As opposed to February, March was an eventful month for me:
- The second workshop week of the mentoring programme “Masterclass Visual Storytelling” in Gera (a small town in Eastern Germany) 😎
- A few days with my boyfriend in our van, in Gera then on the edges of the Harz mountains 😊
- A week in Finland, specifically in Saariselkä, “the northernmost ski resort in Europe” – skiing (both alpine and cross-country), chasing the northern lights, and sitting cosily by our electrical fireplace 😁!
Art in March: A silly comic
This is the result of 2 “warm-up” / creativity exercises from the storytelling masterclass.
In the first one the character was “designed” collectively + randomly: one person drew the headdress, then folded the paper so that the next one couldn’t see it – only the bottom lines; that person then drew the head, folded, next person the top of the body, and so on for the body down to the knees, to the ankles, and finally the feet!
I didn’t participate in creating the character here – I received it randomly to do the next exercise: ask the character some questions, and draw the answers!
I only wrote the answers not the questions, and it’s in German anyway 😅, so below the picture you’ll find the questions as well as the translation of the answers :)
We also did some outdoor drawing of a picturesque villa from the golden age of the town, sometime in the 19th century, and I drew some 10 pages of storyboard for my comic project (reaching 23 from 70-something planned 😬), and I sketched an interesting girl at Helsinki airport. But somehow I’m fond of this silly character comic, because (I think) it does read like a little story fitting to this unlikely character, not just separate answers to single questions – so that’s what you get to see this month 😊!
— where are you right now?
— in a cosy tea house
— where are you going?
— I’ll be on my way to an arts and craft market!
— where do you come from?
— I arrived this morning from Bielefeld * – what a journey! but it’s worth it
— what do you like eating?
— ooooh, they make this delicious lemon pie here! I think I’ll still order one
— how are you feeling?
— I’m so excited!
— do you have friends?
— yes, I’m meeting my friend Jana… oh, maybe I should get a move on!
* a German town, which people often make fun of by doubting that it exists at all 😁 (it seems this began with a satirical article on the Internet in 1994!)
…Did you notice how the flower in her pocket is different on each drawing? (magic!) 😁️
From my camera roll: Wonders of nature
A Barbary ape at the Gera animal park ✨ (that finger on his left hand looks kind of AI-like, but I really took this picture 😅)
And, yes, we saw the Northern lights! ✨ here above Kaunispää Fell, near Saariselkä in Finland. This picture is quite post-processed (light/contrast/hue filter, no “manual” editing of course!) – because my camera could only capture a faint light, and I think this is close to what we experienced (well, a small part of it) :)
Have to tell you about: Regentag (Rainy Day), by Jens Rassmus
I discovered this book during the storytelling masterclass in Gera: on the one hand it was part of a presentation on landscapes – and more generally backgrounds – in picture books (by former editor, and professor Hans ten Doornkaat); on the other hand one of the students, Alexandra Junge, brought it to our evening “picture book show-and-tell” sessions :)
It’s a wordless book, where the story enfolds rather like a comic. I love the expressiveness of the characters drawn in black and white with a fluid brush line, and how the worlds and creatures they make up in their heads are shown as realistic paintings.
I don’t want to include too many pictures, so I recommend you take a look at the preview of the book, where you get a good feeling for how it works.
You can also find some more spreads on Jens Rassmus’ website.
Here are just 3 pages to give you a taster. The page-turn is after the first one, so you turn the page to discover where they are so secretively crouching 😊.
Masterful, right!? ✨️
That’s it for this month!
As always, if there’s anything you would like to ask, something you would like to read about in the next letter, or anything really – send me an email at hello@reinekurth.com! It would be lovely to hear from you 😊.
With love,
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