Political cartoons

The past three weeks I was a part-time political cartoonist!
For the summer period I was asked to make 6 cartoons for newspaper Trouw.

They 'hired' me after this cartoon about the World Soccer Championships. (Orange is the Dutch
national colour). This was a test, so it wasn't published.

Then, a few days before I had to make my first official cartoon, the MH17 was shot down, killing
almost 200 Dutch people.

I was shocked about the comments online of people wanting revenge and war, and it inspired
me to this cartoon. But I was too early, the rest of Holland was still in shock and mourning, and
my idea (people thinking too lightly about war, and with a war we'd do the same to the innocent
people in Russia and the Ukraine as what happened to us) didn't come across well enough.
The newspaper turned it down (oops, great start...) and I quickly had to draw a new one.

This one was about the lack of houses for people who flew their countries and finally got to
stay in Holland legally. Sometimes there was no other place than tents.
The text says 'Greeting from Holland' and there's a 'Green card' on the washing line.

For my next cartoon I still wanted to draw something about the MH17 disaster. At the time
the government was unsure about what action to take against Russia, and our prime minister
Rutte (the R guy) tried to keep calm. This drawing was based on the saying 'the last drop makes
the cup run over', in the Dutch translation the cup is a bucket.

I wasn't completely happy with this cartoon, since it felt too 'standard' and cartoony, and caricatures
aren't my forte.

So for the next one I aimed for a more illustrative style.
The government was still contemplating (military) action,  but over time it went from sending
soldiers, to soldiers without weapons, without uniforms, etc.
This Dutch soldier is now only bringing some 'stroopwafels', the classic Dutch cookie we offer to
all our foreign friends.
The text says Dutch Military (crossed out) Mission.

Then the rain came pouring down in Holland and many streets were flooded. I combined it with
all the mourning and sadness of the past days.
The text says 'flooding' but in Dutch it's more like 'the burden of water'.

The style of this cartoon was the one I felt most happy about that far.

Now I wanted to focus on the 'conflict' between Israel and Palastine. This cartoon is about
how protesting against war, quickly turns into accusations of antisemitism.
The text says 'against war'.

But the newspaper had ran another cartoon with a swastika just a few days before (that resulted
in a lot of angry mail from readers) and that many swastikas was a bit too much for them. They suggested that
I added some other symbols as well, so this is how it was printed in the newspaper.
(no angry letter that I know of, was sent)

Then it was time for my last cartoon already!
This one is about the sanctions Russia has been putting on the import of flowers and vegetables,
but meanwhile their oil and gas is still flowing.

Actually I wanted that last cartoon to be about Obama's speech on torturing their prisoners.
This news was never mentioned in the newspaper though (....), so they couldn't use it (the readers
wouldn't understand). But I decided to draw it anyway and just post it online.

It's been a great three weeks!

Work work work!

I didn't manage to update this blog in a while because after a few slow months I suddenly
got swamped in work!

This is what usually happens when I'm hired to draw at a business event (yeah, count them,
that many!) The past weeks I've drawn a LOT of cartoons for a lot of clients!
Here are some samples;

And then I've also been working on another photo illustration for Factor15 magazine;
This was what my table looked like! Illustrating can be a weird thing...

I can't show you the result yet until it's published so here's a detail of the final pic.

And then finally I had to make a huge illustration for company Ziggo. It describes internal
processes in a visual way. That's also why I can only show you a tiny (censored) pic and a
detail. Nobody is supposed to know yet that Ziggo is starting a boat company! ;-)

The coming week I'll be drawing cartoons at business events practically non-stop, and I
also have to make a comic that explains an important change in the copyright law and a
pile of cartoons about innovative ways of learning.
I hear some people mention a thing called holiday but I'm not sure what it is... ;-)

Games & education

Some time ago I worked for GATE, a project about games and education,
organised by De Waag Society.


I made these cartoons and unlike my other work (don't steal my work!!!) it's licensed
under the Creative Common license. Which means that you're allowed to use my
cartoons as long as you give me credit and don't use it in a commercial way. :-)
Here are bigger versions of these cartoons on Flickr (click).

TEDxCartoons

So today I drew cartoons at TEDxAmsterdamWomen.
I made 22 cartoons during the whole day, because all the talks were so interesting! :-)
I hope these cartoons give an impression of all the different presentations. You can learn more
about all the talks, TEDxWomen and the speakers at their site: www.tedxwomenamsterdam.nl/
I drew on big sized paper and then took photos, so sorry for the mediocre quality of the pics.
Oh, and here's a TED blogpost about the asphalt talk that I illustrated for Niki Kringos (who
did a wonderful job on the presentation itself.)

Oh, and yeah, these drawings are all copyright protected. Contact me if you're interested in my work. Thanks!








http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/maaifoto/mylittlehearts/07harrietverweij.jpg










The real Lavinia Meijer (a harp player) with her cartoon, that she took home.

We love ASPHALT!

I don't even own a car but now I know everything about asphalt....
.....and soon you will too!
Because Niki Kringos will do a talk on the upcoming TEDXAmsterdamWomen event
this Tuesday and I designed her complete Powerpoint presentation!


I'll also be present at the event to draw live cartoons about all the other talks
UPDATE: I just heard that TED does plan to film/photograph my cartoons during the day
and put them online. So keep an eye on the website today: www.tedxwomenamsterdam.nl

I decided to collaborate with TED because I hope to show what a difference cartoons
can make in a presentation. Most powerpoint slides are filled with boring words in
bullet points and generic stock photos. I hope my drawings will leave a longer lasting
impression and make it all more fun as well. :-)

WCIT

I'm late with updating since I was stuck for three days at a large ICT congres. I had to work at the
eGovernment stand, listen to talks and draw cartoons about it all that were hang to the walls and
displayed on screens.
Here are some of the cartoons I had to prepare for online publications.

How the young generation is now leading the digital changes.

The government is giving data away for free, and it's sometimes used by third parties
to make a profit (for example, turning it into mobile services that people have to pay for).

The new way of e-government is letting citizens participate and collaborate.
Please note: All cartoons are ©2010 Maaike Hartjes Don't steal them.

It was a very interesting event and exciting too; I shook hands with our Dutch crownprince
Willem Alexander and the 'Chief technology officer' of the White House took two of my
cartoons with her to hang on the walls of her office! And on the last day my final cartoon
(with the car) was presented to the Canadian mininster of Industry.