Frances McKay Illustration

?Nichts fuer Weicheier?.

In September my latest book (cover) is going to be released. This is my first book cover for 10-year-old boys. When Maya Geis, my editor from Oetinger Publishing House called me on the phone I was very surprised. She had only seen my illustrations for small children and my newspaper illustrations. But she said she thought I would do a good job on this bookcover, so I felt encouraged to do my best on it.

Christmassy Christina

 
Some festive illustrations from Christina Bretschneider.....

Apes

 
Here is one, of a few, small illustrations I worked on recently. Four weeks ago I was asked to produce a small portfolio for a potential client in France. As usual, when I had a look on the publishers website, I got nervous of my old illustrations. Would they be good enough to present? So I decided to do a few quick illustrations, which I could add to the older ones.

At the moment I am working at an cover-artwork for Oetinger Verlag Hamburg. I`m right at the beginning, thinking about the story and the different ways to design the cover and type. I feel like a cat surrounding the mouse. Already fulfilled with joy of what will come up, afraid of being unable to draw something that I will really like, that it is representable, and worth printing. As soon as I have something to show, I will share it with you.

Christina

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Let the Pencil Fly

 
Ages ago when I was at art school in Hamburg the most exciting about  drawing was to let the pencil fly over a large piece of paper and see what came up and what developed while thinking about the world in gerneral listening to the radio. When I finished artschool the most exciting question was: Will I be able to earn my living with illustrating? And I needed two years to get my first well payed newspaper illustration job. But then things developed fast and over years I illustrated 7 days a week. And now the most excting question is again: Will I manage to get back to let the pencil fly over a large piece of paper and see what will come up...

Christina Bretschneider

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Christina's Website

Finally I managed to redesign my website! As usual I had a few good ideas, but it's always the same question going arround my head: What kind of design represents my work best? When I work for clients it never seems to be a problem to find a way of developing something new and interesting, but as soon as it comes up to representing my work I get totally insecure how to design a webpage, postcard, corporate design...Now I am glad the page is up, and I hope you will enjoy it.

Christina

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My Favourite Playground

This is an illustration I did for a weekend supplement of Berliner Zeitung a few years ago. It was for an article called "Job & Career" and as you can imagine, they no longer order illustrations for this anymore ("It`s too expensive").

For me it points out, again, what the illustration job market looks like in Germany at the moment. It´s really hard to find new clients in the editorial area for magazine and newspaper illustration, which has always been my favourite "playground". And even though Germany is a country of photos I hope more illustrating jobs will come up again in future. I think no photo can replace a good illustration!

Christina

Tel.: +49(0) 331-9791153

Fax: +49(0) 331-9791154

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Berliner Zeitung

Whilst looking at old illustrations I did years ago I came across this one. It was part of a newspaper story for children divided into three pieces which were published on Saturdays in "Berliner Zeitung". Working for this newspaper was wonderful and I did many jobs for them.

We were given the story and the size of the illustrations and then we were allowed to illustrate whatever and however we wanted to! I LOVED these jobs. For us illustrators it was like a playground: Just trying out new techniques, colours and styles. It was amazing what variety of fantastic illustrations were printed in this newspaper over years. The editors trusted us illustrators and it led to a high quality of illustrations, always fresh, surprising and experimental.

Christina Bretschneider

Clara-Zetkin-Strasse 22

14471 Potsdam

Tel: +49(0) 331-9791153

Fax:+49(0) 331-9791154

http://www.peppig-illustration.de

http://www.kritzel-kram.de

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Rocket-Boy

This week I spent more time than planned on small illustrations for my 4-year-old son Anton. On Monday the 15th we have a special day called "Rosenmontag" in Germany which is one of the main days of Germans "Karneval". On this specialized monday all children can wear costumes at kindergarden. Anton decided to go dressed as a postman.

So I need some postcards he can deliver to other children in kindergarden. This rocket-boy is one of these postcard figures which the children can colour if they want to. As I worked on it I decided to add it to the main page of my webpage, which I am redesigning at the moment. This is my first idea on how it might look like. I will let you know as soon as the redesigned page is up!

Best wishes,

Christina Bretscheider

www.kritzel-kram.de

www.peppig-illustration.de