Happy to share that a new book from the series about adventures of the clever poodle Max is out!
Allen McCaulley makes up unpredictable and surprising stories. And each time I am searching for the best way to make the lettering on the cover resonate with this story. In this case, I tried birthday candles, confetti and gift wrap ribbons, but just bold bright letters ended up working the best.
For the book “Mamas kaputter Akku” (Mum’s broken battery) I was looking for a surface that could create a silence and hiddenness feeling.
I found it in an old roll of wallpaper from my grandmother.
The brownish color and rough texture felt just right. Later, I digitally added another layer of texture from a different old paper.
Only transferring the drawings with a light tablet was a challenge, since the wallpaper is hardly transparent.
All the more beautiful that something which had been waiting for its moment for decades has now become part of this book.
Das Buch “Mamas kaputter Akku” ist erschienen! Hier geht’s um ME/CFS, auch bekannt als Erschöpfungssyndrom, und wie man in der Familie damit umgeht. Es gibt keine klare Antwort oder ein Happy End, aber die Geschichte zeigt, wie die Gefühle des Kindes in dieser Situation wahrgenommen werden.
Große Applaus für die Autorin Anne Struve-Schmidt, die dieses Projekt trotz ihres eigenen Zustands ins Leben gerufen hat. Ich bedanke mich auch beim Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, der mich eingeladen hat, bei der Gestaltung des Buches mitzuwirken.
In sake of the recent Chinese lantern festival, here are a couple pictures for the emerging book “Dash of the Celestial Twelve” by Etta Eidam. Here the challenge was to make all the characters shine on the dark sky, let them fly and float at the same time. I love the piglet the most here 🐷
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.