No Kisses! talking about how to deal with certain emotions

Written by Grzegorz Kasdepke

It’s the first part of the four-volume series by Grzegorz Kasdepke, which is titled "The Great Book of Feelings''. It’s about a young kindergarten teacher Miss Miłka and her pupils: Rozalka, Grzesio, Zosia, Bodzio, and Rafałek. It is a collection of funny stories about emotions - longing, shame, a sense of injustice, or jealousy, which will help children better understand their own feelings.

The illustrations were based on my sketches dedicated for a film adaptation of a book, prepared by the animation studio EGoFilm.

The book series by Grzegorz Kaspedke was originally published in 2008. It includes: ‘’No Kisses! talking about how to deal with certain emotions’’ and ‘’Pure TERROR! talking about where the babies come from’’, ‘’Loves me, loves me not, talking about even more feelings’’ and ‘’Miłka’s team, talking about respect, bravery and other values.’’

The planned repeated publishing of Grzegorz Kasdepke’s series with the new illustrations coincided with the works for the animated film created by EGoFilm, based on ‘’The Great Book of Feelings’’. Thus in 2022 a new publishing of ‘’ No Kisses!…’’ was released with my illustrations.

At first, this commission seemed difficult to me.

Four books, the same characters, even the same setting. I was afraid that the illustrations would be too monotonous. However, it turned out that with each subsequent book, I had more and more ideas and actually gained momentum.

The first stage of creating illustrations are small doodles.

I make a lot of them, experimenting with composition and ways of presenting the subject. It is important to me that individual illustrations in the book are diverse: a wide frame on one, a narrow one on another, an illustration with a lot of details contrasted with a more general one. This is a purely conceptual phase.

Using paints and pencils, I transform selected sketches into an analog version of the illustration, after which I scan everything. Then, in PS I create its final structure and apply the colours.