Princess Smellyfeet / Prinzessin Käsefuss

During our stay in Scotland in 2019 I came up with a story for my two children while exploring the (beautiful) city of Edinburgh, by foot, hand in hand, walking for hours, marveling at the mysteries we came across and falling in love with them. The story was about a little princess who unfortunately happened to have smelly feet and was pretty much annoyed by her mother who kept asking her to wash them. So one day she ran away, into the woods and found herself all alone at night when suddenly she met a little dragon who appeared to have a similar problem - the beginning of a little adventure.

The picture you see above belongs to the first attempts to illustrate the story. I am not sure yet whether to maintain the style. But I sure do love the way that little princess sits in the woods just enjoying the moment, giving zero fucks about her smelly feet.

I am still wondering where the journey will take me in terms of style and illustration (The text/story was done almost as soon as I came up with the idea) but I am sure everything will be falling into place soon. It’s difficult to concentrate on creative processes in pandemic times, so I am not pressuring myself.

Better times ahead. Hopefully soon.

Childhood tales

A couple of years ago I had a go at writing down my childhood memories. When I was more than half way through I stopped as I began to wonder whether my narrative was too dark, too depressing or even self-pitying. The last thing I wanted was people to feel sorry for me after reading my story. I just had reached a point in my life where I needed to understand why I felt so rootless.

As a child I asked my grandmother and aunt, who both meant a great deal to me, a lot of questions about my ancestors, my parents, basically everyone I grew up with, dead or alive. And I still remember everything I was told, up to this day. By writing down everything I remembered it helped me understand that my problems originated in my parents’ problems and their parents’ problems, who survived two world wars and lost a lot in the fire …

The problem was that some of the people I wrote about are still alive and despite the fact I never wrote anything malignant about them I feared they might feel offended and hurt. I am still intrigued in portraying my memories though and I believe doing so by illustrating them might do the trick. It’s less heavy and personal, a lighter way to express hard feelings, even sadness.

It’s fun, too! This image below turned out exactly the way I had been carrying it around for years in my head. My half sister (the blond girl) once told me about this incident: my father won a car at poker one night. When he returned in the morning he took us for a picknick in the countryside - in our new family car, which unfortunately turned out to be a hearse. What an absurde idea. But this picture means a lot to me. It captures one of the very few memories I have of my father.

Praise your stereo

When I was confirmed in church at the age of 14 I was given a brand new stereo by my family along with my very first CD - which is the most formative Album to me up to this day: “Blue Lines “ by Massive Attack. One day after school I happened to see Shara Nelson singing Unfinished Sympathy on MTV and I was utterly swept off my teenage feet. Ever since I had been obsessed with Trip Hop, and Massive Attack in particular or rather anything that was published on their label “Wild Bunch”. Ever since I was a child I had been spending most of the day (and most nights) listening to music: I loved cheesy Richard Clayderman (probably the equivalent to David Garrett at the time), Tschaikowskys Schwanensee, Stevie Wonder, Prokofieff, Le carnaval des animaux, Hot Chocolate, Good old Whitney Houston, lots of Soulmusic and even more Soulmusic, Blues if I could get my hands on it which could be a little tricky at junior school age, and when puberty hit, my ears devoured anything by the sugar cubes, Björk, Trip Hop, Motown, Acid Jazz (I adored Incognito), I loved Stina Nordenstam, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, all these wonderful women who inspired me to live my life the way I felt it was supposed to be lived … and my stereo, oh how I loved my stereo and my headphones, I never left the house without my walkman or CD player and almost panicked when I left my headphones at home … until today I feel safe and sound underneath them. They cut out all the noise and chatter outside and allow me to walk on sunshine even on a cloudy day. So a tribute to the day when this brand-new wonderful stereo became part of my teenage life was most definitely overdue.

Work hard, doodle harder...

For the last few months I have been happily doodling away. No pressure, no baggage, no destination, possibly the best way to travel if you like- and yes, that’s exactly how it feels. Drawing is a journey, with every illustration, sketch, doodle I discover the world around me and parts of myself I had never visited before. Some places I enjoy, while others I loathe as they leave me struggling for a meaning in what I am doing or trying to do, most of the time that would be creating an image I can relate to or simply pleases my eyes for being a harmonious drawing… but then my hands fail to draw what my mind wants to tell. And that’s pretty frustrating.

However, I always believed telling stories was my dna, alas illustrating and storytelling went together like Bonnie and Clyde, ketchup and fries, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill in a stuffy saloon ….simply the perfect match. But now I am beginning to realize what makes me heart flutter is creating a character. It has been obvious all along: to me the most exciting part of storytelling has always been the introduction of the protagonist, all of my manuscripts’ working titles consisted of the main characters’ names. Might be a coincidence … might be not!

I don’t know where these characters come from, some evolve during the creative process, others I see on the streets, on the bus, in a restaurant and my mind begins to think of a story they are involved in. It also happened that I had a vivid dream of someone who then followed me around until I sat down and eventually started writing down his story. And this one below - well, maybe the image just reflects the way I feel when going to a party. In all probability like an alien, bored stiff by the way people believe they were having the time of their lifes - loud music, laughter, spilt drinks, perfumed hair, sticky tables, roaring murmur… This is my face, and this is as happy as it gets on occasions like that.

But let’s see what party my journey will take me next. In fact I will now pour myself a nice glass of sparkling water, grab my pencils and continue my journey on the couch. I have a feeling I might not be traveling alone tonight.

Family is what you make it

A few years ago I illustrated a portrait of me and my first son, framed it and gave it to my husband to place it on his desk at the office. I am not a huge fan of family photography, to be frank, only the thought of it gives me stomach cramps. The concept of family is something I had to learn from scratch as an adult and mother, during my own childhood I felt alienated for most of the time, roots, heritage, feeling home - I never perceived all this as part of my adolescence. So sitting in front of a photographer who keeps telling you to put on a lovingly happy smile while you and your family basically feel like puppets having someone else’s hand up their arses, is not exactly something I was aiming for.

When I started my own family (which I was pretty sure was never going to happen until I turned 34), I found unconditional love and lost the concept I have had of myself up to this point. Very confusing. And the situation still leaves me befuddled from time to time, and yet, it was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life. Frightening like hell and scaring the shit out of me most of the time, but healthy, healing, sensible and maybe the only grown-up thing I have ever done.

Now that we have two kids a new portrait was way overdue. So what to do? Asking a photographer to take a picture? Would he or she manage to capture our specific family weirdness and toilet humor involving madness everyone else is eager to hide but we never managed or desired to conceal? I doubt that. So I picked up my pencil, made a sketch of my family the way I see them and finished it digitally last night. Which was a satisfying pleasure. I also involved our three cats, of which one unfortunately died a few years ago. The other two meanwhile live with friends in the countryside (I keep telling everyone they left home to go to uni after they turned almost ten which must be about students age in cat time dimensions) but of course they remain part of our family, so no way I would have left them out. After all family is what YOU make it, not what some photographer, your parents, aunts and uncles, neighbours, teachers, politicians, social media or society in general thinks a family is supposed to be like, always happy and in constant bliss, smiley, grateful, full of sparks and magic, positive, confident, good lookin’, enjoying vegan food in small urban restaurants, never fighting, never weird, dirty, sad, angry, depressed, desperate, lost and helpless. F*ck all that. Remember your family any way you like. And don’t let anyone talk you out of your wonderful weirdness. It’s what makes your family so lovable. And unique.

Your parents used to be teenagers

There are times when I believe life over fourty is simply ace. Lounging on the couch, dinner in my belly, kids in bed, Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix ( I don’t really watch it, I just enjoy the cheerful “aura” of Drew Barrymore) and a sketchpad along with a couple of pencils and a brand new rubber on my lap: Life is good!

At the moment I enjoy sketching people and still lifes. A few years ago, drawing always involved a lot of pressure, mostly pressure I was responsible for myself. Which is silly. I do know that now, but I didn’t back then. I am now in the process of letting go of expectations. Which is not only healthy but at the same time creates a sensation of joy and playfulness, which I, in this extent, never encountered.

Maybe that’s how I felt when I was younger, a child, a teenager. I lost this kind of lightness as a twen, but I am determined to get it back. In that respect I watch my children, who also love to draw, and I learn from them, day by day. Their lightheartedness creates the most beautiful drawings.

Superdads! We're in this together!

Of course all the bullshit parents are faced with is not only reserved for mothers. So I could not resist making a poster for all dads with superpowers to say: We’re in this together and we are on your side!

SUPERMUM!

I picked up my pencil drawing of a superwoman I made on International Women’s day and turned her into SUPERMUM, a character I have always desired to create ever since I became a parent. As such you encounter situations where superheroes are much needed to fight off all the bullshit you are being confronted with, preferably in in the worst possible moments.

So here she is and she is giving zero fucks to all the nagging and mansplaining and bitching and teachings and people in general having the face to believe they have the right to put mothers and fathers in their place!

Couples 2.0

Relationship goals of the digital bohème…

Happy end.

For the last two days I have been convinced to have lost a back up disc with all of my old works including original print layouts and manuscripts of my books. I tried not to panic and keep calm but the thought of having lost the work of almost ten years felt like an amputation. I was devastated.

Today we found two other back up drives in the basement … and they are fine. I went through all of my old jpgs, psds, ais, pdfs …. happy and relieved to see all of them save and sound on two unscathed hard discs. Since browsing through all your old works can feel a bit like walking down memory lane in a way, I could not help but feeling slightly sentimental looking at one or the other image. Like the one below which at the time was supposed to be the first image of a sequel for my graphic novel “Immy And the City - Depresso to go”.

I instantly felt like I was wearing those heavy black boots again, the skirt, the turtleneck jumper and the white coat. And a moment later I felt this outfit was not fitting anymore. I must have outgrown it. Which is probably a good thing considering that Immys story was slightly depressing, dark and hopeless.

So should there be a part II maybe she needs a complete make over. And more comfortable shoes that get her anywhere she wants. Even to a happy end.

Tribute to my favorite fashion brand

I must admit I am not massively into fashion, but there are indeed a few fashion brands that manage to cheer me up on a cloudy day. Like Boden for instance. Their clothes are fun, they are sweet, effortlessly stylish and they celebrate colours in an inspiring way. Totally love them. So I decided to pay tribute to them by illustrating one of their fabulous ads. Then I thought why not doing the same with other brands and their ads intriguing me in some way or the other and in that way raising these ads to another level, simply by taking away all the perfection and adding more vulnerability and imperfection. So here we are, this Boden Illustration is going to be the first of many to follow. I will start a series and see where it will take me. And I am excited. I have a feeling this is going to be fun.

Inside the lines ....

Is there anything more satisfying than coloring sketches? I could go on for hours …

The best reward after analog sketching is to scan the image, putting it up on a screen and coloring it with a digital brush. Oh the excitement of finalizing an image … <3

Happy International Women's Day 2019

Happy International Women’s Day. Whatever it is you want to achieve - you cannot lose unless you don’t try. Go girls!

Celebrating women on Instagram

I see so many inspiring women on instagram and ever so often I fear they might just rush through me like ghosts without leaving a mark. We share precious moments together, mostly without the other one taking notice. Crazy. But so 2019 I guess. That’s why I decided to stop the insta-timeline-madness now and again, freeze the moment and pay tribute to those specials moments and women inspiring me to get creative and making me feel good about myself. So here is Natalie Lee aka Stylemesunday (https://www.instagram.com/stylemesunday) and her beautiful silhouette I enjoyed drawing so very much. And I hope there will be more women to follow soon!

Instainspiration

Oh instagram, you’re full of crap. But also beauty! And tons of inspiration. Real life as you like. Maybe a little over condensed. But allowing me to travel the minds and worlds of more or less intriguing strangers, anytime, preferably in the evenings in front of the tv, listening to Netflix shows while sitting on my sofa with a blanket, a couple of pencils and a sketchblock, doodling away, trying to bring the beauty, the extraordinary I see when scrolling my timeline to paper.