The big book of little people

A small sampler of a recent book that collects more than a thousand original illustrations of peculiar people, peppered with some wisdom capsules taken from the Maxims by La Rochefoucauld.

The printed book has 340 b/w pages, with colour cover. The size of the softcover volume is 14 x 21.6 cm (5.5 x 8.5 in). Available worldwide from Lulu Publishing (order online).

Do check my Issuu library for more sample pages and other interesting illustrations!

Travels in Algeria

Enrique Flores has come back from a long trip in Algeria with a bunch of excellent watercolours and, as usual in him, sketchbooks packed with sketches, observations and insights.

There is a current exhibition of this work in aaaaarte.com (I guess it stands for 5-star art!), and if you visit his blog you can see more related artwork. The sketchbooks will be eventually uploaded as video to his Youtube account and, finally, his photos from the trip are well worth visiting, too.

Drawing Shakespeare

Milton Glaser draws an imaginary portrait of Shakespeare (one of a long series featured on his website and in the book Art is work), while he lectures about the meaning of drawing. It is a pleasure to see the master at work, and the remarks he makes are very interesting, too.

2010 almanac

This is a preview of a small 2010 almanac we are giving to a group of work colleagues at the Xmas holiday lunch. It gather contributions by several friends, both visual artists and writers. It is printed in zig-zag, two-sided (20 x 12 cm, 10 pages (5 on each side).

Coming soon!

(Click the image to see a bigger version.)

Agent Laia with Nintendo DS

Colors! is a fun little painting app for Nintendo DS and iPhone / iPod Touch (with some extra features in the Apple gadgets). Taking advantage of the tactile screen you can draw and paint very intuitively with your finger, the stylus, or any not-too-sharp objet that doesn’t scratch the surface (a plastic pen with its cap on is ok.)

Here, as a first trial, I’ve used it to draw from memory our bitch, agent Laia (according to my son, Laia is the star of a spy movie.) You can download Colors! and see many examples of users-submitted artwork in the Gallery.


Colors! saves your drawings as a .drw file, and it also generates a bitmap .png file. What is even better is the storage of the whole drawing process in the .drw file, so you can reply the sequence anytime. This is great to study what other people do with Colors! and the Nintendo or the iPod / iPhone.

All the examples in the Colors! gallery are available in the reproducible format to download. You can even reproduce them on your own computer using a nifty Java utility called ColorsDraw. You can get it here.

Freistil Online, Portal für Illustration

I have just received a news release from a new website called Freistil Online, which aims to be the first web source for illustration in German-speaking countries.

This newly launched portal covers drawing and illustrators, as well as the contemporary influences and developments among the field. The themes are Editorial-, Advertising, Fashion Illustration, graphic novels, art and motion. Most significantly, it is being used to introduce books, magazines and websites and review exhibitions, fairs and events.



The term ‘illustration’ is being used to include street art, graphic design and online solutions. The scope of the site also includes thesis projects from schools and other institutions. Reports from Germany, Austria and Switzerland are accompanied by insights of the illustration markets in New York, London and Madrid.

Even if you don’t read or speak german the website is worth checking out for the visual content.

Workspaces, studios and inspiration

If you wish to peep a little in the workspaces of illustrators such as Kyle T Webster, don’t miss this selection in Drawger called Studio Tours. I like these photo collections, for the sake of decoration and interiorism, with a dash of voyeurism, and a good dose of visual inspiration.
Another good way to visit (virtually) an artist’s studio is with the special panoramic views presented at the Bohonus VR website (click the artist pic rather than the link below) Mouse around and you’ll watch different corners of the studio.

More studio inspiration: the Flickr sets called Professional creatives at home, Art studios y Annotated workspaces y The workpaces.

Project s2dio, in guillotine, is another excellent collection:

For the comic enthusiats, there is a whole section / category in Comic Book Resources devoted to studio tours.
And for even more inspiration, a Google Image search will provide very interesting results.

Any more suggestions?

Children's books by Paul Rand

Paul Rand illustrated several children's books written by his wife, Ann Rand, in the fifties and early sixties. As it happens with true classics, the illustration and layout in Rand’s books looks just as fresh today as when they were first published.

His style of illustration, consistent with his design work, is based in a witty use of simple shapes, flat colours and a well-thought composition and layout.

Now these charming editions have been reprinted by Chronicle Books in San Francisco for your delight.

Sparkle and Spin is a playful children's classic (now happily available again through Chronicle Books) that reveals to young readers the power and music in the words they use every day.

This reissue of the childhood classic I Know a Lot of Things is a celebration of all the new and intriguing knowledge children delight in possessing. Written from the simplicity of a child's perspective, with all the teeny nuggets of wisdom contained therein, and illustrated with Rand's colorful and witty style.

Little 1,originally published in 1961, is an exuberant picture book filled with clever wordplay, and not only tells the engaging story of Little 1 and his quest for a friend, but makes learning numbers and simple addition positively fun.

Letterhead

This is a detail of a very psychedelic letterhead I still have to finish and use, and here is the whole thing:

I wonder if bills and invoices printed in this colourful stationery would be more appealing for clients :-)

Halloweenish

I'm not very keen on Halloween stuff, but I couldn't resist to post these two cute drawings made by my son (11), as they fit the bill perfectly. He did the sketches in my pocket sketchbook. He’s learning english quite fast and he takes every ocassion to write some of the words he learns.

Misc. short notes

Flashforwardcon’s Channel on Youtube

icon01 is a video series of one on one conversations with industry icons. Produced for Flashforward08 San Francisco. This page features interviews with Stefan Sagmeister, Milton Glaser, Joshua Davis, Scott McCloud and more. Also available at http://www.icon01.com/.

Paint applications for Android

Still with basic functionality compared to Brushes, Colors! or Layers, the application list for the Android mobile OS is growing. This search on Cyrklet will keep you up to date.
See also androidfreeware.net/.

Vérossignol

I've enjoyed every post by Véronique Joffre in her blog since I discovered it. Her collages, illustrations and paintings are wonderful and poetic. She uses a variety of subdued and subtle colours to great effect.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Alberto Mielgo

An extraordinarily gifted painter / illustrator / concept art artist. He has a loose style and wonderful sense of colour that really pulls up every image he attemps to paint, both in digital or traditional media.

Visit his blog or his personal website to enjoy more of his work. As a bonus, there you’ll find a very good selection of links to other illustration and painting-related blogs and sites.

A fresh take on travel journals

This is something I definitely have to do instead of the usual travel sketchbooks.

Matt Sundstrom shares his journey from the East Coast to the West: 8 days and 3,700 miles from New Hampshire to Oregon. I like both the ink drawings collected in this website and the nice layout of the whole webpage, somewhere betweeen comic, cartography, slideshow and sketchbook.

(Seen on Drawn!.)

Farewell to summer days

This year the summer has lasted more than usual but definitely it’s over.
These are some sketches from a recent sketchbook with some (digital) colour touches, a good souvenir of these marvelous sunny weeks for the cold and dark months to come.
(Click the image to see a bigger version.)