Tribute To Edward Gorey (Moly_x_6)

I finally managed to scan this little moly with my illustration. It took me several days to get it right, as I´ve only got a small A4 scanner. The images have to be joined to one whole picture in Photoshop. And somehow this one wasn´t easy to join. The more I see of Edward Gorey´s art and writings the more I am hooked. There is always something new to discover in it.

I posted the lower picture to show you David´s addition. I love how the two pictures blend into each other. You see the guy at the left? The fur collar fits perfectly into David´s bushes.

More information about the Moly_X International Moleskine Exchange can be found here.

Another Book Cover Illustration

Just by chance I saw one of my drawings on a book cover at amazon. It always makes me happy to see me stuff being used. I think now I should finally take money for my art. :) I do hope that they don´t forget to send me a copy of "Another Gulmohar tree" for letting them use my drawing.
You can read part of the fiction here and pre-order it at amazon or target.

The Gulmohar tree is just beautiful. I love the flaming looks and the scent of the flowers.

Gangsters from Chicago - Gift from Rio

Last week I received a gift from Markus A. Hediger from Rio for drawing the cover illustration of his newest book "Das Tam-Tam Grand Hotel".

Today I finally opened it. I knew I wouldn´t be able to write about it and say thanks for it, so I waited until I had some spare time. I received "Gangster - Die Bosse von Chicago" by Robert Nippoldt, with outstanding drawings made by the talented court sketch artist. (While browsing his website I already saw the next book I need: Jazz im New York der Wilden Zwanziger It is a wonderful huge book which has been on my wish list for some years now. I love the size, the style, the illustrations, the colors, the story, everything about it. Here are some pics to give you an idea about the book.

The cover:

The Godfather:

The Gentleman:

The Diplomat:

Chicago Street:

Lieber Markus, vielen, vielen Dank für das wunderbare Buch. Ich freue mich riesig darüber. Es trifft ganz meine Erwartungen.

Cover Illustration

Here´s the original drawing for the book "Das Tam Tam Grand Hotel".

Cover Illustration "Das Tam Tam Grand Hotel"

After drawing the cover illustration for Markus A. Hediger´s last book, he asked me to do the next one too. Apparently he was satisfied with my work.
Here you go...

For the German readers: The book "Das Tam Tam Grand Hotel" can be ordered at amazon or at the Swiss publishing house edition taberna kritika.

Snow Studies By Matt M. Cipov

Benjamin blogged about "That Smirking Face" (a collection of Haiku and Haibun) today. I had ordered the little booklet at Etsy some weeks ago because of the wonderful illustrations. Actually I discovered it while buying Snow Studies, a mini print set also illustrated by Matt M. Cipov:

© by Matt M. Cipov

The set is great and I can´t wait to frame it and find a suitable place for it in the office. Today I checked back at his Etsy store and boy, my cart is filled with numerous sets of mini prints. I just couldn´t pass his zombie studies (1,2,3,4) and the nice boys. As soon as I have the next spare money, I´m going to have a gallery full of his pics. Woo hoo!

10 Years Ago

Here´s the link to the new blog 10 Years Ago:

New Project for 2008

I have been admiring Kate Bingaman-Burt´s blog Obsessive Consumption for a few months now. She started taking pictures of all her purchases in the year 2002 and then posted hand drawn images of them on her blog. Inspired by her I decided to start a daily project too.

At 10 years ago I´m going to to post quick illustrations of interesting events which happened on the same day but some years ago. I think this is going to be fun. The illustrations will all be done in my Moleskine 2008 Daily Planner.

Creative Blogger Award And Pill Of The Week

This week is starting out great. Two surprises waiting for me in my inbox and on the net.
I received the creative blogger award by Mim and the Pill of the week on Illustration Friday Night for this illustration. Way cool! Thanks for the award and the pill. They made my week! :)


Here are my 5 blog nominations:

Mithi's Creative Journey
She started the blog when she took time off from her career ladder as a research scientist at Cancer Research UK. She decided to reconnect to her creative side and she reports about the process of achieving this in her blog. Her life is inspirational to me, as she is leading it into the direction she wants it to be.

Diana Koehne
I really enjoy reading Diana´s blog. So many different things, pics, drawings, etc. Take a look at her post-it gallery too.


Stefan G. Bucher´s Daily Monster
It´s a fun website. Don´t miss out his weekly monster-movies.

God The Blasphemer
I´m giving the award just for the great name "my heart is made of gravy" and of course the blogs are great too. I couldn´t decide which one should be awarded, so the award goes to all of them (Prozacville).

Plastique Monkey
Yuka Yamaguchi´s artblog is one of my favorites. I like her pictures. At first glance her drawings and paintings are innocent and cute. But you should take a closer look!

IF: Open

Open your heart and let it out!

A last minute entry for IF with the special topic "Open". Please enlarge the image to have a better look at it. The illustration was made of these words: "Open your heart and let it out". 3 or 4 times I wrote "Open your eyes and let it out" by mistake. I guess, that´s right too.

From Illustration Friday:

"We here at Illustration Friday are so excited to announce the first ever Illustration Friday gallery show!
Open, a bookstore and art gallery in Long Beach, California in Long Beach, California is sponsoring this week’s topic, “open“, and in a show opening November 3rd — in less than a month — they will display 25 IF entries. Which 25? That’s up to you, the loverly IF community! You get to vote on your favorites to decide which ones go up on the walls."

So in case you like my illustration vote for it on IF. Click on the "Open"-contest and then just press on the gray star next to the pic and my name (ksklein). :)

IFN: Inspired By (biteyourowntail)

In the last post I explained how the idea for this week´s theme on Illustration Friday Night "Inspired by" was born.
So here´s my submission for this topic. It was inspired by biteyourowntail´s illustration "Is it safe?". All I can answer is: "No, it´s not!"


Update:
Woo hoo. My illustration inspired this pic by Ellis Nadler.

Tes Lacets Sont Des Fées by Dionysos

Dionysos has a great video for their song “Tes lacets sont des fées” of the album "Monsters in Love". The wonderful animation was done by Joann Sfar.


Dionysos - tes lacets sont des fées
Hochgeladen von rycko35. - Entdecke weitere Musik Videos.

I discovered this little gem some time ago on DRAWN The Illustration and Cartooning Blog. I hope it brightens up all those around me who seem to be as moody und unhappy as me.
Anybody has an idea what the title “Tes lacets sont des fées" means in English?

Final Call for llustration Contest

Only 9 more days left to send in your images for the illustration contest. Check out the rules here.

Only some of the entries to give you an idea of the contest:

IFN: The Dead

This weeks theme on Illustration Friday Night is "The Dead". The idea for the theme came from this post.



The drawing is based on motives by Egon Schiele. His drawings and sketches of people very often remind me of death. They somehow don´t really give me an erotic feeling - which is usually said to be his main motive.

Illustration Contest: Moved to own blog!

I´m moving the contents of the Illustration Competition to its own blog. Participants have (thankfully) started sending in their work and I want to post all the images in the blog. As that would be too much for my own blog, check out everything here.

PS: The contents will be updated by tomorrow.

Illustration Contest: Links and Update

Martín Franco and Alyson B. Stanfield linked to the illustration contest. Thanks for your help!

graphic:DESIGN:basics has added a link too!

I´ll be on vacation from June 7 to June 19. I may have access to the net from time to time, but I´m not sure yet.
When we have returned, I´ll post an updated version about the contest. There have been quite some questions about the contest which I haven´t addressed yet in the blog and I guess there may be some more questions following now. So I´ll put all the information together in a new post about the contest in about 2 weeks.
Feel free to send all your questions to this address. I´ll answer them as soon as possible.

Illustration Contest: First participants!

I´m glad that now people are starting to show some interest in the contest. The first participants have said that they will send in some entries. I´m happy about this. I had already thought that I wouldn´t be of any use finding an illustrator or artist for the magazine.

So I have decided, as long as there won´t be too many entries at once, I´ll write one whole post about every artist who sends in some images. So hurry up and be the first to send in your winnig illustrations.

Illustration Contest

My husband is a copublisher of a German literature magazine called „spa_tien". The print & online magazine appears twice yearly.
The publishers are currently preparing a paperback book under the working title "was sind literarische weblogs?" ("what are literary weblogs?"). The book is scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2008 and will be available via bookstores in Germany and Switzerland as well as internationally via amazon.





The book will be an anthology of essays and weblog posts contributed by German writing authors – published and unpublished – who are running literary weblogs in the German writing blogosphere. The authors will contribute two texts each. The first text will be about their passion for publishing and writing a literary blog. From their own weblogs the authors choose a favorite (already published) text for the second part.

For this project the publishers are currently looking for illustration ideas and an artist to realize them. A series of about 7 to 9 images should illustrate motives about literature, text, weblogs, writing processes, etc. A contest will be arranged at my blog, to find the illustrator for this book.

Requirements:

• The participants should send in 2 images to show the character of the series. These two images will be rated and the winner will do the whole series of 7 – 9 pics. The illustrations, graphics, sketches, etc. have to be black & white or in grey scales with a size of approx. 350 x 175 px (Width/Lenght).
• Deadline: July 31, 2007
• Please send the images to this address !
  

Reward for the winner:

• His/her work will be published in a book (with a short biography and link to his/her webpage)
• A copy of the published book
• Extreme gratefulness from the publishers and the contributing authors as well
• Fame? ;)

Everybody can join the contest – pros and amateurs. It may be specially interesting for amateurs or illustrators who are just beginning their career.
Once every week I´ll post about 5 random entries with a link to the artists blogs. Further all entries with a link to participant´s website/blog will be shown here on flickr!

Have fun and be creative!


Publishers of spa_tien:
Hartmut Abendschein
Markus A. Hediger
Benjamin Stein

_____________________________________________________________

Thanks to all of you, for your suggestions where I could post about the contest and for linking to this page:
Tommy Kane
Teesha Moore
Justin Monson
Suzanne Buchanan
Karen Winters
Christine Castro Hughes
Rama Hughes
Penelope Dullaghan

IFN: A Book I'll Always Remember (The Hucho Hucho Girl)

Illustration Friday Night´s topic this week is: "a book i'll always remember" (suggested by red-handed).

The stories I used to devour as a child were Asian tales. They were mainly Indian and Chinese. This picture was inspired by the story "The Hucho hucho girl" and the illustrations done by Irmhild and Hilmar Proft for the book "Die neunköpfigen Ungeheuer vom Zweidrachenberg" (published 1974).



The illustration was beautiful in black and white. But I wanted to color it, as the story is about the Hucho hucho (redfish) girl. Somehow the color really took away a lot from the original pic.

Die neunköpfigen Ungeheuer von Zweidrachenberg: Märchen und Volkserzählungen aus China. Bräutigam, Herbert (1974)

My Daughter´s Words 1

My kids always have phantastic words for me. I have started a small Moleskine sketch book for each of them. I´ll quote them and illustrate their ideas.
I´m sure one day it will be nice for them to read their precious words (and it´s a great way to practice simple drawings).



One morning our daughter slipped into our bed and after a few minutes she said:
"Mom, you are so wonderful fresh and warm."
That made me feel like a fresh bun from the bakery. And it made me feel good.



These illustrations have been inspired by . It´s always a pleasure reading about gwen´s working holiday in London.