It feels good to publish something on paper again, even if these are just christmas cards. The Phantastic Habitats I used to decorate our seasons greetings were inspired by safaris to Manapools in 2022 and the Serengeti this summer. Making these new Phanhabs brings back fond memories of making the Phanhabs books. They were published by twikga Verlag in 2010 and 2013. Phanhabs stands for...
Das Thema der IFUPA 2022 war BUCH, Überarbeitungen-Memoiren-Utopien. Das twikga BUCH-abenteuer hat fast 10 Jahre gedauert. Inzwischen sind wir nach Holland zurückgezogen. Den twikga Verlag gibt es nicht mehr. Aber die Illustrationen von Tanja Dekker leben fort auf twikga.com Phanhabs Lush Bush war das erste WimmelBUCH was twikga veröffentlicht hat. Für die Postkarte habe ich es überartbeitet und...
Finally, after 5 years I have my own creative workspace again. Moving countries, building a house, getting settled took time and crowded my head. Maybe the lockdown gave me the peace of mind to unpack the boxes which were still in our cellar. I still do not have the peace of mind or inspiration to create really new things, but for now it is great to just get my fingers dirty again. It was great...
In 2016 the twikga publishing company was closed down and we thanked our fans for supporting us. In 2017 we moved from Hamburg back to Holland. In took some time to build and get settled into our new house. I used the corona lockdown to go through my archives, to evaluate where we stand and to redesign our websites. The twikga name now stands for the illustrations of Tanja Dekker and the...
The corona lockdown gave me the chance to go through my archives and look back on what I have created during the last 10 years. I realized that I have been making phantasy birds for a long time. Birds are everywhere. You see them in your backyard, they wake you on an early spring morning. That makes them easy to study. They are great to create and tell stories with. The first time I created a...
This story goes back to 2013. The making of the last twikga book, Tata & Squack - Mission Elephant. Only recently I went through my old sketchbooks and decided to add some of the pages to this post. For more sketchbook galleries have a look under the tag Sketchbook... The making of the next Tata&Squack was in full progress. The pictures we took during our visit to Samburu, Kenya in 2012...
Abschied von Irene. Es fällt mir schwer. Nach mehr als 10 Jahren trennen sich unsere Wege. Ich kam in 2004 zu Irene zur Mappenvorbereitung für mein Studium an der Bildkunst Akademie. Nach meinem Studium war sie mein Creatives Gewissen bei dem Entstehen der Bücher. Später habe ich bei Ihr an meinen Collagen gearbeitet. Viele Montage habe ich zusammen mit verschiedenen creatieven Mitstreitern in...
The illustrations in my books are a mix of photographs, drawings and collages. The picture of the elephants on the left was taken by us in the Masai Mara on one of our safaris. I used it to illustrate the change of seasons in the savanna, where thunderclouds building up announce the rainy season. For the illustration I changed the background of the picture and the light on the elephants became...
