Ivo's Sketchbook

»Rocket Blues« Inking

2010-03-31T18:22:00.003-01:00

As promised here's my latest youtube-inking-clip. It's a 6 minute quick motion video that shows approximately 3,5 hours of uninterrupted inking. You see the 21st page of my new comicbook »Rocket Blues«. It's a somewhat crazy page with the »paternoster ride« of Laszlo and Mister Rocket. To ink this was a little bit tricky because of the difficulty to avoid smudging the ink lines anytime. But, please, look yourself:

Latest publications and new projects

2010-03-20T07:34:00.015-01:00

I have to apologize for nearly two years of no posting here in my sketchblog. I was very busy completing various comicbook-projects. In this context I sadly have to admit that the nice phase of extensive sketching in my sketchbooks as self purpose is over for now. Not only for time reasons but rather because sketching is now more or less an »invisible« part of my production process for my comicbooks.
In 2009 I released two books at BEATCOMIX: »Paralleluniversum 2: Quantenschaum« and »Dave Grigger« (story & pencils: Mamei; ink & lettering: myself) and completed a third: »Daddy, when will we eat a horse sometime?« (unpublished so far):

My current project is a 52-page-comicbook with the title »Rocket Blues«. It will be released at the German Comicfestival Erlangen in june 2010. The Making-Of (scetches, videos, finished pages) of this intergalactic adventure-funny-scifi-roadmovie in the form of a comic can you find at www.rocketblues.de (I'm just inking page 19.)

In the next days I will link here a few of my youtube-inking-clips like this:

Ivos Paralleluniversum Bd.1: »Urknall«

2008-05-13T06:03:00.003-01:00

In the last weeks I was very busy completing my new Comicbook »Urknall«. That's the reason I'havent posted here anything for a while. »Urknall« (means Big Bang in English) is an anthology of my weekly webcomic Ivo's Paralleluniverse and contains the first 176 strips. You can buy this book as of now at www.beatcomix.de .

Ivo Kircheis' Paralleluniversum »Urknall«
ISBN 978-3-939509-98-1
BEATCOMIX, 2008, 48 pages, Din A4, sw, softcover, 10 EUR; contains the strips Nr. 001-176 from Ivo's Paralleluniversum

Sitting accommodations

2008-02-23T21:38:00.002-01:00

The day and it's sitting accommodations (in order of use) ...

Politicians

2008-02-21T18:27:00.003-01:00

To practice drawing lively faces I found it very effectively to draw from television shows. The best chances to see faces long enough for making at least a few appropriate strokes You'll get in classical talk shows. Ahead you can see my efforts capturing german politicians in the former sunday evening talkshow "Sabine Christiansen". At the top on the right you see the current german chancellor Angela Merkel with her bedroom eyes. Other faces for instance belong to the german Liberal Guido Westerwelle, the former Bavarian Chief Minister Edmund Stoiber and Peter Struck (SPD).

Old living room

2008-02-04T07:36:00.000-01:00

Hello in 2008! Sorry, that I haven't posted here for weeks, but I really was too busy drawing comic pages and professional illustrations for paying customers...

Today a further spread from my old 100-days-sketchbook: it shows a view inside my old living room during my years of study in Hildesheim. The sketch is from 2001-11-20. The text indicates that this wasn't really a lucky day for me: First I woke up in the morning with sore throat, little later the strap of my new wristwatch broke and finally I stepped with naked foot into a pin that stuck perpendicular in the floor...

Becker's best ...

2007-12-13T20:59:00.000-01:00

Without words ...

The big friday-daydream

2007-12-08T21:20:00.001-01:00

Sorry for not posting last month, I was very busy making illustrations for an online-game that will starting soon... Today another spread from my 100days-sketchbook: the big friday-daydream. I made this drawing while I was washing my feet in a (very very) small bowl... The man in the bathtub says "Too bad, no yellow pencil near by." In the upper right corner you see the former german Bundeskanzler Schroeder with his right hand Joschka Fischer (former german minister of foreign affairs). It was the day Schroeder had asked for a vote of confidence (he barely came through in due time)... In my sketch Schroeder thanks Fischer and Fischer says "Don't mention it, Helmut."

Electrocution

2007-10-23T20:02:00.001-01:00

Here is for a change a spread from my current sketchbook. These are doodles in preparation for a cartoon about electrocution by solar energy...

Durst

2007-10-22T07:47:00.001-01:00

This drawing of a DURST condenser enlarger arose in the darkroom of my college (of course by light ;-)). It was the day after a drinking binge (Grenzquell Pilsner!), so the term DURST was a littlebit ambiguously (german: Durst = english: thirst). For that reason DURST was my Word of the day... O-oh...

The poesy of banality

2007-10-20T22:28:00.000-01:00

A spread without words...

Grenzquell Pilsner

2007-10-10T07:20:00.001-01:00

An innocent empty crate of "Grenzquell Pilsner" - the cause of my disheveled condition on 11/11/2001... Uh, oh... need more ice!

Cooking is fun!

2007-10-09T06:08:00.001-01:00

At saturday the 10th of november 2001 I awaited guests and motivated by the chopstick experience at the chinese restaurant two days before I tried to cook an Asian dinner myself... It should arise something like chicken with vegetables I guess. The two hens at the left page below scream "Gertrude, look out!" but Gertrude only sighs.

Chocolate girl

2007-09-22T20:31:00.001-01:00

This double-page spread was - I believe so today - inspired by the famous painting of Jean-Étienne Liotard "The chocolate girl" from 1744. But in my case it seems that it was a very special cup of cocoa. What do you think?

Chopsticks

2007-09-21T10:39:00.001-01:00

A lunch at a chinese restaurant inspired me to draw this page. Unfortunately I had to draw with my left hand because I held the chopsticks in the right one...

A day in the printing workshop

2007-09-20T19:49:00.001-01:00

During my studies of graphic design I engaged myself in etching. Here are a few snapshots of the printing press (an original Breisch) and diverse accessories. Funny times... Greetings to my mentor Paul Kunofski at this point!

Noise-terrorist

2007-09-01T21:31:00.001-01:00

The next spread of my "100 days book": the day a noise-terrorist in front of the house ( a man who sawed bricks) ended my beauty-sleep early in the saturday-morning. Below and left: bargains I made at the Hildesheim flea market later that day...

The pleasures of everyday life

2007-08-29T06:18:00.001-01:00

So, I'm back from vacation and here we go again. This is a double page of my so called "100 days book", a sketchbook I filled in 100 days in 2001 and 2002. It was part of a self-posed semester assignment during my study of graphic design in Hildesheim/Germany. The goal was to draw every day anything inspired by everyday life and to fill exactly on double page day by day with this drawings. Here's the spread from 2nd of november 2001. I will post a few other pages in the next weeks...

Cafe Rhyblick Basel

2007-07-24T20:28:00.001-01:00

Further sketches from nice Basel locations: details of the Cafe Rhyblick, where I drank my first Ovomaltine ever, two cash terminals of the Basler Kantonalbank (my first and only sketch I did inside a bank! An authentic Swiss Bank!) and an original swiss balcony that I saw from the window of my girlfriend's apartment.

Passersby

2007-07-23T10:50:00.000-01:00

At one of these very warm days of winter 2001 in Basel I sat down on a bench at Oberer Rheinweg and attempted to sketch every pedestrian passing by in the next 30 minutes. Ahead are the results of these efforts.

Underway in Basel

2007-06-28T17:57:00.001-01:00

Here's the drawn essence of one of my longish walks through Basel. It was winter (28th of january) but warm as on a cool summerday. Bottom left the house at the Erasmusplatz there my girlfriend dwelled.

Basel Erasmusplatz

2007-06-15T08:53:00.001-01:00

This is the view from my girlfriend's apartment onto the Erasmusplatz at Kleinbasel. Had some problems with the right perspective but I think the drawing gives a good impression of the place anyway.

Basel inside

2007-05-30T21:33:00.000-01:00

Often when I visited my girlfriend in Basel I haven't drawn famous buildings only. Instead I tried to catch a few unimportant moments. Here my girl is watching the swiss ice hockey Spengler-Cup on tv (Turku-Davos 2:1). I sat in the next room to draw this.

Basel backyard

2007-05-24T21:20:00.000-01:00

Here again the view from out of my girlfriend's apartment into the beautiful backyard. I made this sketch on a cold day in winter wearing a coat, a warm cap and gloves.

On the road again

2007-05-23T21:51:00.001-01:00

At one of my ways back from Basel(CH) to Hildesheim(DE) I made my only attempt ever to draw during a driving rest at a motorway service area. Don't imitate this behavior, it's dangerous if you are tired and really need a rest. With my old Volkswagen Passat (*1987) the ride took me 6,5 hours... (I still drive this cool car, it's now 20 years old!).

On the bank of the Rhine

2007-05-22T06:15:00.000-01:00

Here`s just another view over the Rhine and a few little sketches I drew in the so called Kasernenareal.

Fireboat Basel BL

2007-05-12T20:26:00.000-01:00

At 1st of August 2001 (the Swiss National Day) I saw a demonstration of the Fireboat Basel BL on the river Rhine. Few weeks later I descried this boat sleeping at a little landing stage in Basel-Birsfelden and instantly captured it for the afterworld...

Basel St. Martins Church

2007-05-09T07:21:00.000-01:00

Of course there are further interesting churches in Basel. Here I've drawn the St. Martins Church. It's the oldest parish church of Basel and is - like the minster - situated high above the river Rhine. I sat as always comfortably at the other riverside.
The right page shows two quick sketches of the Rhine port Birsfelden.

Basel Minster

2007-05-06T20:30:00.000-01:00

Basel has a medieval cathedral which is situated high above the river Rhine. It is really significant for the skyline of the town. I thought I couln't leave Basel without a sketch of this important building, so I tried to catch it with my Faber-Castell Finepen 1511. It's the view from the other side of the Rhine.

Basel riverside

2007-05-05T08:36:00.000-01:00

It was midsummer with great heat but I sat relaxed on the shadowy riverbank of Kleinbasel and drew the interesting things at the other side of the Rhine. Of course I had to draw the Basel port at district St. Johann. It looked a little bit more impressive than the Hildesheim canal port... Next day I discovered an authentic Rhine-idyll a few hundred meters upstream. Oh, by the way this was the 1st of august, the Swiss National Day, there thousands of people were underway at the riverside of the Rhine ...

Kleinbasel

2007-05-04T07:22:00.000-01:00

This is the backyard of a house at the Erasmusplatz in Kleinbasel. It's the view out of the window of my girlfriend's apartment. This was hard to draw because the window board was really narrow and uncomfortable.

Basel (Switzerland)

2007-05-03T21:00:00.000-01:00

My last post was more than a month ago, so it's high time to show some "new" material from my older sketchbooks at last.
Six years ago my girlfriend worked as a student apprentice in Basel/Switzerland for a few months. I used the opportunity to visit her and this beautiful town at the river rhine several times and made lots of sketches and drawings. The sketchbook-drawing of the "skyline" and the riverbank of Grossbasel arose at my first lonely walk at the time my girlfriend was at work. It was July, it was hot and it was great! More Basel impressions will follow in the next days.

Lustangst

2007-04-02T20:26:00.000-01:00

It's time for new (old) sketchbook-drawings... I'm very busy these days spending time with my little son (9 months old), so I can't post material here more frequently.
"Lustangst" is a phenomenon I've observed at my daughter approximately at her age of two. She loved this special kind of fear appearing when she was calling out to me for instance "Daddy, bite me!" and I tried to exactly do this. Cute! Huahhh...

More crazy tin toys

2007-03-12T22:35:00.000-01:00

More fascinating monstermachines. The black-and-white sketch at the top right shows a detail of a colossal weighing-machine (perhaps for cartloads of corn). By the way: I did these drawings very loose and drew very relaxed. I really tried to be not too meticulous. So it came into a slightly different style...

Crazy machines

2007-03-11T21:37:00.000-01:00

So, here are the first drawings of crazy machines I found in one of the warehouses at the Hildesheim canalport. I believe these monsters are for agricultural purposes, but who knows...

Canal port

2007-02-28T09:16:00.000-01:00

Here are further sketches I did at the Hildesheim canal port six years ago. I loved it most to sit there at the weekends... Everything around me was absolutly quiet, the huge cranes stood still and it was a very contemplative atmosphere. Sometimes I used the chance to inspect open warehouses and discovered crazy machines and such stuff... I will post drawings of these discoveries in the next days.

More cartoons

2007-02-15T19:21:00.000-01:00

Cartoons, cartoons, cartoons... this is what I draw when I've got no idea at all what to draw... or when I'm waiting for a sensational idea or something like that... There are hundreds of sketchbook-pages with such "waiting"-stuff... ;-)

The beauty of smoking...

2007-02-11T22:10:00.000-01:00

...is relative. Non-smokers taste finer. I did these sketches in mental preparation to illustrate an non-smoking-campaign for a student's canteen.

Roofs III

2007-01-28T21:38:00.000-01:00

So, here we go with another nice roof I saw from my hidden drawing place on top of "Parkhaus Rose". It's the Hildesheim indoor swimming pool "Wasserparadies". Looks quite nice futuristic (or deconstructivistic) from above :-)

Roofs II

2007-01-26T09:19:00.000-01:00

Here's another view from the top deck of the car park "Rose" to the roofs of Hildesheim.

Roofs

2007-01-25T22:01:00.000-01:00

When I was a student of graphic design in Hildesheim I tried to draw every day something interesting, preferably outdoors... One day I found a nice lonely place for drawing on roof of a multi-storey car park. Here's a drawing I did there. By the way... this old roofs belongs to the tiny Hildesheim red-light district...

A world of asses

2007-01-17T08:53:00.000-01:00

The page for the arse... The buttman on the left declaims "I live in a world full of asses." The ass in the back answers "The wit is he really does." "You are an arse by birth." Right page above: "This is a thing for Superarse!" "Nice pullover." "You are just talking, you arse!" "Ah, there comes Rudi the arse..."

Michaeliskirche Hildesheim

2007-01-05T22:57:00.000-01:00

In March 2005 there was an exhibition of the original drawings of my comic-book "Die Tote von St. Michaelis" in the crypt of the famous 1000 years old St. Michael's Church Hildesheim. In this two weeks I spent lots of ours as a control supervisor in this imposing church and had much time for contemplation and drawing...
Here are two sketchbook-pages from these days.

A few uncommented sketchbook-pages

2006-12-27T22:15:00.000-01:00

I hope everybody has survived Christmas... I'm very busy these days drawing my pages for the german independent comic anthology PANIC ELECTRO. So today only a few uncommented sketchbook-pages...

Hieronymus Bosch

2006-12-20T22:26:00.000-01:00

Here we go with further cartoon-style material... I'm a great fan of Hieronymus Bosch, a dutch painter of the 15th and 16th centuries who portrayed the evil of man and created really obscure scenes. On the left scetchbook page you can see copies of some of Bosch's figures and on the right is a copy of a complete ink drawing: "Gnome with a ship around his neck". Cool title!

Inside my fridge

2006-12-19T21:07:00.000-01:00

Here is a look into my refrigerator. I drew this while the defrosting. The Käsemix is a sixpack of german spread cheese. I love this oldschool package design.

Things of daily needs (on mondays)

2006-12-13T20:57:00.000-01:00

A few things I used on monday 2001-11-19 (maybe or maybe not). At that time I usually drew such sketches with a faber-castell finepen 1511. Today I prefer Staedtler pigment liner for off-road sketching but at home I love to draw with the good old nib and drawing ink... (The only real black in the world!)

Another messy writing (?) desk

2006-12-08T20:51:00.000-01:00

This was an impressive sight of my girlfriend's desk when she spent six months in Basel (Switzerland) 5 years ago. She lived in a very small room there so the desk was a nice storage place for small things.

My old drawing desk

2006-12-05T06:59:00.000-01:00

This is my old drawing desk (†). It was such a huge and massive piece of furniture that it had to die when I moved to Dresden last year. :-(

Scrap

2006-12-04T08:35:00.000-01:00

Further sketches from the Hildesheim canal: here details of a car scrap yard. Drawing this was really like meditation...

Strange Noses

2006-11-30T15:00:00.000-01:00

Today it goes on with a few very strange noses from my sketchbook.

Hildesheim canal port

2006-11-28T20:00:00.000-01:00

Not enough time at the moment... so only a few more sketches from the Hildesheim canal port today... Hope you like it.

Ships

2006-11-26T20:10:00.000-01:00

You could think so far I only draw silly things, cartoons and such stuff from imagination but this isn't true. As often as I can I try to get some fresh air and draw from life. During my studies of graphic-design in Hildesheim one of my favorite places to do this was the harbor. It was only a canal port but nevertheless rich in impressive and complex things and forms. So week after week I spent there a few hours (sometimes with my fellow Mario) drawing ships, cranes, warehouses, crazy machines and other interesting things. At the weekends I was almost always the only human being there. That's why I miss this place so much. (I'm sure, most of my fellow students not even knew that Hildesheim has a port...)

Mosi

2006-11-24T21:58:00.000-01:00

Last year the german fashion-tsar Rudolph "Mosi" Mooshammer was murdered by an 25 years old Iraqi. "The perverted Mosi-murderer" was the headline of the german yellowpress-newspaper BILD which published a photo of the murderer. In Mosi's arm you can see his faithful dog Daisy...

Disconcerting moments

2006-11-24T07:34:00.000-01:00

At the post office. I stood in the line waiting to be served when a man just before me suddenly made this crazy military salutation. I thought "Oh, man, this is so embarrassing that it hurts!" The postal clerk was totally ignoring him so he stood there for an embarrassing eternity... (One or two minutes!) By the way: The name of the postal clerk was Hildgund Krueger. Warm regards, Hildgund!
This is the text on the right page: Secretly declared paternity has no value of evidence. Federal Constitutional Court, January 2005

The grin of the Schlager-singers

2006-11-22T22:35:00.000-01:00

Further confused sketches. Page 28 is a tribute to this very special kind of stupid grin of the german Schlager-music singers. They sing things like "men from the mountains... there, where the hearts are beating...and now all together..." and say shit like "... you all are my friends... and such a phantastic audience... blablabla...blablabla"... I really hate it.

Vocabulary

2006-11-21T22:24:00.000-01:00

From time to time I do sketches to document the development of my children Ella and Oskar. Here you can learn something about my daughter's vocabulary at the age of 2.
Sorry, translation impossible...

Self-portrait

2006-11-20T21:55:00.000-01:00

A self-portrait with a few contemporaries and/or weirdos...

The other way to open a beer

2006-11-19T22:12:00.000-01:00

I drew this page also on the trip to the Vosges. From one of Clara's brothers I learned a nice tricky way to open a beer by foot. We had lots of fun to practice this... Tip: Don't try it with sandals! And by the way: our training-beer was Rothaus Pils "Tannenzäpfle" from the Black Forest.

More Stuff for the Weekend

2006-11-18T10:33:00.000-01:00

It's weekend and I have the time to post the next Sketchbookpages... a few businessmen-scribbles, the monsters in jackets and a drawing of the summer-house of a friends family in the vosges mountains near the french border that I made in june 2004. It's title is "Tick-hunting in the vosges mountains"...

Content, content, content

2006-11-18T00:25:00.000-01:00

Ok, ok, I know the most import thing in a new and unknown blog is content content content... So here's content: the first three pages of my latest sketchbook. Yes, 2004 is long time ago, but... Since I draw my daily comicstrip Ivos Paralleluniversum the sketchbook has to be patient.
But there are only 16 pages left in this book...
Here's the translation of page 2: "A sunday morning in april. Hm? Every morning the same...?! What can this mean?"

And here's the very latest sketchbook-page:

Welcome to Ivo's Sketchblog

2006-11-16T22:34:00.000-01:00

So, here I am! Inspired by the sketchbook-blogs of Mattias Adolfson and Tommy Kane I decided to start my own sketchblog today.
I draw in sketchbooks since I started drawing at all at the age of 27 (the beginning of my so called "second life"). I prefer sketchbooks to single sheets of paper because this way I can be sure to never lose a sketch or an idea... Until now there are 10 different books filled with serious, funny and crazy stuff.
Here they are:

A look inside:
For the beginning I will show material from this older books at first, perhaps more current stuff in the future. I try to post as often as possible, so it would be nice to see you again!

As I mentioned above I am a fan of the artwork of Tommy Kane from New York. A few weeks ago I spotted two surprising drawings on his blog. I was astonished to see that an artist in another part of the world has drawn almost exactly the same as I did. These are drawings of a toy-robot and and a barbeque-grill. Here are the versions from my sketchbooks:

And here is Tommy Kane's robot and the grill. The toy-robot seems to be exactly the same model. The grills are similar regarding the angle of view and how we cutted off of the wheel...
That's it for the beginning!