Drawn! is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw. Visit us daily for a dose of links and creative inspiration. More...
I’m a bit at a loss in trying to describe this series of “Concentrations” by Flickr user mort au bon gout. They are odd geometric studies of various subjects drawn on graph paper, ranging from muscles, seen here, to flying machines and vegetables. It’s a small series, but I hope a growing one. I’m reminded of Ed Embereley when I look at them, and that’s always a good thing.
The folks at Pink Tentacle once again bring us a look into the world of ancient Japanese medicine. This time, it’s the severed heads of the Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls.
I’m in love with the bold cartoony work of Michael Hacker. His site features comics, gigposters, and other work for the Austrian-based design and illustration collective Atzgerei.
When my wife and I first began watching, we didn’t know how long the series ran. And at episode 10 we were raving about how skillfully the show was building to it’s climax.
Oops.
We discovered there were 27 more half-hour episodes. Nearly all of them riveting.
Great manga has a way of making you feel like you are always about to turn the final page.
If you could sit and talk with any three people in the world about book design, it would probably be Milton Glaser (Everything), Chip Kidd (Knopff), and Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s).
Well, thanks to the 92nd St Y - for posting this 100-minute video from December 2006, where the three of them got together and talked shop in front of an audience of about 900 people.
I just watched the whole thing and it’s really great. It’s even moderated by Michael Beirut (Design Observer) who buoys the whole event with his passion for books.
To animate means, quite literally, to instill with life, and what better way to illustrate the idea than in a stop-motion version of the Adam & Eve parable. L’Animateur (or The Animator) is an exquisite piece of work by Nick Hilligoss.
I’ve been meaning to share a link to this site for a while, but some things are so good that you like to keep them to yourself for a little bit. Every time there’s a new post on Richard Thompson’s blog, my RSS reader seems to do a little dance of happiness.
Thompson’s comic strip Cul de Sac is the most refreshing thing on the comics page today, and likewise, his blog is pure cartoon joy.
The site is mostly comprised of Thompson’s work for the Washington Post, including a larger-format watercolour version of Cul de Sac, various editorial illustrations, and his brilliant weekly “misinformational” comic feature Richard’s Poor Almanac, which has also been compiled in a book.
Most accomplished cartoonists will tell you that good character design should allow the viewer to recognize a character by its silhouette. Bob Flynn has assembled this line-up of cartoon silhouettes, and you should be able to recognize most if not all of them quite easily.
If you are in or around Seattle anytime before May 2nd, be sure to swing by the Wonderful Union Gallery and check out the Invisible Creature show that is currently on display. From the gallery website:
Wonderful Union is proud to present “Haven” by Invisible Creature. Brothers Don and Ryan Clark’s artwork highlights the tension between modernism’s smiley-faced rejection of things past and their own coming of age domesticity from an autodidactic, punk ethos point of view.
You can learn more about the show by visiting the Wonderful Union Gallery website or by stopping by the gallery itself at:
2221 NW 56th St. Suite 201, Seattle WA 98107
(1/2 Block West of The Ballard Library)
Fans of Elizabeth Ito’s Student Academy Award nominated short film Welcome to My Life might be interested to hear that Elizabeth has recently started her own store. In addition to selling prints of her work she has also created a number of plush characters that are in need of “adoption”. To make the adoption official, special plush characters in her store come with their own birth certificate and photo.
Halifax’s typographic illustrator extraordinaire Ray Fenwick has finally, through Fantagraphics, published his beautiful Hall of Best Knowledge calligraphic comic series in fancy book form. The book hits stores next week, and I can tell you as someone who has until now only read it online, there’s no better way to appreciate Ray’s draughtsmanship than seeing it on paper.
In a world where too many cartoonists give up on lettering altogether in favour of computer fonts, it is more than a little refreshing and exciting to dive into a feature like this that is an effective celebration of lettering, calligraphy, and words.
And here’s a great offer from Ray’s mailing list: preorder through Tiny Showcase and you’ll get your book signed by Ray, and receive a pack of ten stlyin’ bookplates.
Just under a year ago I posted a link to Pose Maniacs, a collection of rotating 3D human models that you can use as reference for sketching or drawing. Though always easy to navigate, until this launch of their site in English, it was in Japanese only.
As simple as it is, I could stare at this apple illustration for hours. This head-slappingly elegant design is the work of Joe McLaren.
I found this while perusing S.britt’s Flickr favourites, which is a tremendous way to find new artists. Find the Flickr page of an artist you like, and dive into their favourites. Flickr even provides RSS feeds for users’ favourites, which makes it very easy. Here’s mine.
One of my favourite illustrators has overhauled his site. He’s always been a master of linework, now he’s added flawless colours to his artillery. Check it out.
Also check out Peter Herpich - Thomas’ brother - who also has a site. Wildly different, but quite similar in some respects.
My brain nearly exploded checking out the almost endless stream of vintage and retro design/illustration, and what looks to be plenty of contemporary visuals inspired by the past: A Celebration of Vintage and Retro Design
Most of the images in the list branch off to their sources, plenty of which are Flickr feeds. This image comes from the exhaustive Mid-Century Illustrated pool.
Fun geometric paper collage — and vegetable collage! — from German illustrator Christian Hückstädt, whose website also features vector and hand-drawn illustrations as well.
With regards to the shameless plagiarism case mentioned in the post below, I’m pretty disgusted with the marginalization of visual art in general. As if our work isn’t worthy of the respect other creators and researchers get. As it happens, I just wrote a letter of protest to the president of Stony Brook University, where I am a student, complaining of her unilateral removal of art from a campus wide arts festival.
Perhaps this is why I am so appreciative of Natalie Kocsis’ scrappy drawings - they perfectly express how I feel right now. Off with their heads!! Natalie says in her bio she is working on a book called Lucy Goes to Coney Island… I look forward to seeing it.
Yesterday illustrator Darren Di Lieto, who also runs the wonderful Little Chimp Society illustration site, discovered that the work of dozens of illustrators, along with the interviews he conducted with them for the LCS, have been unceremoniously plagiarized in a 350-page book being sold online for $100.
Our own Luc Latulippe is one of the illustrators whose interview and illustrations were ripped off, and he has posted a detailed write-up of the situation at his blog, and encourages everyone to spread the word about this, as the publisher and distributors of the book are elusive if not entirely impossible to contact.
Dan Piraro has started to post his daily Bizarro comics to his BizarroBlog. Unlike your newspaper, they’re presented high-res, full-colour, and include Dan’s commentary for each one. It’s like getting your newspaper comics on DVD.
These stunning sketchbook pages are the work of French illustrator Laure Nollet. In addition to her website, you can also follow her work via her Flickr page.
Yesterday illustrator Darren Di Lieto, who also runs the wonderful 
