Hendrik: It’s a mixture of different techniques. Mainly I paint with acrylics on paper, board, wood or whatever I find in my studio or on a fleemarket.
Hendrik: At the time I lived in Edinburgh/Scotland as an Illustrator (mostly for the Guardian) and painter. My kids were five and two years old and we pretty soon ran out of new German childrens books (my English partner spoke and read English to them, me German). I always read the same good night stories and we all got a bit bored after a while. That’s when I decided to write and illustrate my own story. To be honest I wasn’t well informed on the book market in general and how it worked and sent, without being asked, the story and several illustrations to one of the most renowned publishers in Germany. It still seems a miracle to me that they got back to me and offered to publish a couple of pages in their magazine. In the end another big publisher found my work there and offered me a contract. That’s how my first children’s book was born.
Hendrik: I read to my youngest son when I had the idea of turning the concept "which animal makes which noise?“ around. He was very small and very interested and I knew how proud he’d be to guess or name the right animal behind the noise.
The next step was to introduce the bird and all over sudden it became a story of finding friends and love I presented the idea to several publishers at the international childrens book fair in Bologna/Italy but the story had a complete different twist: in one of the versions he called out "nee-nah, nee-nah“ and a fire engine came along to talk to him (I actually still miss it…) and in somel of them he didn’t find a bird-friend at all (but hey, he got plenty of new friends, even a fire engine).
In the end my publisher Tulipan helped to get the story on the right track.
e: What do you think makes an illustration magical, what I call "Heart Art” - the sort that makes a reader want to come back to look again and again?Hendrik: I think heart art is when the reader is "in" the book and wants to stay there for a while because he or she is surounded by nice companions and/or in a magical landscape or room.
I had my first crisis when I was a young boy and just finished reading a Astrid Lindgren Story "Holidays on Saltkrokan." I was so very sad that the book had ended and I wanted to be THERE. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried and it took my good parents a little while to get me out and back to my real life in Bavaria. That is actually the definition of heartache art, which is the same of course.
I am happy with a figure when I look at it and want to be a friend of it.
Hendrik: Oh dear. I have a very old website which I successfully shift to renew and Social Media accounts with facebook and instagram.
Hendrik: Generally I really love what I do as a profession and I feel very privileged and grateful. And I still love to go to my studio every single day apart from that odd few days when I can’t even draw a football Advertising myself I find challenging, see answer above. Especially this website of mine. I’ll start tomorrow!! What I’m not so fond of either is the fact that I haven’t got a lot of cloth without any blurs of colour.
Hendrik: You don’t have to be perfect. Just try as good as you can, pick the day and be open for surprises. There’s love and friendship everywhere.
Hendrik: I’m currently working on a book about a hotel occupied by dogs and some adventures around a young chap (a dog as well). I’ve got a mountain of scetches but haven’t started "in real" because I’m not completely happy with the story. I think I found the right twist now and am looking forward to the next step.
e: Great - I look forward to seeing it!
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