IF- swell

"Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you."

E.L. Konigsburg

Reading of "swell" as the new topic let me instantly think of a blowfish. But only the quotation that came along with it gave me the idea of a blowfish who was rattling around in his small illustration (or rather the illustration is rattling around the poor fish) and then blew up because he was so scared. In this case it's actually a porcupine pufferfish which doesn't really come in red, but it just had to be this color.

IF - imperfect

These - imperfect - leaves are taken from an illustration for my current work upon the Rumanian fairy tale "Dragan the Golden Hero".
In fact they are only a very small part of it and won't really show at all in the final illustration because it's night.

Unfortunately the exhibition I told you about in my last post will only take place in January - February 2012 instead of September - October this year, due to human imperfection: the responsible librarian forgot to note down her promise to show my exhibiton then, and has already organized another artist to be shown. I was completely dumbstruck, when I heard this, but by now I have reconciled with the idea and indeed prefer the later deadline, because it allows me to finish the whole book including cover and let it be printed, so that I can even sell it right then.

If - perennial

As I am still very busy preparing my exhibition in September, which will show illustrations for a fairy tale, I did not think I could post anything this week.

But thanks to Susan Sorell Hill who, in her post, refers to fairy tales as perennial stories that deal with the Journey of Life, I decided to give you a glimpse into my fairy tale with the above illustration. Here the brother of the hero desperately wants to eat after a long struggle and the task both he and the hero had to face seemingly completed by now. But he doesn't know that these tempting pears are not what they seem to be...

IF -stay

"Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them."

Jim Carrey

To illustrate this quotation, I dug up a gloomy series of photographs I did directly after the end of my study.

 

I leave it to you, whether you want to ignore the last picture for a happier ending.

IF - remedy

Today it's just a quick watercolour because I have to work for an exhibition which will take place in September. As I am going to illustrate a fairy tale for this, and will be doing it in my usual (very time-consuming) realistic way with coloured pencils, I'm afraid that up till then it will only be those quick ones.

IF - Midsummer Night

Though my first associations with Midsummer Nights were the nights in Scandinavia where it does not get dark at all during summer and the famous White Nights in St Petersburg, I decided for butterflies in the darkness that are flying happily around.

IF - launch

This teapot is launching its whistle like a rocket.

That is somehow like I feel at the moment. I can't find the patience to do my usual colour pencils that take so much time and control. Whereas I sense such an impatience and restlessness that I have to work quicker or physically (I've been cutting boxwood spheres all day yesterday, though this was not exactly spontaneous either).

So this time I did a very quick watercolour which took me only a tiny fraction of the time I usually need for such an illustration.