I had the great honor to be reviewed in the Comic Journal by Rob Clough. Yay. //

Ich hatte die Ehre auf der sehr tollen The Comic Journal-Webseite zu erscheinen. Rob Clough hat eine Kritik über meinen Comic “Neighbourhood Conversations at Flower Beds and Fire Hydrants” geschrieben.

Besides I am currently working on a child book project with a very popular publisher here in Germany. It is a lot of fun, but I am not sure, how much I can say or show.

// Außerdem arbeite ich gerade an einem Kinderbuch bei einem renommierten Verlag hier in Deutschland. Es macht sehr viel Spaß, ich weiß aber nicht wie viel ich sagen oder zeigen kann.

This is my contribution to the sketchbook of the IO (Illustrator Organization in Germany). It was a good opportunity to experiment with color. I will soon buy some more watercolors which have a little bit more power and saturation. // Mein Beitrag zum Skizzenbuch der IO (Illustratoren Organisation). Es war eine gute Gelegenheit mit Farben zu experimentieren und ich werde bald ein knalligere Aquarelle besorgen.

Hi there!

I was recently asked  to contribute to the site Fairy-Tale. I have an excellent writer at my site, so he was helping me out with the fairy-tale text:

“At the sight of the Plover, the empty-handed travelers unraveled their sorry tale. The banks were barren of blackberries, they told, the river too swift for a cranberry. Winter had borrowed the raspberries, too, and the soil the last of its strawberries. At this point their stories diverged entirely, though, for it soon became apparent that bearded fellow had napped during most of the fruit-hunting expeditions.

“Yeah so what?” he yawned. “Mr. Amulet over here’s all full of himself, anyway. Thinks he’s lucky.”

The Plover turned to the other. “Then you alone have given me the rarest and most delicate fruit of all,” he said, retrieving the golden coin. “The fruit of your labor.”
// © Conor Dillon

It is a sweet idea: the illustrator starts with a story or fairy tale and the next one will continue.

I am currently working on various projects, some of which I am very excited about. I am responsible for a new website and logo for a horse company, I am going to illustrate a children book story about monkeys…

I was added into the 3×3 Professional Show and received the book. I have been asked to contribute designs for wrapping paper, which will be sold on some bookbinding fairs.

The poster for “Batterie-Next” arrived and you can order the whole poster/catalog with a bunch of cool illustrators and photographers here!

I am happy to say that we founded a little group here in Cologne, with seven very devoted illustrators who help and share their thoughts. You can see all the contributers on this site: Illusalon

I was also experimenting with color and ink and I had troubles finding the right paper. I finally got used to the itchy feather and the ink, also the white ink from “Rohrer and Klingner” is phenomenal.

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Currently I am working on some selfpromotional stuff, which I will send out next year.
My good intentions for the year 2010 are definitely to promote myself better and last longer with that intention. The promotional card I am sending is a little folding card, which unfolds itself by revealing new insides into my neighbourhood; which is my real neighbourhood indeed.

It is still in a dummy mode. The actual card will be printed soon. The clouds on the back will be the adress and stamp field.

ALSO: I was recently featured in the fantastic magazine »STRAPAZIN«. I feel quite honored to be in it, actually.

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It happened a while ago, but I just thought I should mention that I am one of the winners (Merit-Award in Illustration – two times :) ) in the Creative Quarterly magazine.

With one of the images out of my comic-novel »Neighbourhood Conversations at Flower Beds and Fire Hydrants« and with my contribution for the Jitter-Magazine competition »Biester«.

Its the first combined professional and student show drew a wide variety of work.
All medal and merit winners will be exhibited in the next issue of Creative Quarterly coming out at in December 2009. The winners and runner-ups work will be in our Online Gallery in December 2009.

I also had to send a photo of my inspiration, which was a rather difficult task. I really couldn’t figure out, where it is coming from. So I chose an »official« one, which is a drawing of my grandpa. He was a local artist, stonemason and sculptor, and I wish he could have given me more company in my career as a so called artist.

But actually what I realized (of course after the deadline, and after sending my inspirational photo): I get tons of inspiration out of »spinning«. My god what a boring final achievement; but true.

With my pattern-designs (the astronaut and the dogs walking), I am shown in the book »Zeixs Pattern Book«.
I didn’t hear anything of them until finally they were showing the contributers in a link list on their website :/

I have also been to the Frankfurter Book Fair 2009 here in Germany. It was fun to meet a lot of very talented illustrators; but quite stressful as well. My feet hurt for an entire week.

Anyway I found a treasure on the book fair, which I would like to show you:
I start consider myself a book collector and our self-made beautiful bookshelf is already bursting.
This treasure is produced by »Officina Ludi« and the owner Dr. Klaus Lorenzen is responsible for the publishing of truly wonderful books: all letterpess printed, either in Linolcut, Woodcut or Ink with water color. Some of the most famous illustrators of Germany (Klaus Ensikat) are happily contributing to his collection. Each print is coming with a super-special edition with original drawings, leather-binding etc. It is a very passionate publisher.

The illustrator is Anne von Karstedt, Text »Wolfgang Hildesheimer: Das Ende einer Welt«:
three different layers of linol cut over ink…
The text is asking the ongoing question: Which sense does music and art make, why making beautiful books, when no readers will be there in our society to enjoy it anymore. And is it worth it, to contribute your life to art (even sacrifice it), when it is not even settled, which »value« the artwork provide, if it is authentic or artificial, and who decides about that?

I certainly did enjoy this book and especially the artwork. The illustrator is working in a museum which shows old industrial work processes – I would love to be able to use a letter press every day, and getting steadily payed for it :)

I am working on new ideas, I keep you up to date…

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