As I’m scrambling to prepare for the Frankfurt Book Fair next month – creating new pieces, promotional material, and a book pitch – all while continuing to work on my comic, I’m taking a moment to write this letter, a calm moment to reflect.
I hope that reading the letter is creating a calm moment for you too, a pause in your busy day :)
Art in September: Sketchbook, and stickers!
So this month I’ve been pretty consistent in drawing/creating “without a goal”, for about half an hour every working day.
I’ve made a prompt list, mixed from a lot of lists I’ve collected over the years. I kept only words/ideas I thought I would like to do (and shouldn’t need thinking too much), put them in a LibreOffice Calc sheet, and wrote a formula that turns up a random prompt from the list when I open the file 🤓️.
These are some of the sketches I made :) (the middle one is not from the prompt list, but inspired by the outfit of the YouTube comedian you see on the screenshot in the background – mixed with the head of that young model from my “inspiration archive”, and a picture of trees I took in my home village 😊️).
Incredibly, I’ve arrived at the end of that sketchbook that I started… 20 years ago 😅️ (there some large time gaps :)). Two months ago or so there were still so many pages to fill!
At the moment I’m making a stamp to print a pattern on the end papers – chipping away at it, as it takes more than half an hour! (the good thing is, I don’t have to think about what to make, just pick up where I left 😊️). I’m documenting the process on this blog! (and also on Instagram)
Also, I’m working on a sticker sheet to give away at the fair (and maybe sell later?), can’t resist showing you my work-in-progress 😊️.
From my camera roll: Tree, plant patterns, and a tractor :)
We admired that beautiful, huge tree in the park Graftanlagen in Delmenhorst (small town near us) :)
I like to make this kind of pictures (left and middle), often without a strong focal point/subject, looking almost abtract. When I take them I usually think of using them as mobile phone wallpapers 😁️. But looking at them again and selecting these 2 (I have a lot more!), I’m thinking that they would look good as wall decor too, right?
This tractor 🚜✨ was on display (with many others, all still working!) at the Farmer’s Market in Stuhr (where I live) – which is more of a village fair / handicraft market. There was also an interesting demonstration of historical farm machines – from not so long ago, but the work was still much harder than today and required many people. I took some pictures but obviously there are people on them so I’d rather not share them. On the first photo there were also 2 people in the background; I edited them out a bit clumsily, that’s why the wall may look a bit strange 😁.
Have to tell you about: Jutta Bauer
On September 10th Jutta Bauer passed away. She’s very well known in Germany, an illustrator and author of books, cartoons and comics; also a teacher and mentor for many German illustrators.
I had the good fortune to attend a talk she gave in 2024 at the Bunte Hunte children’s book illustration conference.
There was also an exhibition of her work with a lot of sketches and preparatory work, and things that were not meant for publishing; but also a selection of originals of more well-known works (that were not know to me 😅, but part of culture for many German illustrators, and of German popular culture in general I guess :)).
I thought maybe I would get to know her, maybe at the book fair in Frankfurt, because she has published several books with Kibitz, who are now my publisher, too…
Illustrator and educator Franziska Walther made an episode of her podcast about Jutta as a teacher, which I find very moving (it’s in German though).
Looking for an English resource I found out that Jutta was interviewed in one of my favorite podcasts, The Illustration Department. I didn’t listen to it yet, but I bet it’s good :).
It’s a bit of a sad note to end this letter on, but I wanted to pay tribute to Jutta. Go read one her books!
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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