Frankurter Buchmesse

'Oooooooh!' I shouted out loud yesterday morning when I opened my mailbox. My publisher Michael Neugebauer had send me some photos from their booth on the Frankfurter Buchmesse.

A huge banner with my animals on it from my newest book 'Von Anni Alligator bis Zeno Zebra'. What an honour!And what a nice surprise!!

Earlier tis year they also chose my animals on the cover of their Autumn brochure:

And they made a big A2 poster with my animals on it.I feel blessed, lucky and happy wit such a publisher.The book is available in the German Bookstores, but also on Amazon.

New book: 'Von Anni Alligator bis Zeno Zebra'

It is here! My animal book: Von Anni Alligator bis Zeno Zebra'
Published by minedition (in German).

I met Michael Neugebauer, the publisher of minedition this Spring at the Bologna Bookfair and showed him my work. He immediatly was enthusiastic and wanted to make a book with me. And here it is! :-)

I'm really happy with the collaboration and the result!

They are thinking about an English version too! I hope this will come true!

Circus Luna

And finally it is here! My new Children's Picture Book!

Last week the postman ( I love hoim ;-)) brought a box with my books. Always a superexcited moment! How will it look like? The colors, the size? Till then I've only seen it in a pdf on my screen ...

... and then ... I finally hold it in my hands. I feel it and I smell it. My book! Thanks to my Publisher De Eenhoorn. and their designer Dries Desseyn who did a great job! I'm very happy with it! I think I would buy it, when I hadn't made it myself, so that's a good sign!

The story is about Luna, who's going on a journey with the moon and she has a wonderful time in the circus. As you maybe know I love the circus theme. Long time I was a theater performer, using all kind of circus techniques. :-)

The book is available in the Dutch and Belgian bookstores and on the website of De Eenhoorn. I really hope that one day it will be translated in English ... It is not much text, but that would be great!

And then the postman brought anóther book ...!
I will post about that soon. Have a nice weekend!!

Online class: Creating Simple Characters

Good news! You now can subscribe for a brand new online art class: Creating Simple Characters. And guess what? I am the teacher :-)

In June this year we travelled to Seattle in the United States to film this class.Carla and Steve Sonheim invited me to come over to teach Quite an honor and an adventure!

And now the 24th of September the class goes life! Exciting!
You can watch the promo video here.

The class is about finding all kind of ways to create characters. Simple characters We start with making faces. It will be fun!

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Then we gonna add bodies, make animal characters, give character to things and even to letters. At the end we gonna make a Simple Character book.We gonna play and experiment! You can find much more information here

On Carla's blog I answered three questions for people to get to know me a little bit better.
The first question was: How did you get into making 2D art and illustration?
Read it here

 The second question was: What kind of animal are you?
Read it here

And the last one: Name the top 3 why you draw.
Read it here

You are very welcome to join! Let's make some fun together!

Migrations Project - Open Hearts Open Borders

I want to share a very inspiring illustration migrations project. It started as a travelling exhibition. And it now turned into this beautiful book:

Some time ago illustrator Piet Grobler (founder of the International Centre for Picture Book in Society) asked illustrators all over the world to make a postcard with a bird for a special migrations  exhibition starting at BIBIANA in Bratislava, September 2017.

I was one of them. We were asked to send them with a positive message to the Arts centre of Worcester. So birds from all over the world were send by post. More than 300 postcards did arrive and were turned into a nice installation. (Still traveling around the world)

Recently they also made a book with bird postcards of the project:  Open Hearts Open Borders. They selected 50 birds. Also my bird  :-):

My postcard was a bit damaged during her flight. Such a great metaphore ...  I just LOVE this project. All royalties of the book will be shared by Amnesty International and IBBY (The International Board on Books forYoung People)

If you wanna support this project, you can buy the book here.
Help Make this Book Fly! Thank you!!!

If you wish, you can read an article in the Guardian about the book here

Still blooming ;-)

Today it's nine years ago my Mam suddenly passed away. Each year after that day I make a special in Memori-Mam here on my blog. Today I made this geranium collage to honour her:

I wrote before about the geranium I took it with me after she died. We have more than 100 now.This month we've  put again all the geraniums out in our garden on our island in the middle of Rotterdam. After the winter staying inside.

So the whole summer our garden will be flowery red again. And each time we visit our little Summerhouse I think of her. She is still blooming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the other blogposts I made  to honour her. Click the links:

The first year  I posted this blogpost: to honour my mom
(including some funny animations my mother made)

The second year I wrote another blogpost about her: far away, but still near 

The third year I wrote about her geranium

And the fourth year I wrote:  In memori-mam, thinking of you...

The fifth year I posted 85 geraniums

The sixth year I wrote:In Memori-Mam 6

 The seventh year I wrote:In Memori-Mam 7

And last year I wrote:In Memori-Mam Geranium Art

Bologna Children's Book Fair 2019

We just came back from a wonderful and inspiring trip to the Bologna Children's Book Fair. It was my second time and again I did like every minute of it! Such a great event!

One of the many hightligts was receiving a printed version of the catalogue 'Your own voice' an illustration class with Javier Zabala, including one of my works:

Bologna is beautiful. Also by night. We arrived at Sunday In the evening one of the streets was filled with enlighted poetry. I love the italian language. This part means: -  to be here -  in this moment ...

I also really love the colors of Bologna. By day ánd by night!

In the morning we walked from our piccolo appartment to the Fair. About half an hour. We enjoyed the sunshine and again the beautiful warm colors and all the arches.

We also visted some interesting lectures. There is so much to see and listen to. A real illustrator's paradise! I also had some very nice meetings with publishers and  illustrator friends.

The Illustrator's exhibition was  nice and inspiring this year. Of course I did buy a catalogue of it.

And one of the hightlights was a meeting one of my favorite illustrators: Kveta Pacovska.

When we came on the Fair on Wednesday morning she was there to sign her new book. No row yet, so I almost was the first one :-)

I felt a bit  like a lucky little girl to meet Kveta in person. Such a wonderful and kind lady. And a great artist!

I'm really thankful for this moment!

I also loved the visual identity of the fair this year.

And of course we did enjoy the italian food, wine and ice-creams a lot!!!

In the city of Bologna there were some other exhibitions too. This one below is from illustrators who did embroider their portrait.

And one by Richard Scarry in one of the libraries, a beautiful old buiding

And there was lots and lots more! So many beautiful books. I'm full with inspiration and looking forward to make new things. Ciao Bologna!!!!

Daily collage project

On the 1th of January this year I started a new project: 'A collage a day.' Every day I post one on Instagram So, if you wish, you are welcome to follow it.

It is fun to try out various techniques. My inspiration I mostly get out of the snippets. I have boxes full with snippets and parts of paintings.

What I like about this project that they are made without the computer. Normally I work mostly digital. So it is relaxing to make one of these in between.

I like to play with shapes. See what emerges. Also the pieces from what's left over are interesting.

I also join the 2019 - Year of the collage class with Carla Sonheim and others. Just for fun! This also gives inspiration. ( You still can join! ) One of the assignments was to make a grid of paper snippets.

I then like to give my own twist to it. So I made some face grids. I also made this clown with buttons, inspired by the grid exercise:

Sometimes I take a theme, like playing with rhythm, as these elephants below show.

Another assignment was about playing with colored transparancy paper. First make textures on transparant sheets and then make collages with them. It gives a fun effect, because of this transparency:

What I like the most of this playing with shapes and snippets, the unexpected things appearing. Things or characters you never would have thought of.

Most of the time I make characters. That's what I like the most. But sometimes I try to make an abstract one:

It is now the end of January. So I made 31 of these collages. I will try this for a year. Don't know if I can keep it up, but at least I can try. I once did it with my face a day project and made 365 faces. Remember?

More on  Instagram.
See you there?!