This topic is already one or two weeks old, but I didn't have the time to draw the idea, that I had in mind.
This evening I took my watercolors and my new brush and painted the first water color illustration since literally years.
I took a photo of it, because I don't have a scanner at home.
The idea was to use a pretty kitschy style versus the brutal reality of people losing their houses these days.
It was a nice experience, the topic didn't come out the way it should have, though (the balloon is a house, but this is hard to recognize).
I'll keep on using water colors, I really need to practice!

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Wow, I made it already:
Opinion!

Feel free to download the **empty** version and fill in your own opinion.
Would be nice to see the results.
Have fun.

Very very late, but here's my illo for "pretend".
Columbo always pretends to be a simple minded cop, but in the end he get's the murderer.
Great show.

the illo was made in freehand and the colors were added in photoshop. I must admit I got lazy and didn't do the colors (and therefor the shape of the face) precisely enough.
But it's late and I just needed to finish it.




and here are the freehand steps, drawn with the pentool (no tracing tool)

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this week's topic: clique.
it's a photo-illustration-combination.
The base is a photo of a toilet paper roll.
The illus was made in photoshop.
the barflies are actually mosquitos. They drink Bloody Mary, naturally.

"canned", the topic of this week at illustration friday.

I tried a digital collage. Handwritten letters are becoming more and more unusual -- emails are so much faster.
I also thought about other things to be canned, eg. an old telephone. What else does become unsual these days?

can't get enough of this week's topic. Another version of "enough".
here is the first one.
And the second one:

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enough! >> the topic of illustration friday this week.
this is a photo I took a while ago and I added the type for this topic.

I like taking a walk and taking photos, which could become a base for an illustration later.
Sometimes I immeditately "see" something, which could be drawn or done with the photo.

With other photos I simply have feeling, it could become a good starting point for an illo, without knowing if it ever takes me somewhere or not.
Other examples for such illustrations are postet here in the kategory "Photo".

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Foggy: the topic this week at illustration friday.
*there are three versions, read more to see all of them (I like the third one best)

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I just got another idea about "sour" and made it quickly in indesign and photoshop:
sour: the face is completely built out of type (times new roman).
Would be fun to try also other "typefaces".
Have a try, if you like:
Sooooou();:*R le(mo)n



the first idea is here:

I'm not sure about this one, but it does look sour (this week's topic in illustration friday).
I took a photo of me with photobooth and exaggerated the wrinkels, when I drew the whole thing in freehand.
colors and the rest were made in photoshop.

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punchline.
the original sketches I made were more detailed, maybe I have time to expand the whole illustration next week.

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Für meine Nichte habe ich ein Skizennbuch zum 7. Geburtstag gebastelt, das ich am Ende gern selbst behalten hätte, so viel Spaß hat es gemacht.
Ich bin keine Basteltante und daher selbst überrascht, wie nett das Ganze war.
Ein Skizzenbuch mit Ringbindung gekauft, dort auf verschiedene Seiten verteilt Dinge reingeklebt, Zeichnungen angefangen oder Kleckse gemalt, die als Ausgangspunkt für eine eigene Zeichnung dienen kann. Ein Stück Stoff, ein Stück Leder, Löcher gelocht, Klappen aus Papier reingeklebt, und so weiter. Dazwischen viele Seiten frei gelassen für eigene Ideen und auch einfache Zeichnungen begonnen, die weitergesponnen und/oder ausgemalt werden konnten.
Dann fielen mir ein Päckchen mit Plastik-Wackelaugen in die Hände und dann ging der Spaß erst richtig los: Auf die letzte Seite die Augen geklebt und einen ganzen Stapel Seiten davor (so dick wie die flachen Augen waren) Löcher hineingeschnitten. So kann man auf jeder Seite ein neues Gesicht zu diesen Augen malen. 2 Habe ich schon mal hinein gezeichnet, für meine Nichte bleiben noch eine ganze Reihe Seiten, auf denen sie sich austoben kann. So ein Buch mache ich mir demnächst auch: Es ist so erfrischend ohne harte Ansprüche sondern mit leichter Hand an Illustrationen heranzugehen.



//a sketchbook I created for my little niece > a pair of plastic eyes on the last page of a sketchbook + holes cut into the pages before, to create different faces on each page. 2 of them I did myself, to give a little inspiration to her (and because it was lots of fun -- I have to make one for myself, too!)

Friday again! Can't believe it. This week's topic on IF is "wrinkles".
I'm sorry, again I'll post some older work of mine, as I don't have time for developing new stuff for fun at the moment

So here is Aleksander Solzhenitsyn or Solschenizyn:
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (Russian: Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын, born December 11, 1918) is a Russian novelist, dramatist and historian.
Through his writings, he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet labour camp system, and, for these efforts, Solzhenitsyn was both awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 and exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974. He returned to Russia in 1994. In 1994, he was elected as a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the Department of Language and Literature.

...more about him in wikipedia >>

definitely not primitive: the divine drink cacao (and its companion chocolate).
[Illustration Friday's topic: primitive]

read more about how I did it:

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fail is the topic this week at Illustration Friday.
Well I surely failed to understand this sign, when I saw it the first time in Elba, Italy.
And the little Lion I drew once for a brochure, looks disappointed and seems to have a hard way before him (just like it always seems, when you fail).
But it doesn't have to be this way: I just read a beautiful blog yesterday, at the superhero journal, April 9th.

This week's topic of illustration friday is save. I came up with this:
it is a photo I took some months ago on a walk. I was searching for themes I could use later for an illustration, to add an "illustrational layer".
I didn't know, what I would do with it, until today.

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For illustration friday I once drew into a photo to create a new meaning or story within the picture. (ifri/open)
this is another photo I took on the same walk and my idea what to add to it on the illustration level.
what would the doggi on the stone sign do, if it could get out there? (the sign says: keep off dogs from the lawn)

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and here another illo I did for an exhibition about...
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this week's topic on Illustration Friday is Tales and Legends.
I did this vector illustration last year for a magazine and ...

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This is more a conceptual illo about being open-minded and seeing things in everyday life.
I saw this part of a column (?) when I took a walk. Somehow its shape reminded me of a ghettoblaster. Which is in these days also an "ancient" device, since everybody has an mp3-player or listens to music via mobile-phone when being outside. So I found it quite nice to combine the photo with an extra layer of illustration and open a new view on the object.







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last summer was the most exciting summer of soccer! WM in Germany, brilliant weather AND Germany played very well -- it was incredible. We used to watch the games in large groups in pubs or outside on big screens and it was so much fun (even though I'm not sooo crazy about soccer).
I know, it doesnt' fit completly for the topic, but I did this illo for a client and like it. Anyway, here is my pic for illustration friday: Lesen Sie mehr... | more ....

We bought this alphabet quite a long time ago, but I must admit, that I haven't made any cookies with them yet.
Anyway I found the letters just beautiful, one could do with them much more (use them as stencils or something).
Here I just simply scanned them.
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I came up with this picture for several reasons: first when I thought about moon, I remembered a set of playing cards with pairs of pictures which I had as a kid. In this game one had to find the few hidden differences. The pair I loved the most showed a dark tree against a blue moonlit sky.
And then when I had almost finished my illu, it reminded me of a song from the band I used to play with. So I added part of the lyrics. I'll try a translation later.

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an illustration of a children's song that my little baby-daughter loves to hear (EVERY NIGHT -- sigh!) as you may have guessed it's about frogs... (I know the topic was poem, but I needed to illustrate this song, just to get rid of it)



and another version with texture... (inspired by tinavaziri.com)

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Diese Woche war "geeky" das Thema von Illustration Friday.
("geek": someone with extensive knowledge in his/her field of geekiness eg. http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html)

Ich habe dafür einige Illustrationselemente verwendet, die ich schon für einen anderen Auftrag erstellt habe. Hier jedoch neu kombiniert, andere Farben, neuer Hintergrund und neue Komposition um das Thema darzustellen.