Ex libris voor J. Slagter (ontwerp) c. 1935 - 1940

Leo Gestel made this preparatory drawing, in pen and ink, for a bookplate. It's a study in doubling, halving, and mirroring. You can sense him searching for just the right alignment of facial features. What kind of person is J. Slagter, I wonder? A serious bookish type, to be rendered so formally? Gestel has drawn three sets of possible letterings there too, slightly different weights. It reminds me of the way an artist friend once described printmaking to me – an image gradually coaxed into being through layers of experimentation. Gestel is having a conversation with himself and the subject, line by line, until some kind of resolution emerges. And it makes me wonder, what are the conversations that I’m having with myself when I am painting? What does this exchange look like?