to offer my art in an affordable format. I did however want to be able to guarantee the best quality possible and that is why I decided to make the products myself at home. After taking a chance and purchasing a professional printer in December 2018 I soon found out that it is not easy to find the right paper. Not too thin and shiny for the postcards, not too thick and plain for the posters. After several frustrating weeks of failed tries I finally found the right materials and started offering my work online. Since then I have worked together with many go organisations as well as individual buyers. 

For those of you who are new to the game of go: go is a strategic board game in which black and white take turns, placing stones on a board, specifically on the intersections of the indicated lines. The goal of the game is to surround territory with your stones and whoever has surrounded most territory at the end of the match wins. The rules of go are simple, but the game never gets boring as there is an almost infinite amount of possibilities that makes every match you play a new challenge.
I have been hooked on go ever since I started playing in September 2004. The game, mind sport, art of go or whatever you want to call it has had a significant influence on my life. It gave me an outlet for my competitiveness, made me part of a community, influenced my drawings and even got me several jobs promoting the sport. You can read more about my go background in the GAME OF GO tab.

Do you like my go art and do want to support me? Check out my Etsy shop for posters and postcards.