One of my alltime favorite illustrators is Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), about whom I already wrote a Monday Hero blog earlier.

Sendak not only illustrated children's books, but also stories by for instance Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Tolstoy.

It is beautiful work.

It always occurs to me that his people are stocky and short, as if the grown ups are just big children really.

I can immensely enjoy elaborate illustrations full of tiny details , but  it is great when someone can capture everything in one clear image.

Jeffrey Alan Love is such a person. In the Netherlands he is best known for his illustrations of Kevin Crossley Holland's Norse Myths, for which he received the Zilveren Penseel (or Silver Paintbrush) prize.

His work is graphical, in black and white, often with bright red detail, and his images are unbelievably strong.

In artschool in Utrecht I studied Lithography and dry point etching.

I left both techniques later, being to impatient for both.

But when I saw the dry points by the Belgian artist Andreas Vanpoucke (1959), I felt a little nostalgic for the black velvet lignes you can create with this technique..

Vanpoucke is not only exactly my age, he also was studying in artschool at the same time as me, but then in Ghent.

Although here the sun came up in a blaze of colour this morning, and the sky is a beautiful pale blue now, I felt attracted to the maybe somewhat sombre etchings and drypoint etchings by the Swedish artist Mikael Kihlman (1953).

They have a timeless quality to them, making you see the cars and traffic signs only after a bit.

Everything still has to happen

In the land of now or never.

It is written black on white:

This year will be newer then ever.

Print: Annette Fienieg

Text: Koos Meinderts

Okay, so we won't have a white christmas this year, again.

Luckily we'll always still have paintings.

Like the ones by Peter Brook (1927-2009), who lived and worked in Yorkshire, where it is still possible to get snowed in now and then.

His landscapes are not of the Winterwonderland variety however, but rather show snow as it actually mostly is: cold and wet and miserable.

Even if it goes against my romantic temperament to say so.

This year, after a long time, I have taken up life drawing again.

It is lovely to just look very carefully and draw what you see.

In january I will definitely continue!

Shown above are some of the many still life paintings by Alice Mumford (1965)

This Columbia boen artist lives and works in the UK.

I fell for her work because of its simplicity, like Morandi she uses the same ingedients time and again: a red tablecloth, or a yellow striped one, some crockery and flowers.

The warm, cheerful colours of the works I chose to show also make them extra festive.

I first saw the work of the Brittish painter Doreen Fletcher (1952) on Spitalfields Life, the daily blog by The Gentle Author.

For twenty years Fletcher painted numerous shopfronts around London's East End.

Small bussinesses, held together with a lick of paint.

Sad maybe, but also beautiful.

In 2004 Fletcher gave up painting this subject, as there was no interest for these paintings.

Luckily nowadays there is recognition for this work.

And rightly so!