ryo takemasa

I spotted the lovely work of japanese illustrator Ryo Takemasa this morning. 

It remind's me a lot of Charley Harper's work. 

Ryo has a brand new shop where you can purchase his work.

And there's a lot more to see over on his website.

jet set

These prints (spotted on Grain Edit yesterday) from uber-talented designer/illustrator Neil Stevens had me swooning. They are all based on vintage airline baggage tags. I love information graphics as art. They are available to buy here!

paula mills home tour

Welcome to another week! Are you snowed in? I hope wherever you are you are warm and safe. Here's something to make us feel warm and cosy. Recently spied on sfgirlbybay, the amazing home of artist Paula Mills. You can see the whole tour here. Be sure to also check out Paula's beautiful work.

eva juliet: new work

I was very excited to see this beautiful new range of prints from the very talented Eva Juliet on Etsy today!

Inspired by the Norwegian Rosemaling style...

Pick a number and add your own text...

I shall certainly be saving my pennies for one!

shortbread buttons

And while we're on the subject of recipes... such a beautiful blog this. And amazing shortbread buttons, with a full tutorial and this beautiful illustration, courtesy of the super-talented Eva Juliet. Yours free to download!

kareem rizk

A few years ago I came across the work of Melbourne-based artist Kareem Rizk. I used to have one of these lovely bird images sitting on my desktop for simply ages, I loved it so much.

Bird No.1

Bird No.2

Bird No.3

Bird No.4

Bird No.5

Bird No.6

Today something accidentally made me find him again and I'm so happy I did. Amongst his many achievements he's collaborated with another favourite artist of mine, Eduardo Recife. Why not pop on over to Kareem's website to have a closer look at his amazing work!

leafy ampersand

My eyes are red and sore because of this little thing I've been working on today... but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

evolution of a wedding invite

Weddings are quite the thing at the moment! Ours is only about 6 weeks away and I hear there's something going on in Westminster next week. My sister-in-law Matina and her boyfriend George got married last Friday. From what I heard, as I wasn't there, it was a charming and simple little affair, a civil wedding with no fuss, and a dinner afterwards. I was very sad to have missed it, but as weddings are often held in the evening here in Greece and with no one but me to look after Leo, I had to let my husband represent us. We had triumphed however in finding a baby-sitter for the next evening when an after-wedding party for friends would be held and I looked forward to my first evening out in 4 months and a chance to put on some slap and wear my gladrags. I have to explain it was the first time that Leo had been baby-sat (the reasons for this are long and boring), but as he never wakes up once he's gone to bed, we thought nothing could go wrong as we danced the night away. The plan was simple, the baby-sitter would turn up before Leo's bedtime. I would then put Leo to bed as always and after we had made sure he was sound asleep, we would sneak out and he would be none the wiser...

All too easy in theory of course. Do babies have a 6th sense? We drove to the centre of town, picked up George's cousin, found somewhere to park, got to the entrance of the venue and the phone rang. Leo had woken up and having discovered he was in the company of a stranger with his parents nowhere in sight decided to have hysterics. So I had to jump in a cab, go straight home and take care of the poor little soul. It took him 2 hours to calm down with an extra bottle of milk! At least I looked nice...

Anyway, that's by the by. Matina had asked me to design her wedding invite. Being an architect, she wanted something simple, strong and graphic, but lighthearted. Her idea was to have a very stylised illustration of her and George on the front and some very simple text on the back. The illustration was inspired by matroyshka and kokeshi dolls but Matina was adamant on no headscarves (which would've been a shame as Matina has best hair in the world - that's official from me) and George was to have a cute little tin tin hairstyle.

I always have quite a strong idea in my head of how something should look when I start designing. However, that rarely transposes onto the screen.

TAKE ONE


My first attempt was completely disastrous. The bodies were good, but Matina's face looked fat, her hair was too literal and George had a paintbrush on his head. Of course this was rejected immediately.

TAKE TWO


Matina definately wanted less facial features and simpler hair. I decided to remove both faces. This resulted in a rather dull, bland and souless couple with boring hair. Off to the drawing board again...

TAKE THREE


Matina was definately starting to take shape. She liked the OTT hairdo, but there was still a problem with George's hair and he didn't like the hearts. Matina did! So I kept hers and we brainstormed about what George would like to 'wear'. They wanted something silly. We tried a superman logo - that didn't work - then we tried the medallion, which just made him look Masonic...

TAKE FOUR


Finally we decided on a nice retro tie for George and we got the hair right! Everyone was happy and all the guests loved the invite! I'm just sad that we didn't manage to letterpress it which was in the plans, but I'm very pleased with it none the less... cute eh!

the talented miss viviane schwarz

My lovely and talented friend Sofia told me about her lovely and talented friend Viviane the other day. Viviane is a children's book artist and author and I instantly fell in love with her delightful illustrations, but especially her beautiful books.


There Are Cats In This Book and There Are No Cats In This Book are two of my favourites, full of humour and wonderfully clever use of layout and format. Here is a little video of her reading her book with cats in:



Psst... if you hang on til the very end you can also see her read her book with no cats in too!

Viviane is a keen knitter like all the best people are. If you'd like to knit her cats, well she's even thought of that as well!

monday talent (on a wednesday)

Hem, well I think I shouldn't really be restricting myself to a day if I can't keep it up, should I. Again, I'm late off the mark, but I am really super busy (which I shall explain in another post). Anyway, this week is the turn of Noisedup. Nothing to say except some things sometimes make me say 'holy wow'!!!

le chignon
katherina
jo
chelsea
buns and combs

There's lots more styles to choose from... all very reasonably priced. She does lovely bags and postcards too.

monday talent

OK let's start a new regular post for the new year. It's called, you've guessed it, 'Monday Talent'! I'm so in awe of all the wonderousness that there is out there that I want to expose you to some of it. My very first bit of 'Monday Talent' is a certain Andrea Joseph. I used to think I was pretty nifty with a pencil. Sadly I haven't picked one up in years but this lady has inspired me to put lead (or ballpoint) to paper yet again. Not that I could do anything on this scale. Her work is stunning, mind-blowingly, obsessively detailed stuff. Just get a load of this.





Not only is she super-talented and self-taught (which I love), but she is a witty one too. Check out her blog and shop. I particularly love her little molezines.

a year to view

My calendar is finally finished!! I hope you like it. Below are my personal favourites... January, September and December.




You can see the rest here.

2011 is here!

OK I'm on a roll... slightly late I know, but then I did have a baby so I think I can excuse myself! Here is the July page from my 2011 calendar which is taking shape.


The final size will be 10x8". Coming to an Etsy store near you very soon :)

new year, fresh work

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a good one! The new year always inspires changes for me and I've decided to dust off the old Etsy shop. I've started on a new range of digital collages which will be on sale very soon. Here's a sneak preview of just a few of them. Would love to know what you think! :)


Ferns


Bird Head


Beetle Collection


Beef Cuts

A slightly different direction for me, they are very much influenced by my love of old botanical illustrations, but it's important that they have a very modern feel which I hope I have achieved.

And thanks to all of those who took the time to vote on my L for Leo illustration in the last post. The overriding majority plumped for blue. I still wasn't entirely happy and made a few tweaks...


I would love to get this letterpressed. If anyone can point me in the direction of a good letterpress printer based on this side of the pond (ie Europe and the UK) I would be really grateful!