| Freischwimmer |

| Sketchcrawl # 21 |

... everyone set for the next?

Please check out the forums, to meet for the WinterCrawl. It will be sunny, dry and surprisingly warm ...

... btw: this head is E.'s head and copyright :-)

| Copy and Paste ... Paint |

Copy and paint after the biggest masters to learn from them --- so did I, using one simple character of one of Gipi's covers (Appunti per una storia di guerra).

| Sketchcrawl # 20 | Results |

-- what a splendid day out. For details and exclusive report on my SCrawl click here. And for the outstanding crowd of the worldwide Crawlers please go here.

UPDATE

"The rest of the world was sketching away too, don’t miss the ton of different locales posting their drawings at the SketchCrawl forums!!! Hamburg, Florence, Detroit, Tokyo, Berlin, Milan, Seattle, Honolulu, Bangkok, Toronto, Brisbane, Sapporo, Israel, Melbourne, Rome, Copenhagen, Vienna, Brussels, Barcelona, Portland, Gustavsberg (Sweden) and more. What an amazing turn out!!! The world brought together by paper and pencil … Thank you all for participating and for making this the most successful drawing marathon ever ! Looking forward to the next one already … early January, date tbd."

by Enrico Casarosa

| nochmal || once again |

I sent a thank-you-card after a visit at an academy for graphic designers.

We've been told, that "Once again / Do it again / ... " ought to be the sentence / the word which the students as well as the graduated will be about to hear most , ... SURPRISE ;)

| Sketchcrawl # 20 |

Saturday OCTOBER 25th!

Mark your calendars and come by the forum to sketch in Hamburg or worldwide.

This is a big one, almost 4 years of SketchCrawling around the world!

There even are groups around in Berlin, Jena, Cologne and many more places around Europe, too.

Logo kindly used via Enrico Casarosa.

| How to develop an idea |

So this is the way my brain "works"... better to be said: somehow flows, when in need of an idea for my niece's birthday card.

I have no clue, why I took the long way from my basic face, passing by a tower in the clouds, remembering a 18 year old picture of an lighthouse to say hello to a fish and then a birthday parcel as bait ... anyone in for a guess?

Rewards needed? A slightly coloured and signed print of this fishbowl ;)

| Du Sack |

Last Friday a friend of mine and me went to have a small lunch after a long week of work. Having finished I went in to pay before we left. I invited him, which he didn't expect and caused him to call me a "nutsack" with a smile on his face ... which I translated into the real bag/sack you see on the picture. In fact you have to know, he really is one of a kind decent, Hanseatic and well brought up men, who'd never really use this word in public.

Well you never know ;)

UPDATE: I remember, that he also has been the one, who inspired me to this drawing, too. Hmmmmmm ....

www.flickr.com/photos/peter_pen/2860922100/

| Wenn Fische hupen könnten || If fish could honk |

Fish is saying: "Hey, speed up folks!"

We had the chance to be invited by some of a kind and super-nice marketers at one of the biggest shots in the advertising business in Europe/Hamburg. Three handsome members took care of us. During their presentation a big old steamboat "blew a horn" -- mixing up the words the apprentice said "well that's some of the nice parts working directly on the habour-side, where the fish honk" instead of saying "where the ships honk " ... you'll get the mix, if you'd know that "Schiffe" (ships) is just next to "Fische" (fish) in German. Just exchange "SCH" by "F"

So I started to wonder, in which cases fish might want to honk ... someone else may make up a picture on the low pun "traffic jam" resp. "berry jam", seeing the fish-traffic-jam ... not to forget about the jam-session.

UPDATE See the follow-up here:

| Getting colder |

September, Sunshine, Sweater -- what can I say more. No clouds and about 5 degrees Celsius at night already.

Wonderful daylight sets the houses and ships on fire when coming home from work riding my bike on along the harbor-side.

An air and a touch of sunstrokes alternating with the soft chilliness nourishing heart, soul and skin.

Please say hello to autumn, the day after tomorrow in Europe (22. September 2008 at 17:44 MESZ). Did anyone know they nail it down on hours and minutes? Though meteorologists welcomed autumn already on the first day of September.

| Wachstu(r)m | Growing Tower |

A tower growing into the sky. "Wachstum" in English means "growth". "Wachsturm" with an encapsulated "r" means "growing tower". In this case a cachepot

Growth. A personal subject these days. Though it's the end of time to harvest nature's uprising treasures.

Sometimes growth needs a cut of growth. Otherwise your branches grow faster in length than strength.

Maybe I should draw a tree instead, as Ali Altschaffel did lately.

Carnets de Voyage / Streaming

I just found out about this wonderful series on Arte (Franco-German-TV-Station). They are broadcasting nine 26 min long documentations on six (!!!) international illustrators who travel the world and draw and paint in their Carnets de Voyage / Travel Sketchbooks.

They follow the illustrators on their tours through Armenia, Namibia, Cap Verde and so on ... you see there sketchbooks .... and you see the sites they are on .... you see drawings faded into reality and back ... and moreover you see the people behind it ... the people they encounter!

Times to see: Another six days at 5:35 pm EST. If you are not wake: You can recapture all episodes here in French or here in German. If the links are broken just click on http://plus7.arte.tv and search for either "Carnets de yoyage" or "Reiseskizzen".

Enjoy!

From Dish-Washing to ...

... the sub in the sink.

A story about underwater adventures ... starting in the kitchen, without setting it under water.

Did some .....

.. dish-washing as a Dish.Jockey, but give me a week and I'll tell you more about it. Or three weeks ...

Sketchcrawl # 19, June 21st

Mark your calendars ! The next international SketchCrawl day is set to Saturday June 21st.

Public Viewing - Rudelgucken

(c) by EINSLIVE ... and encouraged to be spread!

Usually I do not like to promote radio stations - in this case I like to introduce a new German word, which shall replace the expression "public viewing", which in Germany we use for the possibility to watch football/soccer games open-air with thousands of fans.

In American or even British English it is connected to a public lying in state before a funeral ... now: "Rudelgucken" seems to be better ... the idea is, to have this word in the German dictionary "DUDEN".

So spread the word :)

Schwyz adé

Facing

click on pic to enlarge

This is what happens, if you get some new pens from Japan. Thank you Marty-San!

Daniel Egnéus

(c) by Daniel Egnéus

.. how could I forget to post a link to one of my most favorite illustrators. See him on his site here and in an (Italian) video here.

Enjoy!

Like 'em or don't ...

.. that's what happens, if you are not creating or scanning new works of your own: Other ones get 'creative'. See results above.

Better ideas to be seen in Berlin. Thanks to Ulrike!!!!!

click to enlarge

Warm and Cold

It's been a wonderful warm and mild summerly since. So I picked up one of my newly comic books, which I was given as a present: Jiro Taniguchi's "Wanderer im Eis" (2004/11 - Toudo no Tabibito - The Ice Wanderer). Mainly winter settings of stories about men who live in, struggle with, learn from and cherish their surrounding pristine nature.

Well, as creativity and art lives from contrasts, this seems to be a good contrast to wonderful May, 2008 ;-)

For more information (language: German) see this Video made by the comic-affine cultural French-German TV-station "arte" here legally.

| Underworld | Überweltigt |

The German word "überweltigt" came to my mind - literally meaning "overwhelmed". "Picturally" meaning being under the world, which Ali Altschaffel at flickr ment, when he suggested to call this sketch "underworld".

Early Art Influences

You may call me a fool, but this is one of my favorite early days inspirations I saw twice a year, due to the fact there'd be two fun-fairs per year in my hometown (spring and fall/autumn)! They didn't change anything. This one is actually the brand new one!

Timeless!
Priceless!

Done by the only graphic designer in town.

Early Monopolists.

Isn't it cool?

| mmm | mini me monitor |

Colour is the way forward - and this is my favorite duo, which I lately bought in a shop focussed on cool skaters and sprayers. Well, both of 'em are kind of cool, too, in their tonal range, I guess ... current reading is Seth's "It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken".
If you still do not know it, click on the link and peekaboo into some pages. If you get to read the first pages of this novel, you'll be lead into so soft and straight - you will not get out of it.
And the good the thing about the weakening Dollar: this wonderful book is kind of affordable, too!

| Sketchcrawl # 18 | Results |

click on picture to read details ;-)

More to be seen here at our Sketchcrawl-Forum.

Sketchcrawl # 18

.. well, that's all I have to post. You know the rest. If not, feel free to click on the picture below, or join us here right away. :-)

|| See you, won't be around blogland for 7 weeks || Tea will still be tea ... || THEbiG1 ||

"... no matter in which receptacle it will be." Even that receptacle will burst or be leaking. The teapot might be broken and not a teapot any longer, but the tea will still be tea .. even if the carpet will be full of that tea.

A sentence I remembered from "Little Buddha" shown on TV a couple of days ago ... I will still be drawing the next days, the receptacle won't be the internet. And I won't look around here the next seven weeks either. I am off(-blog-line) till Easter-Sunday. The inspirational tea will be sipped but not from this cup of tea ;-)

"Electron Fast"

THEbiG1 | TSCHILP - click on picture to see a set

Looking at my last post (let it flow) and finally being aware of all that carnival hype around me - yes, it took me a while, that there really is something like that going around ... nail it down, what you were about to write, dude ... well, I am thinking about the traditional fast, which one is going through; starting the end of carnival all the way to easter (Feb 7th till Mar 22nd) ... I'll go for walk and keep you updated. "Hm, no blogging .. or no blogging and no posting ... or no blogging but watching but not commenting ...?"

Read on the idea in an old Danny Gregory post - in the online-decades way back from 2004 ;-)

|| THEbiG1 || Let it flow ||

click on picture to enlarge

Started this tiny one a couple of days ago. I really like the format 10x10 cm (3.94 by 3.94 inches). The first page can be seen below. The text written underneath the sketch says something like "Simply let float, yourself". Indeed, the original sentence's German grammar itself is kind of artificial ... if you click on the tiny one you'll be lead to a constantly growing flickr-set.

Sketchcrawl # 17

for more crawl-details click on picture shown above

The weather turned out to be o.k. after heavy rain in the morning - as the weather is fine on any given Sketchcrawl ;-)

In the end, I didn't have the time to do a day-time-crawl. So I chose to do a MovieCrawl and had the chance to watch the 1985 released "A Passage to India" -- based upon E.M.Fosters novel -- on DVD.

So, these are some scenes taken from the very slow movie -- not as slow as one might believe though it was about 157 minutes long.

All the other ones can be seen here.

Archives: Weser at Farge

Talking about Gipi and Pirati this archive's picture came back to my mind: The River Weser at viewing Farge on the other side. A small town where the ferry boat is landing. I sketch this scene over Easter 2007 -- and maybe the present temperature just brought back the memory of that windy and cold bike-ride I took when I painted this. ;-)

// Update //

Anyone who'd like to read an affectionately radio feature broadcasted yesterday (08-01-11) on Deutschlandradio Kultur about this region, please follows these links ...

Radio feature to read or listen --- A little universe of life and love on one of Europe's biggest rivere isles - Harriersand.

Thanks to:

New // Gipi // Pirati

(c) Gipi

Long awaited and here are some of Gipi's latest pictures in a preview! Click on image to see some more and after two days allready about thirty-something comments ... enjoy.
Despiring as Enrico would say. ;-)