I’ve been drawing on Drawing Day!

The view out of E.s window.

A scibble for a poster I might be doing on »Kielholen« (careen, keelhaul)…

… and another one for the pirates.

We’ve been at our favourite Dürüm-place in Taksim.

I have one of these brush pens, I really like it but for some reason I rarely use it. I drawed what I thought that you would typically draw with these kind of pens on one of the papers they serve the food on at that place.

Of course one of the millions of cats here in Istanbul wanted to have something from our food. She looked so poor that she got a piece or two. ^__^

E. drew my portrait. I have the pen in the right hand because I am already finished with the drawing, she explained (I draw with my left hand, usually). And I seem to be quite happy about what I drew. ^__^

We visited friends of E. in Kadiköy, they have a very nice flat. This is the view from their balcony (and some people from the ferry…).

The ferry back and scribbles at a Pide place in Taksim in the late evening.

The downtowntrains full of empty eyes
and I wish I was someone else and far away
with my hand I touch the glass, cold and slick
and crows on their way to nowhere.

No one can save me and I‘m so fucking scared
and I feel like nothing’s ever gonna change
summer‘s last flower wilting on the table
and I got lost in the City of Glass.

Somehow I lost count of the days
and clouds moving rapidly, a moment of loss
afraid of going to sleep not wanting the next day to come
and there is a thunder far and distant.

Recently I rediscovered the works of Michael Ende. In my opinion he was one of the best German authors of children’s books of all time.

I’ve always been in love with his »Der Satanarcholügenialkohöllsiche Wunschpunsch« (»The Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion«), there is a really good audiobook (and a – of course – really BAD animated tv-series) of this work, produced in the 90s – read by the maestro himself – that shows what a great reader he is. I own it on casette and I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to it but I can quote almost the whole thing.

I had the opportunity to watch the screen adaption of »Momo« on the big screen once and I really enjoyed it. I am listening to its audiobook these days and it is really astonishing to see how this modern »fairy tale« deals with subjects I’ve been bothering myself with recently, such as: Is work/success really the center of my life? Am I doing the right thing with the time I got? How do I want to spend my life? Ende has a great way of dealing with these essential questions, creating lovely characters and telling unique, universal stories with them.

Another of these »Strange how life goes in circles all the time«-thing happened when doing some research on Michael Ende: I was really happy to read that he was fascinated by Japanese culture because – as some may have noticed – I am too. He seems to have translated some stories by Kenji Miyazawa (known best for his »Night of the Milky Way Railway«) into German with his Japanese translater and second wife Mariko Satō. And guess what: I really have a favour Miyazawa too. Don’t know if they published the stories they translated though because there is only one book with Miyazawa-stories available in Germany, I think (»Die Früchte des Ginkgo «) and that has been translated by someone else. Still pretty cool ^__^

What most people don’t know – I suppose – is that he has written some really wonderful stories for grown-ups (or rather stories ONLY for grown-ups because just like the films of Hayao Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli ALL of his stories should be read by adults) like »Der Spiegel im Spiegel« (»Mirror in the Mirror«), a collection of really weird short stories.

And don’t forget to get your eyes on the wondeful illustrated »Der Lindwurm und der Schmetterling« (beware of the new – pretty bad – version with illustrations by the same artist, Wilfried Hiller) one of my other favourites.

Man, this was one big waste of time.

The other Spidey-movies sucked too in my opinion (I mean, it’s popcorn-cinema, if you don’t expect anything good they are »okay« movies). But this was so stupid. I think the main problem is that they tried to fill this already long movie with just too many story-lines and bad guys and drama and all stuff imaginable. Less would have been more. But now this is the typical »We rather do a lot of thing that make no sense on the whole than focus on just some and try to do them good«-problems.

Well, actually I don’t really bother. Let them do the stupid movies, I don’t care.

But finally there was Venom. But one the other hand he sucked too.

After half a year of not taking (m)any photos I just uploaded some on my flickr-account. It’s strange. Everthing’s strange.

I’m doing my very first official, paid illustration job with two fellow students for a charity organisation called »Stiftung Nord/LB-Öffentliche«.

It’s a hell lot of work but I really feel like I am learning a lot too so it’s kinda fun.

We figured out that we wanted to base the whole concept of the work on a tie in the colors of the organisation and that tie goes kinda mad and changes into all kinds of things that make a good metaphor of what the foundation stands for, so that in the end it has nothing to do with a tie anymore but the colors are still left.

So here are some of the pics that did not make it into the final report:

This is a doodling I did on the trainride back from my hometown Lübeck last weekend. With all the beautiful landscape outside the trainwindows I somehow always end up drawing trees and stuff.

And yes, that is my adress. It’s actually the envelope this semester’s Student ID came in. Thanks to our f***ing antisocial, conservative government these things are now only available for guys that have 500 € on the loose per semester (can I say that?…).

So I am officially putting this drawing on sale here for 500 €. ^__^

EDIT: Well, ACTUALLY my parents just bought that drawing without even knowing it (and they got a »Special Parent’s Price Reduction« from me of course…). They always give me money for everything and I am very grateful for that and at the same time I feel bad taking it all the time.

So thank you so much.

Again.

I totally forgot that I put this teaser online for the portfolio (pdf) I handed in for the Sokrates/Erasmus exchange-program.

This was one of the tasks in a »Macromedia Director« class from the basic studies. We were asked to do a short teaser for an imaginary movie only with typography and graphic symbols. I know that it is not very good (it’s much too long) but I still like the atmosphere.

Because of Director‘s unability to export the teaser properly, I‘ve done the clip for a second time with »After Effects« in far less than a quarter of the time it took me in Director. What do we learn from that? Director really sucks. It does.

Please note that this is not a real trailer.

I don’t think that Mrs. Roy will ever give permission for an adaption of her book and I am quite happy about this because »The God of Small Things« is one of the best books I’ve ever read and a movie would only destroy my very own images I have while reading it.

In addition Arundhati Roy is one of the very few people I consider to be a role model. Her political writings and engagement is very encouraging. I adore her.

Inspiring, breathtaking, beautiful.

Another wonderful film already, I’m so happy. Like everyone else it was quiet surprising for me to watch such a film coming from Studio 4°C in 2001 because it’s a classical fairytale with the look of an 80’s anime. Very beautiful though (and I think they used some 3D-effects what was kinda fun to see in such a classical looking anime and they were really good because inconspicuous made). But that was Studio 4°C is all about in the end: being versatile.

Anyway, this is a totally amazing medieval fantasy story that could perfectly be one of the good, early Studio Ghibli-movies, with a sweet yet independant, young female main character, beautiful music an interesting story and actually some philosophical background.

Of course there seems to be no (subtitled) DVD around like for most of the great Studio 4°C movies.

A nice, funny thing, here. You, sick, sick internet. Sweet.