Brian Wildsmith

Brian Wildsmith is a children's book illustrator. The below book, Squirrels, is the one that I grew up with because my Nana Beryl sent it to me when I was little. Wildsmith was raised in a small mining village in England, where he said, "Everything was grey. There wasn't any colour. It was all up to my imagination. I had to draw in my head..."



Animals feature prominently in his illustrations, and he says this is because he "once had a blind dog that was mothered by a neighborhood dog. I was quite impressed by this and learned that animals show a great deal of compassion for one another. When I paint animals, I imagine them as a child would. I want children to make personal connections to the animals in my books."

He has his own museum of art in Japan, aptly named the Brian Wildsmith Museum of Art. Wildsmith's message on the museum's website reads:
"It is the very greatest honors for an artist to have during his lifetime, a museum dedicated to his art and bearing his name. I am indeed proud that this distinction has been given to me and my work. The arts have always hold a high place in Japanese life. Their love of beauty, and wonder of the world around them has been constantly passed on to their children in a never ending circle. My life has been dedicated to producing picture books for children, which I hope reflect this love, helping them to observe, comprehend and appreciate the wondrous world that they have been born into. I want to help them climb the mountain of life and reach the peak of enlightenment and fulfillment. This is the basic right of every child born on the our earth."

What a cute little man.



Wildsmith just finished an exhibition at the Illustration Cupboard.

Pete Fowler

The above picture was a floor to ceiling mural at Monsters Inked exhibition at the Idea Generation gallery in 2009. It depicts Pete Fowler's Monsterism Island.

Fowler has one of the most enjoyable websites I've ever visited. His gallery page is amazing. You can even design your own monster on the site.

His work involves his Monsterism series, which is a comic book that has an amazing psychedelic soundtrack. The monsters all have individual traits and levels of monsterism, and extensive backstories. Fowler also designs the toys for the monsters.



Fowler is also known for his work for the band Super Furry Animals.



Here is an interview with Pete-- he's just a neat fucking guy:

From Eroica With Love

Immediately after making the last post, I was compelled to make an entire post dedicated to From Eroica With Love.

If you want the full experience, listen to the following video as you peruse this post:


I don't know if I've ever explained my lovecrush on Robert Plant, but apparently Yasuko Aoike feels the same way. Clearly the main character in the manga is modeled after Master Plant:

His name is Dorian Red, so obviously Dorian Gray was her nominal inspiration. He's an art thief and ridiculously homosexual, so if you can imagine a faggot breaking into the Louvre while the Immigrant Song is playing, that's the basic idea of the comic. He also thwarts Nazis and the KGB and NATO officers are involved, because, really, why isn't that necessary.

If you want to learn more, there's a dedicated fan page that you can check out.

Coloring books for adults

I found this site, and I think it's pretty neat. It's a resource list of colouring books for adults.

Some help you learn anatomy:



But my absolute favourite is by Yasuko Aoike. It's related to her manga From Eroica With Love, but it's Led Zeppelin inspired. As I write this post, I'm actually listening to the Immigrant Song, so I'm ecstatic.


Robert Plant is still a golden god even in the most ridiculous circumstance-- there are clothes on the next page and you color them in and then dress Robby up for a big day being an extremely gay, art thief version of Dorian Gray (heart throb).



There is also colouring book trend for adults that's becoming increasingly popular, and it's creating colouring books which have some kind of meditative quality. The book below encourages peaceful thoughts and inner peace when you colour in the mandala.

Nikolai Syadristy

The Chess men

- A tiny chessboard is placed on a pinhead. The piece arrangement is taken from a game between Alexander Aliokhin (black) and Raul Capablanca (white), for the 1927 world championship. The chessmen are made of gold.

Ukrainian Nikolai Syadristy is only a microminiature artist part time; when he's not creating ridiculously fucking small pieces of art, which is only a hobby, he's an underwater athlete. That's just absurd.



This book is probably my favourite of his works-- it has twelve functioning pages, which feature poetry that a viewer can actually read (with the help of a microscope, obviously). This book is the smallest in the world, which just makes it adorable, and is only 0.6 square millimeters.


Taken from his book, Mysteries of Microtechnology: "Microminiatures to a great extent reflect the attained level of treatment for various materials and, consequently, the degree of comprehension of their properties; they vividly narrate on the culture of human labour, thus, they actually dwell on the culture of human thinking."

Apparently the process is so absolutely intricate that Syadristy has to work between heartbeats and hold his breath as he works.

The Meeting

A jug, two wineglasses, a tray and an apple are placed on a sugar grain, although in complaint, a sugar grain is a fairly monumental surface so I demand the table to be set for four before I'm going to be impressed.

Ron Mueck

"I never made life-size figures because it never seemed to be interesting. We meet life-size people every day."

Ron Meuck is a hyperrealist artist from Australia, although he practices in London and was one of the YBAs. His work appears to be a series of scaled, both larger and smaller, adventures into the human form. Mueck is also one of the badasses that worked as a puppeteer and model maker for Labyrinth.

Dead Dad

1997

Dead Dad was featured in the highly publicized Sensation exhibition, and was a 2/3 scale replica of his father. Interesting, this is the only piece Mueck features his own hair in the end product. I think this is a particularly loving tribute, even if it's a bit unconventional.


The video below is a montage of some of Mueck's pieces, so the scale and installation process shown are pretty incredible.

Valerie Hegarty

Among the Sierras with Woodpecker

2005.

Valerie Hegarty is interested in ideas of American landscapes and the living changes that art goes through when representing this. Interested in the idea of manifest destiny. In the above piece, she pegs the destruction of this wooded landscape to a woodpecker, and the damage spreads across the piece and into the floor, wall, and ceiling of the gallery. This is a brilliant interpretation of a current American landscape.


This concept of early American landscape that was left out in the landscape and nature adjusted the piece. These ideas of change and decay are relevant through use of foam core and various technique.
Listen to her talk about her piece: