About being in between and getting there

So you finished art school. You are not a beginner any more. Officially - for sure compared to someone who just pursues it as a hobby - you are now a professional. But you yourself feel far away from being as professional as you would like to be? You get commissions. But you are not producing the work you would love to produce?
Then you probably in the gloomy grounds of In-between. When you are still surrounded by the safe borders of art-school-country, In-between seems a country that is far away. You might even think “Yeah, but I will just pass through In-between to get the land of milk and honey were the professionals live and work”.
Then you cross the border and get 'professional' stamp in your passport. Before you can protest - “But I am not a real professional yet” - you get shoved out of the line. There you are in In-between. Just you, your pencil and a stamp in your passport that says that you are already that what you want to be, but seems too presumptuous to actually call yourself that.

Some things that happen in In-between are weird commissions. Things you would not do if you had the freedom (aka. money) to chose in that certain moment: “Sure I do logo design....” up to: “soooo.... you want me to illustrate that book in the style of that famous illustrator who wouldn't work for you because you don't want to pay them what they are worth?” up to just plainly getting laughed at by potential clients, because they assume you are filthy rich if actually anybody would pay you the rates you proposed to them. They didn't laugh at the phone. No, they wrote the laugh in an email (“Hahahahaha....”).

Luckily - at least some wise art-hermits told their followers - you won't spend the rest of your career in In-between. There are some lucky bastards who are able to board the train which goes directly from art-school-country to the promised land where thy pencil has never to be sharpened and thy Wacom nibs won't tear down nor scratch thy Wacom surface. The rest of us have to go through In-between. Sometimes for a longer time than you have thought or you would like to. But just try to enjoy the ride! To give your arty soul some fuel to speed your travels up a bit:


Stephen Silver - "DAMN IT!!! Follow Through"



Stephen Silver - What does hard work for artists mean?

Something old and something new.....

So.....its this special time again...

In the neighbourhood I live and work in it is impossible to miss that the end of the year is close. The frequency of early fireworks (although illegal before New Year's Eve) increases with every passing day in December.

With every pop of firework outside my window I get more conscious about this yearly fix point in time. Unintentionally I start to reflect about the ending year and to ponder about the beginning year. What happened? What were the good things? What were the not so good things? Would I do something differently with the knowledge I have now? How will these things change my behaviour in 2016?

At the end of 2015 I followed some good advice from Vanessa Lemen and Laura Panepinto from Muddy Colors.

"Your art as your voice and mirror" by Vanessa Lemen is a more reflective post and helps to get a new, different view on your art/your life. By looking back on what made an impact on you in 2015 helps you to determine what was/is very important. Writing it down and reading it again after some time gives you a clearer image of events. At the same time you will be challenged to ask yourself some questions to get a totally different view on things.

"How to Get What You Want: Know What You Want" by Laura Panepinto is not only for 'New Year's Resolutions' but you can use this throughout the whole year. It is a good method to concretize your goals. On the one hand will you end up with some workable ambitions (e.g. blog once a week/start an instagram) in contrast to a vague goal (e.g. have more online followers). On the other hand you will get a clear picture what is really important and what is not as important as you always thought it would be.

A third method to end the year on a high note and start the new year very motivated is my 'happy jar'.

I write down all the little and big things that made me happy in at some point and put them in that jar. Each year a new glass. I started this new tradition in 2013 because I tend to lose track of all the things I did or experienced and always feel disappointed when a year ends because I wasn't able to fulfil everything I intended to fulfil - or even if I did everything I intended to do - I still think I could have done more or could have done these things better....
At the end of the year I open that jar... and I get a warm fuzzy feeling that this year wasn't so bad after all ;).


All in all 2015 was a good year. Probably even a very good year! My very first year of working full time as an illustrator and I can't say it was a bad first year!

Taking part in competitions was a big part and although I took part in about 10 bigger competitions/judged annuals/judged exhibitions I won one of them and got into two exhibitions.

Through that I got to know some awesome artists and I hope that I will be just as successful as they are, enjoying my wonderful job together with my loved ones. I got to travel and went on holiday for the first time in 8 years! I grew a shit load of vegetables on my 100m² allotment garden, learned to crochet and to knit...and started a new secret hobby which will stay secret so that nobody can ask me to show them how good I got. Something that I greedily keep to myself, hrhr.


Happy new year to everyone out there. May 2016 be a magical year!

One day out with the fraud police

So in the last post I told you about the infamous fraud police. These guys existed probably ever since the first being decided to paint on the wall of a cave. But they got their name by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. If anyone knows anyone else who gave that particular feeling a name before, let me know in the comments!

One thing is for sure, anyone in the arts and other occupations experienced the fraud police. Some people hear them knocking, some people live in the constant fear that the fraud police will show up in the form of nagging fans, friends or family, while others have wild nightmares of officers coming to their door (with clipboards) and explaining "We found you out and it is time for you to get a real job."

In my last blog post I wrote about my very own, personal fraud police incident. After inviting them in and having hot chocolate/tea with them, we decided that we can get along. That they wouldn't report me to the non-existent fraud ministry. That I would work on my constant fear of them. That I would work on my relation with self doubt and that we would have dinner some day and maybe even visit the zoo or go for a walk in the park, if the weather is nice.

One part of this relation-therapy between them and me is keeping a journal/sketchbook/diary. These three things can be one book. When J.A.W. Cooper talked about this special sketchbook on One Fantastic Week, I immediately knew that this was the help I was looking for. Something to help myself, since nobody can make the fraud police go away by snapping his/her finger. When I was in London, I got out my crappy sketchbook/travelling journal and started analysing what I liked around me and why I liked it. It helped. I'm not there yet, but it is a start. It is like getting to know someone, slowly, because you don't want to spoil all the surprising moments when you feel a connection falling into place. The "We are friends, maybe great friends and maybe even more than that, as long as we don't spoil it by moving to fast"- kind of getting to know each other. So ... that is where I am right now. While trying to figure out, how to cope with self doubt and the fraud police (who, nice as they are, let me know that fear of failing feels left out, although he did just exactly what they did a while ago) I figured that constantly looking at everything that everybody else does and works on, is not the best thing to do. Right now it is time to figure out how I can reach common ground with all my fears. (okay, not all my fears....haha)

Competitions - putting yourself out there

Hello everyone! Apologies for my absence lately. I just wrapped up a big project (client work) and will soon get the time to start a couple of new illustrations! Thank you so much for your patience :)

First: I can't believe it has been four months since I wrote my last blog post!!! Time just flew by. Summer is knocking at my door and I hope to be able to write more, since summer is a time without client work. There are many subjects I would like to write about. Just to name a few: “Fake it 'til you make it”, “Two Freelancers living together...madness in a nutshell”, “Refilling your batteries”, “The imposter syndrome” .....

But right now I think it is the time to give you an update about WHY I was absent for four months!!

First I was engaged with clients work which I won't be sharing for different reasons. Second: I am engaged with rebuilding my portfolio. Polishing up some of my scientific work from the last two years and *drum roll* build a new portfolio from personal work for ... eh... hm... illustration. Like....not scientific illustration. Fantasy illustration I guess. In Dutch and German you would call it 'free illustration', which makes no sense in English, since it is just...illustration...without a certain field of expertise. Third: Sending out portfolios and solicitations and finally: Fourth: taking part in competitions.

When I finished my study I made a list of interesting competitions to take part in with my final exam and for future fantasy illustrations. Back then I just randomly googled for illustration competition, design, drawing, painting etc. Now I found a really neat website who does that for you and has a broad variety of competitions for you to chose from:graphiccompetitions.com

Over the last six months I have taken part in six competitions, although I planned to take part in thirteen competitions until this summer. Three of those didn't go through with their annual competition, making it ten. Out of those ten I decided to postpone two until I have better/more fitting work and missed two illustrations due to client work. All in all.... six out of ten in six months is still good. But let's have a look which ones paid of to take part in. I didn't make the first round in two out of those six (one of these did'nt come as a surprise), in one case I made in the 'selected but not hung'-section, in another case my work got in the exhibition, one I made the short list and the last is still pending.

Some of my friends ask my why I would take part in so many competitions. So here is why: Working from home, living in a small, but artistically overcrowded city, I think this is one of the best ways to get my work out there. Not that I would purely rely on taking part in competitions. It is something you can do next to networking and sending out your portfolio. I myself think it is a good way to showcase your work and (which is maybe even more important for me) to up my game. If I don't make the selection it is either because: 1) The quality of my work compared to the other illustration not good enough 2)It is not what the judges were looking for in this competition. The first reason wants me to become a better artist, the second makes me think about my target audience (aka the judges in the competition). But there is a third reason for taking part in competitions: Developing a thick skin for the right moments. I know quite a few people who would get discouraged when taking part in a competition and not making it in the selection, or not winning. Of course I don't like it either. But it makes me realize that it is nothing personal. It is not that the judges didn't 'like' my work (or me for producing it), it is just that there may be 200 or 2000 other works and just 50 will be selected. If there are 500 mermaid illustrations 1500 various illustrations and 50 submissions will be chosen, then it is just pure bad luck that you sent in a mermaid illustration. If there are just 5 mermaid illustration in the 2000 submissions your chances are a lot higher to get in with a mermaid illustration. For some competitions you may even want to develop a good technique how you present and when to send your work, as Dan dos Santos points out in his Muddy Colors blogpost: The Strategy of Submitting to Spectrum.

For those of you who are curious about my competitions and exhibitions: I made the 'selected but not hung' catalogue of the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation: The Wildlife Artist of the year with this little fella:

I made it into the biennial exhibition of modern birdpainters, the MoVo, in Halberstadt, Germany with my Ara and the Blue heron:

(I just remembered that I didn't post anything about finishing my Green-winged macaw)

I couldn't attend the official opening personally, but a dear colleague, Lisa Pannek, took a picture for me!! - and I feel honoured to have my drawings next to the painting "Montagu`s harrier male preening" made by Paschalis Dougalis!


And I made it on the shortlist for the World Illustrators Award by Association of Illustrators and the Directory of Illustration with the illustrations of my final exam:

About being scared and feeling safe

Maybe too safe...

Concentrating mainly on developing my skills I feel as if I had lost the connection to the concept part of being an illustrator. But everybody around me told me last year: "It's normal to feel of. You have been a student for 7 years and now being out there in the real world feels weird and it frightens you." and "You had a very stressful time with your final project and it's normal to feel awkward and feel like you don't fit in."

But my real problem was that I had the feeling that I lost my mojo. Okay, I can draw well on good drawing days, but to be an illustrator you have to have more skills than that. The past weeks I talked with a couple of other freelancers and...of course everybody has some issues (for example the imposter syndrome) but the best advise was: "Just let it go. Don't stress too much about it and have fun!"
That was when I remembered something from my first year in art academy. After a few months, I finally managed to make a decent painting of a still life. Everything was in balance and when my teacher asked me (when we had evaluation) which painting I liked the best I proudly pointed to it and said: "This one, because it feels like someone professional painted it." And he said "Okay. Your next assignment is to let it got. Take that painting and make something different with it. Paint over it or rip it up, cut it up and make a collage." Of course I got upset. I felt cheated. Being proud of it was going to be the reason why I had to destroy it. That is why I refused and was ready to get a bad grade for the next assignment. But then he said: "Why are you so upset? It's just a painting. You are going to make a lot of paintings. You have to learn to let it go. You are scared right now to let it go. Don't be scared. You can't be dragged down by that one good painting. You have to learn to dare to make something great, let it go and make something new, which may or may not be as good. Don't hold on to it because you will get scared of making something new, because it might not be as good as your last piece." He looked at my stubborn expression. "But I can't force you to do it. The only thing is that you are scared of letting that painting go and I think you should not be scared by that."
It took me a few days before his message came through and I felt kinda stupid about my childish behaviour...

And now, thinking of these words again, I noticed that I am very scared. Not only of being a freelance illustrator, projects and clients but also about making non-scientific/non-realistic drawings. Let's be honest. I like to draw realistic. I like to draw birds. It keeps the skills I learned in my masters programme alive. But I want more and just don't dare to let it go. To take the risk and maybe create very crappy illustrations at first because I don't know what I want or how to do it. Being scared that they will look worse than the scientific/realistic stuff I make....

But I have to let it go!







PS: I finished the blue heron:




Sketch as I posted it in "A new year begins".





Finished illustration. (Drawing birds calmes me down! :D)

Time and productivity

Time is a big issue, as is 'style' Which I also hope to cover in the next few weeks. But for now: Time. Making time. Having time. Spending time. Wasting... time.
Time is something everybody has in the same amounts. But today I think even more than any time before there are plenty of ways to 'waste' time. You can not really waste time, since you don't own time. Just as much as you can not make time. But these are just expressions we used to express something else. Wasting time = execute activities in a certain amount of time which are not thought of as productive. Spending time = execute activities which are seen as (socially) important. Making time = postpone or drop certain activities to do something else instead in the same time. Having time = not having any activities in a certain time.
Of course these are no official definitions, just mine. These definitions are also the reason why I stated that you can't waste time. You can however 'spend' time (execute activities in a certain amount of time) which we see as wasteful as surfing in the internet, hang out on facebook way to long, play computer games, sleeping in etc. etc. It's not as if you don't now what I mean. You just want to have a look at your facebook news feed and when you check the time it's two hours later. There are also activities which we quite enjoy and although being just a hobby, are not seen as unproductive as the examples I mentioned for wasting your time. Like reading, enjoying time with your friends or loved ones, gardening etc. This would be the category 'spending' time. I think 'having' or 'making' time are self-explanatory.

So this year I want to blog more (and not just dump some pictures, but talk about things I consider interesting), be more healthy (hehe ;) ) aaaand.... be more productive. Although for some friends I already am quite productive I always look at others and think 'Oh my, he/she did paint so many paintings this year... and what have I done!??' For a moment I can become a little discouraged, but shortly after I get motivated. (A good example for one of these moments was, when I read 'Taking' stock' on Muddy colors by David Palumbo. But in the last weeks I started to feel that I have to make some changes if I want to be more productive. One of these changes would be to spend less time on unproductive things!! Which is why I am going to have social-media-free days in which I won't visit facebook, instagram, deviantart, blogger or behance. I hope that I will be able to hang in there and to not fall back into old habits.

Since social media can be an important tool, there is also an important reason why I want to do that. I follow many artists I admire. So when I just login to check on one of my platforms, I can sometimes get overwhelmed by their work. Not only how good they are but also how much they produced in a time in which I didn't even get close to finish as many pieces as they did, not even half of what they made.... And I would beat myself up for that. Why couldn't I be just as productive as they are, not even talking about why can't I be as good as they are....
Da LuVisi wrote a great article about how his life changed for the better when he left social media. Although I don't intent on leaving it, I think I just need more discipline and stop looking at everybody else's art and start enjoying drawing again ;) or as Bob Ross would put it:



PS: For the ones who are wondering what I am up to. At the moment I am very engaged with several projects and taking part in many contests AND started to work on my new website (with some help by my lovely boyfriend ;) ). But I hope that I will soon be able to show everything here!!

How to stay motivated

As you can see I try to keep one of my new years resolutions - blogging more - up and running. But not just that. So far I mostly posted or blogged about my illustrations. But today I wanted to talk about artist talks, streams, blogs, podcasts, interviews etc. I read many blogs, listen to and watch artists talks, motivational videos and livestreams. The reason is not just to learn how to illustrate better, but also to master the creative business and sometimes...to hear that others were/are struggling as well, having the same problems. Being an illustrator can get lonely. As an illustrator most of the time you work alone and a lot of the people you feel connected to don't live in walking distance. Listening to streams while working gives me a big motivational push to work through the frustration you sometimes get from working alone all the time.

In the last post I talked about having a good mindset and being in a good place to make (good) illustrations. One of the things helping me through tough illustrating times are these mentioned blogs and artist talks. That's why I want to list up some motivating and helpful resources I mentally lean on many times (and many times to come).

Muddy Colors a 'fantasy art collective' with Dan dos Santos, Donato Giancola, David Palumbo, Terryl Whitlatch and many amazing artists as authors. They cover many fields. E.g. explaining steps of their own illustrations up to FAQ's and tips how to enter certain competitions.

Chiustream by Bobby Chiu in which he regularly discusses a variety of topics about becoming an illustrator and working as one (with many motivational tips). You can stay up to date via his facebook page: Bobby Chiu Art

One Fantastic Week with Samuel Flegal and Peter Mohrbacher is a weekly web show in which they talk about art, illustration and the business side of it. Often they invite fellow illustrators with a long career in this field and ask them about how they got there. They are also going to do a workshop called 'One Fantastic Weekend'!! Check it out!

The blog and streams listed above are happening on a regular basis, but there are also some good interviews out there. If you like a certain artist or illustrator you should follow him/ her on social media, because you never know when one of these gems pops up. In the last weeks many interviews with one of my favourite illustrators, Karla Ortiz, were published:

This is a podcast by Synstudio:Podcast Karla Ortiz
and another interview by Creative Trek with Sean Daniels: Importance of balancing art and life
and a third by Bobby Chiu for Schoolism: Karla Ortiz for Schoolism

and a while back Dave Rapoza and Daniel Warren (you may know them from Crimson Daggers) had a freelance talk (what you would now call a hangout I guess) about being 'in the middle'. The weird point in your career when you aren't a newbie any more, but also didn't reach the point to be one of the great (and with great I don't just mean good, but rather that your name stands for your style and that you are known for your work) illustrators yet: Getting through the middle

There are more interviews I listened to over the last years, but the listed sources give you a wide variety of themes.


Next to these digital resources I have one big not-digital resource of motivation: Nature! Sitting inside, working with the computer, drawing (hunched over my table) can get hard. A good walk or working in my garden (particularly in summer) always gives my a good energy boost and is a good balance to my illustrating work.

A new year begins

...or...has...nearly two weeks ago. Everybody knows how time just seems to run through your fingers, right?

In the last post I told you guys about my 'Happiness jar'. It is not just there to end my year in a good mood, but also to start the new year in a good mood too.
Of course there are the new year resolutions...BUT if you think 'Oh my, what a failure the last year was - I hope this new year is finally going to change some things' or 'I HAVE to work harder/more/get better, because last year was so terrible' it already puts you in a negative state of mind. I confess I am quite a negative person myself. The glas is mostly half empty and not half full. There is always this catastrophic chain of events in the back of my head of what COULD happen... although nothing has happened yet and nothing will happen and even IF something is going to happen...it is certainly not as bad as my imagination makes me believe.

For me it is very important to be positive. That's when I make good illustrations. That's when I will end up 'in the zone' while illustrating. Otherwise, I will not finish anything. There is always something to change, always something to do better and I didn't even start about taking big decisions. When you are in a negative place, you restrict yourself. You tend to be more aware of bad strokes and every tiny little 'mistake' is a failure. In the end you get so frustrated that you want to give up on this illustration. Maybe you don't even want to be an artist or an illustrator in that moment. Maybe you start to think 'All this is not for me, not when it is so hard to do it.' This is restricting, being to aware of what you are doing.

In my case, when I start with a positive mindset and I make a 'mistake' - or a happy little accident, as Bob Ross would call it - I just let it go. Maybe that stroke is not as you wanted, but let's see where I go from there. In the end it maybe fits in better than you thought. If it is really heading a direction I am not comfortable with, I just get a new piece of paper and start again, take the parts of the illustration I do like and then go on from there. Nobody knows and if you just let it go, it won't restrict you. The more you draw or paint, the more you practice, the better you will get.




'Talent is a pursued practice. In other words, anything that you're willing to practice, you can do.' - Bob Ross

So when I look at my notes from the 'Happiness jar' it makes me aware of all the forgotten tiny but precious moments. That puts me in a good place. Being in a good place, makes me free.

Ofcourse new years resolutions are still allowed! :) Such as: making more illustrations, being more active, losing a little bit of weight, drawing A LOT MORE, learn spanish, draw more and never forget: to be more positive!!

PS: That's what I am working on right now:

A year is ending

Not just any year. It was a quite exciting year!!



Since two years, I have something that I call my 'Happiness jar'. I write down all the little and big things that made me happy in at some point and put them in that jar. Each year a new glass. I started this new tradition in 2013 because I tend to lose track of all the things I did or experienced and always feel disappointed when a year ends because I wasn't able to fulfil everything I intended to fulfil - or even if I did everything I intended to do - I still think I could have done more or could have done these things better....
At the end of the year I open that jar... and I get a warm fuzzy feeling that this year wasn't so bad after all ;) .



It is something I can just highly recommend!! I just have one rule: I don't put things in which I don't know how they will end. For example: Somebody contacts you for an awesome project and it even seems that it will be a very good paid job. You love the project, you love the client. But... first talks are not always how a project will turn out. The bigger the project the bigger the risk that it will in some way turn out totally different from assumed.... So this is a thing I would not put in my jar. If I would put it in e.g. in April and it gets cancelled shortly after I will feel stupid reading the note at the end of the year that I was so happy about it in the first place. I try to keep a lot of the small daily happy moments in it. A nice talk with someone you look up to, a good meal, something you did you never thought you would have the courage to do so, a perfect day, somebody on street telling you that you look nice etc. Even if you read about it months later it will instantly take you back to that moment. It is also good to mention that I mostly put in events and memories of experiences and not possessions. The later does not make as happy as the first things.



So there were many many things going on this year. I finished my Master with a masterthesis about birds, made some new friends, reconnected with some old nearly lost friends, grew my own vegetables in my own garden, was the maid of honour at my brothers wedding, moved officially to another country (with all the bureaucracy involved...), made my very first progress video, presented at a Behance Portfolio review which had a live connection to New York, visited Paris for the first time in my life and got myself an allotment garden for next year and re-opened my Morlo-shop... :) And these are just the big things... there were many small things which made me just as happy. Of course there were also lows but for me it is better (and I honestly think that is true for everybody else) to highlight the highs to have the feeling of a fulfilled live.

And for next year...


... ahh... I think of next year tomorrow ;)

Under the sea - Little mermaid II

So in the last post I showed you the process of the 'Under the sea' illustration.
One or two days later I realised that it was just not working the way I wanted it to. The face wasn't right in any way, althoug I worked with references. I chose a model which I thought beautiful and changed the lighting. In the pictures the lighting cam from top right corner and slightly from behind and for the illustration I decided I needed light from the lower left corner and more from the front. THAT was the biggest mistake I could have done....and second: Always check if the model shoot works for you illustrations!!! Even if you think the person looks very beautiful it may just not work for an illustration. Or to say it in a different way: Is the model a pretty person or is he/she also photogentic AND will it work the same in an illustration??



This is the last stage before I decided to change it.


So.... after thinking about it for 1-2 days I got my got my collection of erasers to get of all the layers I allready had put on, which was nearly a half day of work. Got some new and good references ....and....started all over again.





I sketched the new face firs on paper and layed it in photoshop over my illustration and emphasized the big lines to see if it would work. It does! ;)



And finally the finished piece:




For the first time I actually worked with beaten gold. But you can't really see it in the scan which is why I took some pictures to show that aspect:






...and you can vote for it on Infected by art since I am taking part in the competition for the next annual

Little mermaid

So in between I am working on some other illustrations than just scientific ones. In september I already posted the black and white sketch for a portrait of a mermaid.

When I was a kid I used to watch many fairytale films made in eastern countries e.g. Poland, Rumania, USSR, Czechoslovakia and later Czech Republic. Many of them inspired me when I was younger and still do.
I always have the picture of a mermaid from "Malá mořská víla" (The little mermaid - 1976) in my head. Not the Disney version of the little mermaid.

This year I wanted to make my own version of the little mermaid:



Black and white sketch



Black and white sketch but with digital values...



...and the same sketch with some colours...



...and the first layers in my real drawing!! :)

Since the drawing is pagefilling and not - as many of my scientific illustrations - with a lot of white space this will be one of my biggest colour pencil drawings I ever created.
It is 51x45cm - which is 20.1x17.7in!





PS: You can also follow me for this illustration (or others) on Instagram!

Polly wants a cookie!

I think parrots are very inspirational birds. Obviously because of their intense colours but also because of the pure variaty of them. Plus the go through big changes in their looks from hatching to being an adult parrot.
That's why I am at the moment busy with an illustration of a green-winged macaw (Ara chloropterus), also known as the red-and-green macaw.



Black and white sketch.



First colour pencil layers to give it some generall shape.



Details in the head are nearly finished!!

PS: You can also follow me for this illustration (or others) on Instagram: http://instagram.com/ankatsart_insta

10.000 is the number!

10.000 is my number of the day. 10.000 views since I started this blog! Just to bad that in the last couple of months I didn't write as much as I wanted to do.
But.... to sum everything up which happened in the last few months:

I finished my Masters degree and... after enjoying the summer for about a few weeks...it finally hit me: I am not a student any more!! I won't go back to academy after this summer!!
And I panicked... more or less. First I just didn't know what to do and after a while I still didn't know what to do.
Lucky for me I already had some kind of new assignment AND I had to get my administration together. When I was engaged with these things it made it easier to look for new clients, jobs etc.
But what I did do is to re-correct my master thesis and get a re-print of it.
And since I never posted a single finished illustration of it, here you go:

In the next post I will go into the details of making these illustrations and how that year was for me. But if you can't wait until then there is already a pdf version of it online.
BUT *drum roll* I am working on a brand new website which will include an animated view of my book so that you can turn pages etc. And until then I hope to have finished another bird-project I am working on just now!!

Next to that I am working on some other very nice personal and not personal pieces and projects. The personal ones I will use to participate more in various competitions! A great article by Donato about that can be found on Muddy Colors!! If you don't already follow that blog I tell you know to do so!!

And as a preview for the upcoming blog post the sketch of one of my personal projects:

Sign of life or... Happy New Year!

Didn't I tell you in the last post how things are planned but sometimes don't work out....?? Yup....so much about posting regularly again.
The reason is my final exam. Although I am moving on more slowly than I planned (again....hff) it consumes most of my time and now I even have to go faster.


At the same time I am working on a new layout for Morlo's World - the Fb page as well as the Etsy-shop - and some new Morlos. So I hope there will be some updates there as well.
Besides these things we are still working on our home. There are still the tiny (or last things) to be fixed e.g. painting the old stairs in a new colour or get the garden ready for spring as well as some tiny improvements in my workspace.
For the rest of the time I am just trying not to panic because I have to hand in my publication in about....MARCH allready. Can somebody hand me a paperbag...hfhfhf!!!



But here are - as some kind of starting the big update flood which I promised the last time - some hand drawings with the hand-skeletons. This is part of our Master and we had to draw many more hands to be abple to draw them okay in the future. Hands are a pretty important thing if you are going to illustrate in the medical field ;)

Flood

So i had this idea to just try to post everything from the summer until now in chronological order in a few entries.
Yeah...hm... sometimes you plan things... and it just does not work out that way ;)
At the moment I am overflooded with new and exciting and interesting things which are happening arround me!
That's why I decided to just post everything when it's done or whenever feel lik it and I hope that the past illustrations and back then exciting news will be all posted until december.



This is a new illustration of a red-backed shrike and the second illustration from the 'peekaboo' (temporary title) series. It is also published in my second bird series on behance: Birds II
There you can also see a new illustration of a hoopoe for a spanish agency.

Hope to be able to update soon with my old academy assignments and maybe even some new stuff.

But for now just a picture of me and Lima the Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle in Hellenthal.



I went to Hellenthal a great station for bird of prey in the Eifel in Germany to do some research and get some references for my master publication. There I could follow a day-long workshop on bird of prey and falconers. That's how I got to know Lima and even had a go in traning together with a harris hawk named Cora.

Long time no see

Hei guys,

I had quite a busy summer. Because of that I had to abandon my blog and some other pages for some time. But I am back now!!!

To get you back on track:

I finished the sheep illustration and went on with two rat illustrations :) One in colourpencil (which you can see right here) and one in line which still has to go through some minor corrections and will be shown in the next entry.

After that I finished an anatomy assignment which is still being digitalized and a spread about the 'Double opozing z-plastic' which still awaits correction of the surgeon we worked with.
As soon as everything is ready to be shown I will post it here :)
Next to finishing my last assignments I moved together with my boyfriend in an old house which wasn't renovated since the 50's. Now I have my own workroom with enough space for all my stuff. A single workplace for digital drawing, traditional drawing and sewing ;) Pictures the next time!! :D

After I was just done with all of that I started my final exam at the clinic for birds, reptilians, amphibians and fish in Gießen (Germany). I got to do what I wanted to do: to illustrate a publication about the arteficial insamination of birds using the example of parrots and birds of prey. So I get to draw cool birds :P

I hope to be able to update the blog soon! With the remaining assignments and maybe some final exam sketches. Stay tuned!




PS: There is a new about section on my website!!

Way too much happening right now!!

My mum always says " If something is going to happen it will be very likely that everything is going happen at the same time."

So true, so true (mums are always right anyway :P).

At the moment I don't know where to start with. It is probably the best to start with what allready HAS happened:





A new creation!! This is Albert the MORUNCULUS!! As you can see a Morunculus is a more or less further developed Morlo. They turned to the upright walk and clothing! :)
This ones name is Albert (best pronounced the french way). He likes waffles with strawberries in the morning and insists on having an afternoon coffee-break with a different cake every day. As you can see he has a bit of a sweet tooth (I already told him that if his pants don't fit him anymore he has to make one himself!!) But I got him interested in fruit so hopefully this will be a healthy addition.

I hope that I will be able to show you more Morunculi this year. Albert is what you could call a protoype. As you can see in the next pictures he is slightly posable but I would have liked it to be more. This one will not be for sale since he didn't fully turn out as I expected AND I always like to keep the first of its kind (Morlo, Mini/Baby Morlo and now Morunculus). So if you are interested in buying posable Morunculi stay tuned.

Now I will tell you about all the stuff which is happening right now:

Right now I am preparing for an exhibition in Germany (Halberstadt im Harz). My first exhibition *yeah* :D
It is the 'MoVo - Moderne Vogelmaler' (Modern Birdpainters) and everybody participating has the chance to win the 'Silberne Uhu' (Silver Eagle Owl) as award. I figured that it was time to dare to sign up for one or two competitions this (and maybe every) year. That was my hint in my post "This year will be exciting.

You are probably curious which drawings will be displayed :)
They picked

You can have a closer look at these illustrations in the blogposts Bearded Bird, The Blue Tit and Three little Puffins. I am very happy that three illustrations were chosen. The exhibition will take place in June and I look forward to tell you guys everything about it.


Due to all this happening it could seem as if my final exam has taken a back seat. But it's not like that at all. I hope to be able to post some more details about my project this month. Before (and after) that I will work my ass off to make everything go down as smooth as possible!!! :D

PS: Four more Morlos to come. All finished just waiting to get good pictures taken and descriptions written!!!

PPS: Got featured on Drawing Served with my illustrations of the skeleton and abdomen :) Thanks to the person responsible for that!

Sketchdump

The promised sketches :) This is just a small selection out of my last and my recent sketch book.



You can see here some creatures, some random sketches to get my mind of school and other stuff as well as some sketching for some Morlo designs :)

Deer skull and some good news

So I finally really get a hold on my to-do-list :)



This is one of my academy assignments. This should have been finished way earlier but....gnah... sometimes time is not your best friend.

But I am working as hard as I can to finish everything in time :). Should have everything done by summer since I will start with a really cool final exam project (yeah!) then!!!! :D

The deer skull is one of the two assignments I was talking about in the last posts. The other one is about the sheeps brain and eye-movement and should be finished this or next week. Then it is just a handful of really big assignemnts.... hff... but it is better to get your ass moving instead of sulking about how much is still left to do :P Then nothing would happen and you would have even less time to get it done. You better just start without thinking about how much is still ahead of you! (that's how it works for me).

Probably going to post some sketches in the next days. Has been a while since I did that. After that hopefully my new Morlos (all finished, just waiting to get a nice photoshoot) and then just what I am able to fill in my tight agenda :)