An important thing to remember...

A beautiful illustration by Maira Kalman for a book entitled 'Food Rules' by Michael Kullen, a guide to the approach we should take towards food nowadays; that perhaps we should listen to advice from those elder & wiser than us rather than what is 'officially' advised by the government. If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, you're probably not hungry, and, Place a bouquet of flowers on the table and everything will taste twice as good. 
Sending out the message that food is as much about pleasure and communion as it is about nutrition and health.

Monsters illustrated

It seems one of the illustrators I love & and wrote about recently is the same person that did this print sold in The Hoxton Street Monster supplies, since it's opening last November.

'Zingoula Cudacuda' by BEN NEWMAN 

School term has started again, so I'll be back there the odd morning illustrating the wild & wierd creations the youngsters come up with, as well as mentoring on the Saturday project The Hoxton AM. I'm kind of jealous really as I'd have loved a place like the Ministry to go to when I was young, to have a go at being a journalist, or local press photographer. These are some of the great workshops held regularly at the small shop located on the market, including the recent re-write of The Awfully Bad Guide to Monster Housekeeping. Children from the local schools worked with some top writers and poets on various sections to complete this important guide on on areas of monster Etiquette. But they are in need of some funds to get it published. If you can donate anything please do so here.

The Awfully Bad Guide to Monster Housekeeping from Ministry of Stories on Vimeo.




Alternatively feel free to pop along and buy your next jar of Pickled Eyeballs and support a great project.

Psychedelic invigoration

Loving the tribal inspired work of Bristol born illustrator, Ben Newman as profiled in last month's Creative Review. Yes I'm a month behind. Work, holiday, you know how it goes. So I have about five 'drafts' to pop up here - Expect more action! Anyway, a visual feast while you wait... 

The bold graphic shapes and colour palette have quite a retro style about them, while the symmetry plays havoc with your eyes - Love them!

Likey likey

On my usual image search/ style reference came across this dude. Really liked it so popped it up here:

By Tom Genower

When I think words may be better than pictures

Ok, so the latest trend going around is all this visual notetaking at conferences and seminars. Cool huh? Well yes and no. Take these done by Eva Lottchen at The Story 2011 that I attended. These are quite detailed and beautifully presented; in fact they save me on reporting on what happened since I haven't written up part two of my notes yet!

However, looking at some of the notes on Ogilvy's new 'notes page' where people can upload their visual notes, and I can't blimmin' understand them. I wanted to find out what had been going on at the SWSX conference everyone's tweeting about, but check this - it all look's more interesting than a page of writing, but I can't make head nor tail of it. It is some else's shorthand and summary of the day - perhaps a great reminder/ nudge for those who were there, but to the outsider, not the best solution.

Nora Herting

So as an avid visualiser and illustrator I'm still on the fence about this. Maybe I need to watch last year's seminar on how to do Visual Notetaking to understand why it's so great. Let me know.
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Horse With Hands Riding A Bike

And here's my entrant for Hero of Switzerland's bizarre challenge to draw a horse with hands, riding a bicycle: the three most difficult things to draw (I'll vouch for that). Check out the site for more amusing interpretations.

The Creaturezoid

It must be the influence and imagination of all the wonderful kids at the Ministry of Stories where I have been mentoring, that I came up with my own creature - a sort of flying monkey that is very in touch with outer space. It travels between prehistoric times and the future, so has unique animalistic characteristics that adapt to it's environment. You never know, I may just write my own short story, but for now, it has become a submission as part of The Creature Curiosity Project; a non-profit collaborative venture bringing illustrators and children together with an aim to spread creativity and self-expression. Artists are invited to create the first (or back) half of a creature, then through workshops children will be invited to complete the other half. The project aims to use self directed learning to bring out the creative strengths of each child, and brings together an array of talents, organizations and teachers.
The project aims to hold an exhibition of the final work and hopefully a printed publication.

The Creaturezoid

nice web design

Although it may give you an epileptic fit when it first loads, I love this site, it totally captures the fun and craziness of Camille Walala's designs. She is a fashion designer who creates her own patterns and textiles as well. As  you can see she uses bright, bold shapes, harking back to the nineties rave culture (very in now), and her clothes have a space age feel about them. I stumbled across her accessories at Netil market, but her full range can be found on her shop.

 Website by littlefong.

This photo was in the random section and caught my eyes as I love the observation of colour. There is a similar piece using photos of front doors, creating a whole swatch of colour hanging in On Broadway pub, Broadway market.

Bazooka

If you're wondering the back streets of Shoreditch, dip into this art exhibition at the Aubin gallery entitled 'Bazooka'. It showcases the work of two French punk artists, Kiki & Loulou Picasso, founders and radicalists of Bazooka in the late 70s.
Art directiong the French Left newspaper 'Libération', they created a storm amongst the war veterans of the time & created propaganda that is iconic and led to future commissions of Album covers, a magazine and currently, a collaboration with Neville Brody.

The mixture of fine art painting of Loulou, next to the cartoon, manga style (reminiscent of those felt
boards you used to colour in as a child), creates a very captivating combination. 

Mail Me Art

I didn't manage to get a long to see this in time, but had to post it up here (no pun intended).

Organised by Darren di lieto of Hai! illustration agency, artists and illustrators from around the globe were asked to decorate an envelope with artwork and deliver to the same address over a period of a year and hope that it would arive entact. Entries were collected and put together at the Red Gate Gallery of all the unusal and varied pieces. Here's my favourites:

Paper Cuts to Love

Here's some beautiful work by paper artist Rob Ryan who makes all sorts of intricate designs just from cutting out paper. Upon first look it is just 2d illustration, then you see the shadows and really appreciate the handiwork. Rob has created works for window displays, record covers, and book designs. Can't say anymore really, just check out his site!

Spreading the Love and Creativity

It's that time of year again where everyone is under pressure to either send/receive/avoid sending/ waiting to recieve/ deliberately not sending, hesitating, do something/ not do something romantic - God love is complicated huh?
Well no it isn't. Just send a bloody card and be done worth it! Everyone likes being told they are special, so wear your heart on your sleeve and spread the love!
To help you along, I'm donating one of my designs I created for the online card company that I'm illustrating for. I would say click there and buy it, but they haven't got themselves organised (and so are missing out on one of the biggest days in the greetings card industry!) Which means my stack of designs shall have to wait 'til next year. So I'm sharing my work for free. All I ask is that you credit me and don't pretend it's your own work! (Be creative on the inside, that's the bit that counts)

Just click the picture to get a larger version, and drag to desktop/right click..then print!

Similar but still good:

Another set of illustrators I like are Tom Gauld and Simone Lia who create works for comics and books. See more of their work here.


And with that I'm off to some illustration exhibitions tomorrow for more inspiration! {yes it is quite difficult to think of easter when it's Christmas}

Seasons e-greetings

Ahh, festivity is setting in now. I'm very excited but have the usual to-do lists running around my head bumping into each other and falling over, and so getting nowhere.. multiplied by ten. But I have a new venture to to dig my teeth into - card illustration. I've always loved making cards for friends and family, and last year even designed my own collections with the insane idea of launching them. But now my thought doesn't seem too far off. An online greeting's company setting up in the New year has asked me to design a collection. So i'm indulging in my passion for all things silly and doodling to my heart's content. I've also been researching the market to see what I'm up against. I have to share with you my favourites:



http://www.haroldsplanet.com/ecards/created_greetings/JnpdCvqtMx.html

I've always been a fan of Vimrod and the childish Pea Tree productions. I'd also encourage any of you to send their e-cards - They're fun, free and environmentally friendly!

http://www.haroldsplanet.com/ecards/categories_English.html

On the theme of environments, that leads nicely to another great not-for-profit idea set up by an old guru of mine Naresh Ramchandani, dothegreenthing.com
The site invites you to do one thing each month that is easy that can make a small but very worthwhile contribution to the planet in the reduction of CO2. You can also sign up for their weekly videos and be part of a whole community - some members competitivly trying to be the greenest. So I'm doing my bit and making a lot of my christmas presents this year. (sorry family- Hope you appreciate the love, care and time taken...money's a bit tight this year!)
Incidentally, if you haven't got round to writing your cards this year, send an amusing e-card from them too, and save our trees! (sounds good doesn't it?)