Rumors of my dimise have been greatly exaggerated. I’m still here! And in perfect time for her birthday (today, Apritl 4th), here’s Tarder Sauce AKA Grumpy Cat! She’s so cute and grumpy. Like me, but in cat form. Just kidding. I’m not so cute and fluffy. This was a lot of fun to work on, especially her ears and signature pout. Here’s to many more years of equally grumpy Grumpy Cat!

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Flickr

Instagram username: katharina_c

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet around here, but now I’m back! With more cats! On top we have internet sensation Maru. If you’ve not seen any of the videos of him playing with boxes (of any kind) then you haven’t really lived. It’s definitely one of the cutest things you’ll see. On the bottom we have my cat P.D. He is the absolute sweetest and best cat ever (at least in my eyes.) And on the very bottom after the break is a painting I did for my dad for his birthday today. It’s some Boletus Edulis, commonly known in English as a penny bun or Porcino mushroom (or as a steinpilz in German.)

Hello all! After finishing the last round of bigger paintings I’d been working on, I’ve now moved on to a series of smaller pieces that I have plans for. It involves doing paintings of cats that I like from all over the place, like books and movies and real life. I’m thinking it’ll become a little zine or booklet of some kind. I’ve started with Frank and Louie, the longest living Janus cat and Mogget, from the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix. He is by far my favorite cat character from a book (or in this case series.)

First new piece of 2012! This is actually something I started back in October (I think?) that I kinda had to put to the side for a little while because I was working on other things. But now I finally finished it! This one is based on that feeling you get sometimes when you’re around a lot of people but you just kinda wish you could blend into the wall and disappear. You know, that socially awkward feeling. Anyway, below is the usual process photos and an explanation of the valuable lesson I learned about how not to paint a lot of wallpaper pattern.

Mistake #1: I decided (very naively, it turns out) that I could just draw the pattern straight on to the illustration board and go over it with acrylic and it would be dark enough to see when I went over it with the green paint. So I drew the pattern (that’s that blue pencil you see) and then traced it with the dark acrylic. So that means that before I’d even started really painting, I’d already done the pattern twice.

Mistake #2: I go ahead and paint the girl and the hair which was fine. But when I go over the background with the green, I quickly realize that the green is to strong and is covering up outlines I’d already done of the pattern. The only solution I can come up with at this point is to re-trace everything before I go over it with a stronger layer of green. So now I’ve traced the whole thing three times.

By now I’ve started on the pattern and everything’s fine, but I could have saved myself a lot of time by simply having done a complete sketch on paper first. That way I could have painted the background green and used transfer paper to get the wallpaper pattern onto the board. Instead of drawing it three times, I would only have had to do it once. So kids, the lesson here is always do a sketch, on paper. Short cuts sometimes turn out to be longer in the end. There’s probably an Aesop’s fable out there to that same effect.

And here’s a not very clear photo of when it was almost done. I went over a couple of parts again because they were to faint after the first go round.

1. Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life by Todd Oldham.

I’d previously only seen this book in the large, coffee table size, but my brother got me this “Fun Sized” edition (that’s how I’ve been referring to it). This is an amazing body of work, containing illustrations of everything that you could possibly think of, from animals to humans and everything in between. There is an elegant simplicity to how he worked that really amazes me.

2. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

You should read this book if you enjoy any of the following: New York City, The Museum of Natural History (or any museum for that matter), Cabinets of Curiosities, thunderstorms, amazing pencil illustrations, books, outer space/ astronomy, Brian Selznick’s previous work The Invention of Hugo Cabret (although I liked this one better if only because it is a little more grounded in reality, which made me connect with it more), dioramas, silent films, and/or the song “Space Oddity” by David Bowie. What it boils down to is you should really check this one out.

3. Habibi by Craig Thompson

Out of all the books that I got, this one is hands down my favorite. I loved Blankets and Craig Thompson’s artwork is gorgeous but this book just takes all of that and turns it up to 11. The art is crazy, from intricate borders and patterns to huge piles of trash where every little thing is identifiable to pages that are so simple and stark by contrast that they really stick with you. The story, which focuses on the lives of two slaves (Dondola and Zam), is magical, set in a time that is neither the past nor the present, and that somehow manages to touch on everything from religion to love to the effects of pollution. Even the way some of the pages are laid out is incredible, helping to show the action of being swept away or fighting for your life. I could probably right a whole paper but I’ll spare you that. Just go out and buy a copy for yourself or borrow it from your local library. It is well worth it.

4. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm edited by Noel Daniel

Now this is a book that I’ve been coveting for some time. While there’s nothing really new about the stories (still the same old fairy tales I grew up with, the not Disney versions mind you) but this is just one of those books that is just designed and executed so well that you don’t mind buying those same stories all over again. It’s a cloth cover book, which is kinda rare these days. Every story is accompanied by beautiful old illustrations from the 1850′s to 1950′s. Every story has a different illustrator which makes it a really nice mix of detailed old school stuff to a more colorful and simple style. Before every story is a small title page in gold, with some history on the story. These all have the same silhouette type illustrations, which serve to help unify the book. You can tell that every detail was considered, right down to the colored silk thread that can be used to mark your page. My favorite illustrations are for Snow White. The colors are mind blowing.

5. Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly

Lastly, we have this little book. I admit I haven’t really had much of a chance to read some of the stories but the ones I have read are pretty great. The book consists of about 10 fairy tales, each one retold in comic format by a different artist. The book even has some fun games at the front and back, complete with game pieces. Over all, it’s a really fun book.

Finally! I’m happy to present the project that I’ve been working on since the middle of October. As I’ve previously mentioned, it’s a 13 page story set in my German hometown of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It’s the story of a brother and a sister who don’t want to go outside, they just want to sit around and watch T.V. Their parents eventually force them to go sledding which they end up enjoying so much that they want to go again the next day. There’s some really cool stuff that’s going to happen with this that I’ll write more about as it gets worked out, but for now please enjoy the pictures and I hope you all have wonderful holidays!

More after the jump!