Paring away, simpler and simpler

Dick Bruna's drawings of Miffy only allow for very miniscule changes to indicate emotions--the position of eyes, the length of the ears, the shape of the mouth. [image error] "That's all you have. With two dots and a little cross I have to make her happy (...) or a little bit sad--and I do it over and over again. There is a moment when I think yes, now she is really sad. I must keep her like that." [image error] He is constantly paring away, distilling down to the simplest purist form possible. When he draws Miffy crying, for instance, he says, "I very often start with three or four tears. I take away one, and the next day I take away another one, and at the end I have one tear, and that's very, very sad."

Georges Simenon wrote to him and said: "I see that you are trying to make your covers still simpler and simpler. You are doing the same in designing as I try to do in writing." [image error] It might take him a day to draw a single illustration of Miffy.

<note: I'm going to take an entire month off from blogging... so, see you back in september!>