One week with Selda Soganci...

... and Winsor McCay and Poul!

Yes really!

I had illustration course from Tuesday evening till Sunday afternoon and I worked on my pictures for
a picture book. Nothing that will be published but I love most of the pictures already :D
One pic in every color of the rainbow. Now for some photographs of the experience.

I had a room in a flat of a friend of Selda and for getting me into the mood, she put

a  sculpture she once got from Selda on my desk.

Story time! Everyone could try and find the right story to illustrate in

this nicely wrapped ones. I did not need one, I still have none. Just pics.

Right in the works.

Selda having a look at Shaun Tan`s`Bird Kind that I brought.

My workplace :) Glimpses of my illustrations. Droning in pencils.

We have Faber Castell Polychromos, Prismaolor Premieres, and Derwent Inktense mainly.

The Gruffalo - an exhibition

Finally, the weather became sunnier, the days longer, I travelled a bit and went to the Gruffalo exhibition in Hannover. Seeing some original work for a lot of his books was great! I took a lot of photos and show you some impressions here.

With every pic collection went the book they belonged to and screaming kids where grabbing the books, running around and collecting them. I did not like! 

Some more original where to be found of Nick Knatterton and many other artists in the rest of the exhibition. Original sketches, landscapes by Wilhelm Busch (well, it was the Wilhelm Busch museum), and I loved all of them! I had an eye on the techniques used, the mastery of brush, pen, pencil, ink and learned that watercolor, gouache and ink are mostly the media of choice for a lot of illustrators.

I know there are others.

So have a look at some of my favourites. There were fantastic letters as well and sketchbooks you could only see one, two pages of :(

And I got to know of an Windsor McCay exhibition that I can maybe visit soon!

Now for some

GRUFFALO! by Axel Scheffler

Selda Marlin Soganci - another illustration course!

Fantastic news for me!
Next week (cross ya fingers that everything will be alright) I can attend an illustration course by Selda. I had two weeks in Marburg with her last years, this one will be only a few days.

She does such whimsical, fantastical art and I found her several years ago like 2004 in a book catalogue. You should go and look for books she illustrated. I ordered "Märchen für mutige Jungs" so she can sign it for me!

Some pics as this first one is the kind of flyer for it.

Last year Selda brought some originals. She is doing mostly all pics on wood,

also the ones for the books she illustrates and I could not resist and bought this tiny bird.

It was made for wrapping paper.

Daniel Smith watercolors

Hello! And a warm welcome!

The color nerd broke through after I read a blogpost in Jenny`s Sketchbook 
and something on deviantart about different watercolors by another color nerd, I forgot the name of :(
What seemed interesting are the colors that in drying break up into two different color tones.
(See below). They have a special beauty and do not regret buying them a bit.
They consist of special pigment that fall out or two pigments that separate with drying.

Here you see what I bought: 7 colors and the color dots to see if I want something else next time.
And my jellyfish. Totally unrelated. Neon markers.

Another photo of the dots, which are dried colors, always water soluble. Watercolors are practical!

There is more about the colors with pics behind the cut!

This is my life...

there isn`t anything better!

At least not for me.

Just snippets of latest drawings of me.

A self portrait of me sleeping and a trip me and some friends made.

They are both in one of my selfmade sketchbooks you can find in an earlier post.

There is quite some more to find in my bed than funny pillows. There are a lot of books lying behind me that you can`t see :). Eragon part 2 for example. The green pillow with eyes is a kind of puppet. The one with the blue eyes is a pillow you can play music with. The cat sleeps in my bed as well and I would never have a lightened candle there. 

I have mice running around though. One bit me in my toe.

Some more