Pikaland

Amy Ng

Amy has a dream…

Pikaland is a blog about living the illustrated life — an art and illustration blog that’s a collection of beautiful things and inspirations that I stumble upon on the internet that’s made/designed by illustrators and artists, and is updated almost daily.

I also love thinking of new ways and projects where I can connect illustrators + artists with their audience, so the first one that I’m organising is the PikaPackage project. There are more in the works! ;)

Pikland is such a wonderfully written blog, head over to Amy’s about page for the full picture.

Enjoy…

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Art Farm: Judith Hunt

When are designers, photographers and illustrators ever only designers, photographers and illustrators? Pretty much never, and that’s why I’m chuffed to share Judith Hunt’s Art Farm.

About: Illustrator & cartoonist, horticulture consultant, novice cook, herbalist, and farmer.

A blog about our herb, flower, and vegetable farm, the studio’s design and illustration work, thoughts on publishing and photography, cooking with the harvests from the farm, creative medicinal cures, and my “once in a blue moon” alternative creative jobs.

One of my favourite posts is A Whale of a Week. Could it be because I’ve had a whale of a week of my own?

Enjoy…

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Tim Foley

If you look in the Illustrator section of DWB’s Blog Roll, you’ll find a lot of Illustrators. And for good reason. They hold a soft spot in my heart.

Tim Foley uses Illustratorium as a running portfolio, featuring work as it rolls in.

If you are a fledgling Illustrator, or even settled into your illustrating skin, you wouldn’t go wrong keeping an eye on what Tim is up to. For sure.

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Chris Gregori

I’ll bet you all thought I dropped off the face of the earth. Well, not quite. I’m still suffering from a lovely Thai stomach bug (or some such). So life has not exactly been a whole lot of fun this past month. But I’m still here. Just moving sloooooooooow.

So to rev up the fun a wee bit, I give you c. gregori dot com blog. Enjoy.

c. gregori dot com blog

And if you don’t see me again for another week, feel free to come looking. Or send flowers. Or both.

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Nate Williams

IllustrationMundo.com

Nate writes a beaut of a blog at IllustrationMundo.com.

If you are in the business of illustration, then I’ll bet IM already feeds direct to your door.

And if you are in the market for illustrations, Nate’s Illustrators section is prime a hunting grounds for new talent.

Glancing through the stable of Illustrators, a few of my top choices are:

• Brian Despain Art
• Ray Jones illustration
• Arnold Roth
• Mundo Mágico

And with hundreds upon hundreds of Illustrators listed, I could browse all day!

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Steve Augarde

I’m going to ask you to ignore something. I’m going to ask you to ignore Steve’s blogger theme and go straight to his copy. Trust me on this. His copy is totally great. You can read and read and read and keep on reading. And keep on being entertained.

I’m a children’s author/illustrator/paper engineer. Also a musician. Nowadays I concentrate more on writing than design work, but I still illustrate my own books – when they let me.

I blog about stupid things – things that interest me, things that make me laugh. Amuse yourself and you might amuse others, I say.

So let’s scroll >> scroll >> scroll until we get to his archives. Steve’s very first post was Monday, September 18, 2006. A coincidence, mine was September 19th, 2005. Only, his first post (Little People), is much better written. Much better everything. Where mine sticks to the facts, he’d treading on babies. Now, who could beat that?

One-in-ten: Most of the time – maybe nine times out of ten – I get things wrong. I try and write something and it’s wrong, try and draw something and it’s wrong, try and figure out some idea for a pop-up book and it’s wrong.

Not only am I used to being wrong most of the time, I accept that it’s an inescapable part of the process of finding what’s right. Very often I can see it for myself. An idea will come up and I’ll soon realise that it’s no good. Other times I need an editor to tell me why it’s no good – or at least why it’s no good for them.

Elephant Fayre: We were supposed to be accompanying the floor show, providing the background music to a performance that never made the slightest sense to us. You know the type of thing – three girls in leotards being the sea, whilst somebody else stands on one leg and chants the word ‘turpentine’ over and over. We took a sceptical view, unfairly perhaps, of conceptual art. Emperors’ clothes and all that.

In loco parentis: Giving a child a book that you’ve never read yourself means taking quite a lot on trust. What might lie between those covers? Sure, the book will have gone through an editorial process, and so as a parent you can reasonably expect the content to be ‘suitable’ – whatever that may mean. Nevertheless a child with a book is effectively a child in the company of a stranger, and an adult stranger at that.

Things Once Common, Now Extinct. No.1. Knitting: Working on the munitions production lines had given Mum a taste for the mechanical, and it wasn’t long before she got herself a professional knitting machine. There was no stopping her then. The sound of the Passap whizzing back and forth was part of the background noise in our house, and not a week went by when we children didn’t sally forth into the streets wearing some creation calculated to stagger humanity. Jumpers, mittens, hats, skirts…I think I even had a pair of woollen swimming trunks at one point. Although I’ve been trying to block that particular memory out, and now I’ve gone and thought about it again. Damn.

Illustrator and songwriter of Bump

Found at Steve’s:
Toonhound – cartoons, animation, comic strips and puppets in the uk

An Interview with Steve Augarde by Dolores D’Annolfo

Some artists defy categorization and do not fit neatly into a genre. Steve Augarde is such an individual. His book jacket highlights that fact—he’s written and illustrated over seventy picture books for children, is a paper engineer of pop-up books, and has provided artwork and music for two BBC series. He tops that off by winning a “Smarties” medal for his book The Various.

This is too exciting. I have to go away and think about it for a bit. (wink)

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Michael Wandelmaier

Michael Wandelmaier is a special treat for all those illustrator lovers out there. Like me.

Illustration and Design

He’s also a perfect treat for one who is under the weather on a day when even the weather is under the weather. Luckily, I love rain and thunder and nature putting on a show.

And I hope you do too.

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WeeWillDoodle

Monday morning. YAWN! After staying up late last night, I turned on the news (finally) this morning (late morning) and watched WeeWillDoodle on the BBC. And since WeeWillDoodle also has a blog, here they are on DWB.

WeeWillDoodle is a group of artists deeply in love with the power of the doodle. This artist collective believes in, respects, and plans to harness the raw power of our spontaneous ideas and capture them in different mediums—on paper, on plastic, on walls, on your bare ass–you name it and we’ll draw on it. Give us a blank room and we’ll charge in with multi-colored markers blazing! We draw now and ask questions later.

So it’s similar to doodlage, only they get out and doodle all over the place. Well, all over the place out here anyway, in SE Asia. To be more precise, Manila.

If you are interested, the BBC snibbet I watched is on YouTube: Nassive Doodle art in Manila (Nassive?)

Now I’ve SERIOUSLY got to go out and doodle. But, not on my butt. No. Never.

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Stefan G. Bucher’s DAILY MONSTER

Back in 2006 DWB was listed amongst Communication Arts 50 Essential Bookmarks, published in their November Design Annual. You can still see it in full at san miguel de allende arts + kulture.

Under the Design Community heading, DWB is right there amongst the big hitters: AIGA and News Today (yes, I was surprised). With DWB it was a community of three.

And it was back then that I found Stefan. Stefan first commenting on Russell Davies at Comm arts. Then Russell Davis commenting on Stefan at Russell Davies. It was a time of finds.

So it was back in 2006 where I first featured Stefan on DWB. I just love his banner photo, don’t you? Just like his tagline – “344 LOVES YOU” – it makes me smile. Stefan makes me smile.

And back then I didn’t realise what the illustrated Daily Monsters had in their future (for Daily Monsters, think doodlage, but by an author of one).

And well, back then I was just having fun watching Stefan have fun. And smiling. I like smiling. As does Stefan, I’m sure.

Yet I’m not sure if I’d made previous comments on his monsters. Or, if the Daily Monster 10 was the first one worth printing, followed by Daily Monster 17.

But a year later Stefan emails for permission to use my comments. It wasn’t until yesterday that I saw what jewels of wisdom [cough] [cough] I’d left behind. In fact, I distinctly remembering asking Stefan if he was SURE I’d left anything of use at all.

Daily Monster 17

I love Stefan’s Daily Monsters. It’s true. So, when I received an email late, late Friday night about his 200′th Daily Monster, I just had to share them with you. Sort of like, so maybe you could grow to love them too?

So here’s a screen shot of the 200th Daily Monster being puffed and illustrated into life (you’ll have to go to Stefan’s to see it in action).

Stefan G. Bucher’s 200′th Daily Monster

If you scroll down on that post you’ll see the now proliferate community surrounding the Daily Monsters. Back when I was first addicted, there were short comment blurbs of fun and laughter left by other monster lovers. These days comments are mini stories all their own. Long and longer.

But even being the shy lass that I am, I couldn’t resist another go when Stefan signed off with:

“Monster 200 speaks for itself. It doesn’t need my help anymore.
But if you’re so inclined, I’d love to hear your ideas on where this one is headed.”

Stefan G. Bucher’s 200′th Daily Monster flies away

Well, it’s obvious to me where he’s headed. He’s winging it to Bangkok. Winging to me.

And with each flap of his wings, he sings his name out in Thai.

“Poot pee song roi”

(Poot pee = monster | song roi = 200)

Wings up “POOT PEE!”

Wings down, “song roi”

(Can you feel the whoOSH! of his feather wings going high? Then the SHoooo coming back down? I can. I’m sure I can).

“POOT PEE!” … “song roi” … “POOT PEE!” … “song roi” … “POOT PEEEEEEEEE!” …

… he’s flying home to me.

Note: It’s fair to say my Thai is pretty awful (tonal languages do that for me). So really, there could be 200 monsters flying, flying to me.

But, no matter. There’s always a soft place for more monsters in the breeze-filled room in the middle of my house.

Why? Because CAT LOVES 344 too.

Stefan G. Bucher’s 100 Days of Monsters

So here we are already. And the questions is, has monster love now come to you too? Yes? No? Fence sitting are we? Well, how about watching 100 Daily Monsters flash right before your eyes.

Nice? [nodding] Agreed [nodding back] Nice.

And now off I go. Off to order my very own Daily Monster …

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Book By Its Cover

The Books By Its Cover blog is gifted to us by illustrator and pattern designer Julia Rothman. Also of Also (Design, Illustration, Animation, Video).

From Julia: I wanted to share all the nice books I regularly notice and have collected over the years. Please email me if you have any suggestions or books you want to share.

I discovered BBIC via the sharing of 25 Beautiful Minimalistic Website Designs at the Vandelay Website Design Blog (recently added to my newly attached Wizz RSS News Reader). If you go looking, scroll down in Vandelay’s comments and there it’ll be.

On BBIC is a review by A.J. Purdy, Consider Everything in Badshape. Mmmmm. Badshape is splattered and sprayed with wicked-delicious work by Mark Price.

Have time? Have interest? Then be sure to read Mark’s three month process while silkscreening 200 copies of Badshape, Consider Everything in Bad Shape.

At the BBIC there isn’t an archives to easily pick and choose through, but the categories will take you as deep as you want to go. Checking out Design (as one would) I see we have: the newly-minted classic (can I say that?) by Stefan Sagmeister, (Things I have Learned In my Life so Far); Steven Heller and Gail Anderson’s New Vintage Type; and the must have (somehow, someway) The Art of the Letter, by Doyald Young of Smart Papers.

I seriously could go on. But as I can’t (obviously), I’m adding Books By Its Cover to my still slim Wizz RSS News Reader.

Will I ever learn? Not likely. And if I released the contents of my netvibes and Bloglines (with Google Reader in training) your eyes would bleed. Seriously.

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