When my own kids can interact with something I have illustrated, it makes me happy.

In this case, a big box of woodcut puzzles arrived, carefully formatted from the covers for the books about Max the Clever Poodle Dog, written by Allen McCaulley.

A small collaboration with Gymivorbereitung Zürich, an organization helping schoolchildren develop strong learning strategies. In this article there are some tips for parents, who’s children need support in learning process due to the lack of concentration.

While others post about being listed for Bologna exhibition and I cannot, let me share one of my awkward failures. That’s a part of illustrator’s work too!

Part of the job is creating illustrations, that never end up in any books. This time it was an illustration for a book with the main character called Fern. And what did I do as a sample illustration? I have drawn an actual fern with eyes! Awkward, and, to be honest, I loved her.

But it should have not been a plant, but a forest sprite. So then I have drawn a forest sprite with fern leaves on her head. And you know what? Unless her name was fern, she should have not had fern leaves on her head. End of the story. The author and I parted our ways, which is absolutely ok and belongs to the normal workflow. And I have this funny fern in my portfolio!

News to the beginning of the new year: I am now represented by Agentur 008 and looking forward to working together!

Today I have sent all the Chrismas mail out 📯 this year, with a postal stamp illustrated by me, with a mouse writing a letter. I love this opportunity of the German post, allowing to print personal post stamps.

More languages into my illustration portfolio: this time Māori. It’s a book about the diversity and beauty of the ocean shelf life near Taranaki, New Zealand. Thanks to the publisher, who are actively teaching about the local species at schools and have published the book, you are doing an important job. It makes perfect sense, that the book is published in English (“Shelf Life”) and Māori (“Paenga Ora”) at the same time.

Welcome to Simcha, a Jewish boy from the early 20th century Lower East Side. When wooden houses were common, the Forverts building was the highest in the area, horses, pushcart sellers filled certain streets.
A rhymed story by Michael Fox ז”ל, translated into Yiddish by Elye Palevski, tells about being true to one’s traditions in a playful picture book way. Thanks to Kinder-Loshn Publications it should become a book! For me it’s always a magic, how we people get together and make a book from the scratch. It wasn’t there a while ago, but is getting more and more a reality.

The best work for me is to combine Yiddish and illustration. Here is another experience designing a series of postcards and a logo for the club dedicated to the Yiddish culture in Hamburg. I used the first letter of Salomon Birnbaum’s name, shin, as a base for a logo, formed it as a peacock, a pave, with a crown, used on the letter shin in manuscripts. The peacocks on the postcards represent the activities organized by the club: lectures, concerts, postcard circles and trips.

Another book about adventures of Max the dog is out!

This time, Max learns how to be a poodle wizard…

…and does awkward things using the magic powder.