Art Books for Christmas?

I've been frequenting a very insightful book review blog created and written by "Parka".
Since it's a month away till Christmas, I thought this page would provide some ideas for art book lovers out there.

Here's a list of some of his readers' favourites if you don't know where to begin:
I would definitely recommend Peter de Seve's "A Sketchy Past".

 

 

 

 

  

Another book Parka definitely recommends is The Daily Zoo Year 2.

If you have any questions regarding any of his reviews I am sure he wouldn't be hesitant to answer your questions. In return for publishing detailed reviews with photographs and videos of the books, Parka has a list of his reviewed books on Amazon where you can purchase from and he gets a small commission which goes towards his book stocks.

Sneaky

Recently I found a cool illustration contest site called Illustration Friday.

This week's topic is "Sneaky" so I couldn't resist doing a quick illustration for it.

I thought it would be humorous to apply the notion of being "sneaky" to something that was very static (ie a gargoyle). It only makes sense that the first thing they would do if they could move is to eat whatever was around it. And how convenient that little birds like to nest on rooftops.

And here are some quick concept sketches to see which perspective worked the best.

 

Charlie Chaplin painting

I got a few days off this week so I decided to do something for myself.

I am a HUGE fan of Chaplin, and I've been wanting to do a portrait of him for a few decades, so this was a good chance to pull out my paint brushes.

 

A few preliminary sketches.

Final drawings of the characters

 

Stretching the paper, and on go the first washes!

By this time, the lines had been washed off, so it helps to refine them.

I'm very happy with the result. I started off with a few failed concepts. Having Chaplin signing an autograph for a little girl was not going to work. And even though I usually push for extreme expressions, I decided against it for this painting. I like the subtle story behind this piece, and I think it goes well with the watercolours.

Dan and Anna's Corrugated Palace

This was our concept for a website screen. And back then we were also going to call ourselves "NoSuchLuck" - Which explains the rugged look about this piece.
But the more we thought about it, "NoSuchLuck" with this "Give us money" theme didn't sound promising - especially to future clients.
However, as we were already half way into the project, we decided to finish it anyway. So here it is.

Dan and Anna's Corrugated Palace - Final

 And these following drawings are to show you how we work together on our collaborations.

Draft - First few ideas of overall layout and feel we want to achieve

Developed composition - A much more elaborate and thought out draft of what the final should look like

Typically, Dan starts it off with his assigned graphics as I am busy procrastinating.

He then gets my approval and starts to colour

A few weeks pass us by, and I start on mine

During the process, a few things change - by this time we have decided to scrape this idea for our website.
We put together what we've done, and this is what it looks like before we begin the editing process, which is another huge collaboration.

This is the portrait we used in the illustration

And yay! The collaboration is complete. The collaboration itself doesn't take long to do as we're used to working together and we communicate with each other very well. I just need to stop being a workaholic.

Peter Boyle and Sam Eagle

Boyle and Sam Tea Cups

Another one of our Muppet + Star pairings. I have to say it's been pretty entertaining trying to come up with the appropriate matches for the Muppets.
Initially, it was these two pairings (Bill Bailey + Rowlf the Dog; and this current piece) we were joking about that got us on this huge project.

The idea was to plant these two grumpy characters in a playful and colourful environment.
Surprisingly the bigger challenge was the ridiculously pastel background. The hideous blotches of colours seemed very apt in a Jim Henson fanart - Have I mentioned that we are big Jim Henson fans?

Quality shots of my Boyle Sketches

There are a few cliches you can easily spot in this illustration also.

Cliches - those are my favourite.

Here's one of them! It's a love heart! Aww...

In case you haven't checked out, here is a link to my partner in crime, and to his blog. He likes to upload bigger pictures for those who are blind.

Froggies in Onion Soup

-- Continued from the previous story of the froggies --

A few months had passed. The uncoloured drawing of the froggies was left in the dusty corner of the drawing room. The townspeople had stopped asking the old woman about the drawing. "'Tis not the time!", she would hiss at curious peasants.
But one day, a very handsome biologist from the woods as far as North America came to visit. He was not riding a white horse, and his hair didn't smell of gold and honey. But he had a smile that melted the old woman's heart. "I have been hearing about this unfinished drawing of your froggies", he spoke softly like a nervous bird. "I have come to see this famous drawing in person". Before the creaky muscles in the old woman's body could react, the handsome biologist moved swiftly toward the drawing, and unveiled it from layers of dust.

"!!!!"

"...."

There was a silence. And then there were gasps. The uncoloured drawing of the froggies was indeed coloured.

"But... but... what... who...?" The old woman was suddenly lost for words. "If you didn't paint this, then who did?", one by one, the townspeople gathered around asking questions that could not be answered. The handsome biologist studied the drawing room, and discovered a dusty black pad laying on the ground. "What on earth is this?", his soft voice asked, turning slowly at the old woman. The woman took a few moments staring at the dusty pad blankly. Little by little, the blank expression on her face blossomed into a knowing smile. "It's "the tablet"!", she laughed. "The magical "the tablet" must've finished the painting for me!" Then she danced, and danced, and danced some more. And the whole town rejoiced along with her, celebrating the magical powers of "the tablet" she had sorely missed.

The biologist smiled, and turned to head back to alert his town of this wonderful news. It was truly the happiest happy ending of all.

-- The End --

Bailey and Rowlf Make Music

Took a day to obtain some motivation, and instead of relaxing we (as in, myself and Dan) finished the colour job on our new collaboration. It took hardly any hours, and surprisingly, putting it together was relatively easy (compared to our MI collar).

We're very happy with how it turned out.

We have a few more celebrity-muppet pairs to do for this particular project, so I'm looking forward to working on them. Next up - Peter Boyle and Sam Eagle!

On a totally different note, the new movie Inception is totally awesome.

Brit Comedy meets Muppets

So my partner and I have decided to do another small collaboration.

We were watching Black Books a while ago and talked about how Bill Bailey resembled Rowlf from the Muppets.

And since he's good at drawing animals, he got Rowlf, and I have Bill Bailey to work on.

This was my concept. I haven't drawn in a while, so I am totally out of practice!