MAIKE PLENZKE

Happy new year everybody! I hope you all had wonderful holidays!

Here is the second card for Rotopolpress. It’s not really snowing here anymore (it’s actually quite warm) but I drew this in December when there was snow everywhere. 

This is a “Thank you” note. It might be boring to most of my followers but I write it down anyway.

I thought a lot about this year, now that it comes to an end. 2012 was great. No actually it was amazing, sad, wonderful, difficult, fantastic, emotionally exhausting & exciting.

I had so many wonderful experiences and encounters with amazing people, that I wanted to mention some of them here. 

In January I got mentioned by drawn.ca, because a friend of mine, Till Laßmann thought my work wasn’t seen by enough people, so he submitted my name. I basically fell of my chair, when I saw that they actually posted it and I got  so many nice comments on my blog at that time. So: Thank you, Till!

In February I decided to  get a tumblr account so I could post doodles, sketches and experiments, because I felt that my blogspot-blog wasn’t the right place for that. I felt free and posted everything I liked and I even drew more in that time, because I didn’t care if it was a good drawing or not. I just loved to share my drawings with the few followers I had at the beginning. Thank you Tumblr followers!

In March I started working on my graduation project. I was also asked to participate on the jazz and draw blog to draw an illustration for it and did a collaboration with Frederik Jurk, which was super fun! Thank you, Phillippe and Frederik!

In April… I don’t even know anymore.

In May my First Aid Kit illustration got into Oh comely magazine. Thank you, Laura Callaghan! I also drew on my second wedding. Thank you, Till!

In June I finished my graduation project to John Cheevers The Swimmer. I had one emotional breakdown during that time (art problems) but got over it because my boyfriend Steven Bagatzky was supporting me immensely. Hugging helps a lot, you know. Thank you, you mean the world to me!

In July I got approached by Reprodukt for a project which didn’t happen in the end, but I got so many nice supporting emails and was attending a workshop  organized by them, that I’m really thankful for the time. They are a wonderful publisher and all lovely people, go check them out. Thank you, Reprodukt, Michael, Dirk, Sebastian and all who I forgot!  Thanks also to Patrick, who I loved talking to at the Comic Salon.

The zines “Neufundland” and “Bettgeschichten” were  released at that time as well. Both turned out really great and I was proud to be a part of them. Thank you Jakob, Sebastian, Sandra, Uwe, Zwerchfell, Stefan, Piwi, Naomi and all the other guys who made it possible.

In August I got some of my first job offers from the USA, of which one didn’t happen in the end but I was really glad I had the experience. Thank you, Jamin!

And I finally decided to join Twitter! It’s really great to get in contact with all the wonderful artists and illustrators I follow on tumblr! It’s nice to get to know you all and thanks for all the support!

In September I collaborated with Levi Hastings for the Ten Paces and Draw Art Swap, which was a great experience and I had so much fun finishing Levis Sketch. This illo also got the most notes until this date, nearly 8000. Unbelievable! Thank you, Rachel, Alyssa and Levi!

In October I had an illustration in the Light Grey Art Lab Tarot Show( and also in their Girls Show in November). I was so excited when they asked me to participate, so I tried to do my very best! They were such amazing and friendly people and helped me even with some problems that I had, which they didn’t have to do. I can’t even thank them enough! Thank you, Lindsay, Jenny and all the other people at the LGAL!

In November I had my first real big magazine job  here in Germany, which went really great. More of that in March. ;) Thank you, Jan!

I also participated in “The Ultimate Disaster Show” of the little indie publisher Rotopolpress! They are wonderful, friendly and talented people and I  got a lot of help from them again especially from Michael! Thank you, Michael, Lisa and Rita! (I did this illustration above for some postcards of them.) 

In December I’m just living my life. Working on projects, cutting my first woodcuts, enjoying my free time with my bf. It’s not perfect but I like it. And I hope 2013 will be as fantastic as 2012 has been. Thank you all, twitter friends, tumblr followers and real time friends for all the support and wonderful messages this year! Your really made it special and I couldn’t have done it without you!

Thank you,
-Maike 

I took woodcut printing class this semester (so it’s my first time doing this) and it’s so much fun! I unfortunately started this first woodcut with really soft, crappy wood so a lot of parts got chipped away, while cutting and printing. I also didn’t know how detailed and small I could make the lines and it was a lot of trial and error in this one. But I kinda like it! I think I put some more texture in the black parts and cut away the border but otherwise I leave it at that. 

You’ve probably seen it all over your tumblr dashboards already:

The “Girls - Fact and Fiction” show opens this friday at Light Grey Art Lab and it would be great if some of you would make it to the opening in case you live in the Minneapolis area!

I am very honoured to be part in this show (there are so many great artist in it again!!) but it was also very hard to decide for one girl. In the end I went with Ofeliá from Pan’s Labyrinth, which was quite a challenge. When I started sketching I wanted to put so many things from the story in this illustration, but realised the show is about the girl and not so much about the story. So I kept most of the things subtle in the background.

There are also prints of all the pieces from the show available HERE and a Girls book with all the pieces in it: here is a PREVIEW.

I think I haven’t posted this one yet.

I’m still busy with work so I have no new illustrations to show you.

Anna send me one of her beautiful cards two month ago and I send this little drawing to her as a “thank you” in return. (The second photo is a process-shot.)

(Poster by Lisa Röper)

And I nearly forgot to post about this! If you’re living in Germany, there will be the opening of the anual Rotopol show. This time it’s called “The Ultimate Disaster Show”.

This will be “disastrous”!:D

2012 is a year full of cataclysmic events. Some of them are actually quite disastrous: our bunny beheaded our guinea pig, the good old economic crisis is still there, the awesome pink patent leather shoes are not available in my size anymore, the European countries go bust one after another, again the damn coffee is out and nobody said a word, Moebius, Maurice Sendak and democracy are dead, while bending down the pants ripped and everyone saw it, the middle east is burning, in some laboratory some mutated virus broke out and caused a zombie invasion etc. … oh right, and as everyone knows, in 2012 the world will go down with all hands! Together with you we want to examine that and have a look at all the small and big disasters that make us thoughtful or laugh.

Vernissage onFriday, November 23, 2012 at 8 pmat RotopolFriedrich-Ebert-Str. 9534119 Kassel, Germany

Opening hours:Monday to Saturday10:00 am — 1:30 pm2:30 pm — 18:00 pm

RSVP on Facebook

With featured artwork by: Nadine Redlich • Maike Plenzke • Isabel Seliger • Michael Meier • Lisa Röper • Nina Kaun • Rita Fürstenau • Bene Rohlmann • Mikkel Sommer • Sebastian Stamm • Guy Vallez • Renaud Forestie • Jesse Jacobs • Ines Christine Geißer • Kirsten Carina Geißer • Karlo Ghokasian • Anton van Hertbruggen • Thomas Wellmann • Vasilli Zorin • Ugo Gattoni • Melanie Climent • Sam Vanallemeersch • Josh J. Holinaty • Talita Hoffman • Lea Heinrich • Markus Färber 

angelarizza:

I got my deck of Tarot cards from Light Grey Art Lab in the mail yesterday! Can’t wait to use them tonight and try them out. All of the artwork is amazing and I tried to get a good shot of every card. I think some decks are still for sale along with large prints of each card, including my card, XI Lovers! The show runs in Minneapolis until November 9th.

Light Grey At Lab’s Online Store

As I only have a really bad camera, I decided to just reblog this instead of showing you my ugly photos. 
I got my Tarotcards in the mail some days ago and they’re beautiful! I’m really happy that I was invited to take part in this show, it turned out really great!

If you would like to get big individual prints or the tarotdeck this is your last chance. The next show will open at the beginning of December and the prints will just be in store until then.

Btw the next show will be “Girls - Fact & Fiction”, which will be amazing! The guys from Light Grey Art Lab are always putting so much work and love into their shows, you should go and see them! They also put together a beautiful book with all the artwork for the show, of which you can see previews in the first photo as well. 

(via lightgreyartgallery)

This is an exercise from sketchbook class that I haven’t finished yet, so I just show the first half of it. We had to choose one subway/underground line and try to characterize it with it’s surroundings, which means get off the subway and draw what surrounds the station or what’s typical for it. I decided to do these little thumbnailsketches instead of big drawings as it was very cold today so I couldn’t stay long in one place. But it was more fun than I had expected so I will definitely finish it and maybe draw some other subway lines as well.

So here is the first part of the “U1”.

New subway sketch!