Beefheart - again

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Last days I‘ve completed the “example-pages“ of the mentioned graphic novel „The Adventures of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band“, some conceptional work was also done. Now our book will be chaptered into three main parts:
1) The youth of Don and Frank (Zappa) - the originstory of Captain Beefheart 2) Trout Mask Replica (Recording sessions a.s.o.) and 3) the legendary concert at the Jahrhunderthalle Höchst, Frankfurt, Germany 1972.

It‘s really cool for me to work with author Carl-Ludwig Reichert. When I was 18 years old I discoverd his previous band, the bavarian „Sparifankal“ (which means something like „ naughty little devil“). Sparifankal was the only german beefheart-influenced music-group, they played a strange kind of „folkish garage rock“ - very unique at their time and today. C.L. also got a fine reputation as writer about popcultural issues. He published biographies of Frank Zappa, the Ducks, did some books about blues, folk and rock and translated lyrics of Jim Morrison and Bob Marley.

Now its time for us to contact various publishing houses - international publishers are welcome!

Dieter

Illustration Friday: "Contained"

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"Back then when kids used to play around
outside, fun also contained the
occasional pain."

This is what my stuff looks like when I
do some experiments digitally. I did some
scribbles on my new Wacom Bamboo Fun
(nice hardware!) yesterday but it all ended
up looking waaay too artificial, but this here
is something I´m pretty satisfied with.
I roughed up the smooth edges to give it
a more ripped paper look, and now that
I look at it it reminds me of the polish
posters I adore so much.

I used to be pretty anti-digital some
years ago, but I realized it´s not that
those two worlds are separate from each
other. By the way, I did this in GIMP,
the best alternative to Photoshop you
can get, and being Open Source software
it´s free of charge. Sorry, I had to
write a little advertisement here,
but I just love it ;)

In any case, this was a lot of fun
to do and I drew this pretty much non-stop.
Hope you enjoy it too!

-Frederik

I just finished a poster for www.knowmore.org which hopefully will be spread all over the US. Just have a look on this page. You will find some interesting stuff.

max

Jitter 04 - Ian Miller

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One of my heros in illustration is the extraordinary british artist Ian Miller. His illustrations range from loose figure sketches in pencil and charcoal to pen and ink drawings of complex artefacts, twisted trees or strange mechanical animals. In many of his pictures there`s a sense of grotesque... I appreciate his work since his early books for Dragon Dream and his excellent drawings for „A Tolkien Bestiary“. His graphic-novel „The Luck in the Head“ is one of my all time favourites ever. I compiled a longer text about his work, techniques and career which will be printed (together with fine artwork) in the newest issue of „Jitter - Magazin für Bildgestaltung“.

The picture above is a kind of hommage to Ian Millers work. I‘ve made this image years ago, original used for an exhibition-poster of my comic-work.

Dieter

Hi everyone,

...another ape, also without the finishing touch. I will let this one aside for a while and maybe paint something nice after all.

Farewell,
Peter

Ghosts, everywhere!

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Just a couple of days ago I realized
I haven´t done anything proper for
A WHOLE MONTH. Real life issues
and the christmas season caused my work routine
to take a nosedive - my girlfriend got a mechanical
heart valve (when I sit next to her without any other
sound sources I can hear it ticking like a loud
pocket watch), which was a preventive operation
since she´s got a heart defect since birth.
She´s very fine now and she´s going to be
much fitter after she gets back in shape,
but nevertheless it was quite a stressful
time and I´m either not the type or not
consistent enough in my work habits to
be able to get creative stuff done under
such stress.

Anyways, the second picture is a drawing
that´s a couple of years old, and I still
really enjoy it, so I´m planning on turning
this idea into a series of drawings and
maybe turn it into a little production run
of pocket-size booklets. I´m in the mood
of doing something lighthearted and I already
have some plans with these little ghosts here.
Hope you enjoy it!

-Frederik

Captain Beefheart 2

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Just finished the first Captain Beefheart-Page. I think this style (with grey and black structures) works well and it's practical for me, too... But I'm not satisfied with the usual lettering-fonts. Perhaps a kind of handwriting would be right?

Greetings, Dieter

Captain Beefheart

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Hello again, here comes the first inked page of a new graphic-novel-project (I announced some informations) dedicated to the eccentric and sometimes enigmatic person of Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart.
Van Vliet was the singer and harmonica player (occasionally playing an untrained noisy saxophone) of his accompanying band „The Magic Band“. His compositions are characterized by their odd mixtures of shifting time signatures, often based on archaic blues-structures, and their surreal lyrics („a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast‘n bulbous. Got me?“). The Captain himself is noted for his dictatorial approach to his musicians. Despite the lack of commercial success, his influence on musicians of the early punk movement and new wave, has been described as „incalculable“.

More Information about „The Adventures of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band“ (working-title) and the cooperation with Carl-Ludwig Reichert (writer) in the next days.

„Hobo chang ba“
Dieter

Sarah Magazine

This magazine is started by the belgian ephameron to collect funds, to help her friend Sarah pay a 'cochlear implant'. The zine has illustrations of around a hundred international artists, under which Craig Atkinson, Tom Gauld, Robert Rebotti, and myself,
and you can get it here...

Boris

Blue Christmas

Every year I make a small drawn Christmas card using my favourite pencils, the marvelous Faber Polychromos, on coloured paper. This December I‘ve worked with an image of two „bluesy“ mexican musicians (a variation of a drawing from my b+w artist-book „30 days“). I really like the melancholic mood of these figures.

Merry Christmas to all of you, especially to friends in Ukraina and Israel, too!

Dieter

winter

Even if I would very much like to hear from you before the change of years,
I want to wish you at this point a mery non-violent family x-mas and a succesful and (for the case that you drink and smoke like I do) healthy new year.

Hugs IB

Belletristik 07

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The newest issue of Berlin-based magazine Belletristik - Zeitschrift für Literatur und Illustration tried something new: Various artists gave drawings and comics and authors wrote new stories or poems regarding to these illustrations. You can find a new comic-shortstory there (four pages), with words by Dominic Angeloch, titled „Peripeteia“.

Dieter

Ape World

Hi there!

Just somewhat finished a painting of a planned series - "Violent Apes". It is my largest painting so far, 45 cm by 70 cm. Maybe I will get back to it in a couple of weeks to add some final details and change the background a little...

Have a great day,
Peter

Pandora

Hello there dear post aerienners, hello Boris,
I come up with some black an white work. So not that much for the heart like yours, Boris...
These are two drawings I did for the Pandora 4 Magazine which will be out in the beginning next year. The story by Lewis Padgett is a kind of Sci-Fi thing, which was first published 1943 about a drunken scientist and his narcistic robot (very short version). These fine line drawings aren`t the best to show digitally, but well I hope it works. Greets IB

Similar (illustration friday)

These drawings are an experiment, initially coming from the desire for a more soulful technique. Black and white drawings can be strong but they're maybe more rational, it's rather the colour that speaks to the heart. 

So, similar linework, new technique.

I'm very curious about your opinion...

The first is a view of St.Excupéry's Southern Mail,

and this a new version of the Budapest drawing.

this shows the thermal bath of the famous Gellert Hotel,

a luxury hotel on Danube's banks. (hm, doesn't look

THAT luxurious on the sketch...)

(unfortunaty, this blogger changes the colour very much,

takes the yellow out of the images. Somebody knows how

to deal with this?)

Boris

mare

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The tradition of early reportage-drawing in Germany ended in 1938 when the Nazis took control over the sector of public image policy. In the USA, for example, this tradition enjoyed a longer life - magazines such as Life and National Geographic published illustrations from artists like Robert Weaver up through the 1970s.

Until now it‘s very unusual to use drawings for illustrated reports... so I was very interested, as mare - The Magazine of the Seas asked me if I‘d like to illustrate a longer non-fiction article about the Pacific Island of Guam (the island of snakes!).

Now you can find these illustrations in the current mare-Magazine, No. 71.

Greetings, Dieter

Kassel is the new Russia

Here´s my submission for the "Russians"
exhibition our friends at Rotopol hosted.
I think the black frame suits it very well!

Click here to see all the other stunning
entries, there is some very fine stuff
hanging on their walls.

Frederik Jurk