The March edition of the European Go Journal is ready. The digital edition has already been distributed to the subscribers. The PDF is at the printer and a new, more luxurious paperback than the first edition will soon be posted to the subscribers that want to read from real paper.

For the cover I made a special black and white version of my artwork "Sniffing the Third Line". On pages 26-28 the color version of the same artwork is included with more background information on my inspirations for that painting. 
I also helped Artem Kachanovskyi, the author and compiler of the European Go Journal, with the layouting and overall editing of the magazine. We worked hard together this month to create a magazine for European go with high quality content and I'm proud of the result.

This is only the second edition of the journal. I started working with Artem in the beginning of March, when I had just one or two days to proofread the entire first edition before we released it. We've come a long way since then, with already more than 100 subscribers! We are still perfecting the streamlining of the creative process. 

If you want to get a copy, go to www.patreon.com/europeangojournal

One of my customers on Etsy, William Sheehan, was happy with his order and asked me if I'd consider doing a private commission for him. William is 54 years old and has 20+ years of experience in chess under his belt. Only recently, about two months ago, he got into go and has already reached the level of 14-kyu. Previously William ran a chess club and as he is now fully submerged into go, and plans to start a go club. He showed me the logo of his chess club that he made himself (see picture below), in which he incorporated the blue and red colors of the flag of Chicago. The stars in the top left corner are taken from the same flag and the buildings in the background form the skyline of the city.
We exchanged some ideas and soon I understood that the go logo was to be quite similar, but that I was free to give it my personal twist. William told me that he lives close to the Midway International Airport, and that's where the name of his club comes from. Soon after, I got the idea to include an airplane in the design and have it take off from the go board. William had also mentioned the tarmac of the airport and this gave me an idea for the go-position: the go stones shown in the logo form a ladder that resembles a tarmac and emphasizes the movement of the plane. The ladder is good for White: White is in atari, but can move out with the next move, connecting up to his corner stones and breaking free, just like the plane.
Interestingly, although the blue of the plane looks darker than the blue of the sky, they are in fact the same color. It is an optical illusion caused by the black skyline. Another optical illusion is at play in the go stones: did you know that when go stones are produced, the white stones are made slightly smaller than the black ones? This is done because white objects seem larger to our eyes. I experienced that first hand during the design process: when using same-sized stones for black and white, the white stones appeared much larger, and I had to reduce them for a balanced composition.

For the font of the letters we ended up chosing a mechanical-style font called 'Noise Machine'.
If I'm ever in Chicago, I look forward to dropping by at the Midway Go Club.

During high school one of my classmates introduced me to Italian playing cards and in specifically to the glorious game of scopa. I immediately liked the artwork of the cards, with its denari (coins), coppe (cups), bastoni (clubs) and spade (swords). I've been playing the game ever since with my girlfriend and close friends. Whenever I go on a trip or a holiday, the deck of Italian cards always travels along. I've long had the idea of creating my own scopa deck, and talked about it many times with my friend Jan Hootsmans. We used to draw and write together during high school and we decided we're finally going to take this project seriously. Jan lives in Canada, so it's logistically a bit challenging, but we'll make it work.   
Above is the first step: a design for the coins, perfected in Photoshop from a sketch I did many years ago, when Jan was still living in Amsterdam.

I made a logo for IGLO - Internetowa Go Liga O!
IGLO is an online go league that was started around the time the covid-19 pandemic began. The league was created by Cezary Czernecki, supported by the Polish Go Association, and is now running its 9th season with 57 players competing. Participation is free of charge and most participants are from Poland and Ukraine, but anybody is welcome to take part. Each group consists of 8 players, in which each player plays against seven others, one game per week, The players compete to promote to the higher rated groups and, when results are suboptimal, can also fall down to the groups below. When a new player joins, he/she will be placed in a suitable group relative to their playing strength. IGLO includes regular lessons and game commentaries by top European players Stanislaw Frejlak 7 dan and Lukas Podpera 7 dan. 
You can find out more about IGLO on its website here.

A new monthly go magazine is born, called the European Go Journal. This is a great initiative by Artem Kachanovskyi 2dan professional, under the banner of the European Go Federation.
Artem got in touch with me earlier this year and told me of his aspirations to start the journal. His plan was to include a chapter on go-related art and photography in each edition and he asked me if I wanted to take part in it - as a way to make the magazine more interesting and at the same time promote my illustrations and Etsy shop. I agreed and chose "The Ear Reddening Move" for the first edition, an artwork I did on commission for the Latin American Go Congress in 2019. The artwork and a small background story about it can be found on page 35 of the journal. Artem also asked me advice on the layout and design of a magazine, and because of my experience as an author of go related articles and the 2016 European Go Yearbook, I ended up proofreading the whole journal. I also created the cover for the first edition, which features a beautiful artwork called "Hope" by French illustrator Camille Lévêque from Stoned on the Goban. 

The February 2021 edition of the European Go Journal is now available, free for download. The magazine will appear monthly in both online (PDF) and printed (paperback) form.
​If you want one or if you want to support future editions, please have a look at the Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/europeangojournal

​The plan is for me to stay involved in the making of future editions of the journal. I will edit, proofread and design the cover. Artem has asked me to use one of my own artworks for the March-edition and I am thinking to make a black and white version of my go playing cat for the occasion.

For the go and cat lovers out there, I've printed mugs with my go playing cat artwork on it.
I only have 15 in stock, it's available in my Etsy shop.

Previously, I designed a disc golf winter logo for the guys from Next Move in Groningen. This time around, they asked me to make a logo for Disc Golf School, a new initiative to teach disc golf to kids and grow the sport throughout the Netherlands.

I had two concept sketches that I pitched to Next Move:
- A basket with chains that grow out like the branches of a tree, forming new baskets as fruits of labor. Trees are often used as a symbol of wisdom and physical and spiritual nourishment. The multiplication of the baskets is a metaphor of the passing on of knowledge and the creation of new disc golf players.
​- A teacher and a pupil in a disc golf environment. The teacher shows the student where to throw and the pupil executes the shot. This was my literal translation of the idea of a school.

Although Next Move liked the idea of multiplication, they chose the second design because of its more professional feel. I added trees, a teepad, some details, colour and of course the text. Next Move also requested a black and white version. No problemo guys, roger that. 

Happy new year everyone! To a better year for everyone in 2021, hopefully soon without covid-19.

Congratulations to Alexandra Urban and Harry & Judith from EuroGoTV! I did an art raffle on social media between Christmas and New Year's day and they were the lucky winners. ​They won A4 art prints from my Etsy shop and could choose 1 poster each from the ones below, since I already had printed versions of these lying around.

My Etsy shop has grown significantly over the Christmas season. Thank you to everyone who bought my art, left sweet reviews and supported me. I am going to do more sales this year around the holidays and I am looking forward to add new artwork to the shop and grow it even more!

The go playing cat on the 2019-2020 Dutch Go Yearbook is the fifth consecutive cover in a series I have made for the Nederlandse Go Bond. The covers feature animals, go positions and paper marbling. The other four designs with background information can be found here.
The cat came into being as a watercolour painting in May earlier this year. It was inspired by other go-cat related art I had seen in the past. You can read more information about it here. I gave away the original drawing in an art raffle on social media to lift spirits during the covid-19 pandemic and to celebrate having almost 800 likes on my Facebook page. You can watch the raffle video here.

I'm grateful to the NGoB; this series of yearbooks is becoming quite something and I hope future Dutch go players will enjoy my covers as much as I do. The 2019-2020 edition will be printed and distributed among the members of the Dutch Go Association in January 2021.

Jenny's PhD thesis and my cover design are featured on the homepage of RIVM.
The RIVM is the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment of the Netherlands. It has been in the Dutch news a lot this year, because it is the organisation that officially publishes all information and guidelines on covid-19.

Jenny successfully defended her PhD research "Source attribution of human toxoplasmosis - A quantitative microbial risk assessment approach" on Tuesday 8th of December. I watched the defense live on the internet stream provided by Universiteit Utrecht. Jenny received lots of praise from the professors, her colleagues in the field and her promoter. They spelled out a bright future for her and now the research is already getting the attention it deserves. It was also fun to hear some of the professors mention the cover I designed and how much they liked it. 

The article by RIVM and the thesis by Huifang Deng can be read and downloaded here.