._.: illustration

Showing posts with label illustration. Show all posts

Toodle of the Day

Can anyone guess what today's toodle (to-do doodle) is saying??

I went to Unique LA for the first time this weekend. The highlight of my day was discovering and meeting the person behind Le Petit Elefant, a fellow Filipino, Genevieve Santos. I was drawn to the very quietly round and whole nature of her work. They all remind me of perfect days outside. And there is always something about the meeting of man and animal that's endearing to me, or in this case, girl + monster, boy + baby elephant, girl + boy + unicorn whale. Below are some of my favorites.

I also like how she makes use of the dimensionality of her medium (like notecards) in the design and placement of her illustrations.

Illustrating (Growing) Pains

My freelance job as a graphic designer slash illustrator slash photographer has been a bit of a ride for me. Sometimes grueling, especially when ideas aren't coming to me, but mostly, it's been one of self-discovery.

Some of the things I've learned and am continuing to learn:

I need a routine.
I need to get out of the house.
I'm better at qualitative than quantitative information.
Sense of ownership is really important to me.
I hate talking about money.
Soundboarding, brainstorming, is important to me. I enjoy working on my own, but not by myself!

I'm going through these challenges, but I really want to get better at it. To close, here is another interview I found with one of my favorite illustrators, Christoph Niemann, whom I really identify with. I could relate especially to his process. One thing I haven't gotten down yet, which I wish I need like, RIGHT NOW, is... well you can read it below...

What about anxiety for you personally? How do you deal with failure, if a drawing isn’t working?
At the beginning, for every single job, I was absolutely freaked out. But I feel that over time, it’s learnable to a large degree. For instance, with all business illustrations, I take them very seriously – it’s not like I do them with my left hand – but I know that there’s more of a mechanism to make what I call an un-embarrassing solution. Something that works, something looks right and sharp, and gets the job done. At this point, I think you can wake me up at 3 in the morning and I can do something on the Federal Reserve discussing interest rates and it will look right, and it won’t generate angry letters from readers.

Christoph Niemann Interview

I see a lot of myself in Christoph Niemann's work. I think what I love most is the quirk, the humor, and the very personal nature of his pieces. I wanted to learn more about him and found this video interview. Check out his amazing blog at the NYT, Abstract City.

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

AMAZING online book illustrated by Christoph Niemann (author of Abstract City at the NYTimes) and created with HTML5. Falling leaves, floating clouds... see what else can be done with HTML5!

Real Life Comic

Hahaha this costume is so awesome! It was created by M.A.C. makeup artist Karin Stone.

VIA ILLUSION360

Unpopular Science

Christoph Niemann is back with amusing chalkboard illustrations showing how human (his) life is subject to the universal laws of physics. See the rest here.

It states, “Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line…”

“…unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.”

Based on supercomplicated physical observations, Einstein concluded that two objects may
perceive time differently. Based on simple life experience, I have concluded that this is true.

I'm sure they will fear me

I want to own a nice original watercolored Marc Johns piece!

VIA MARC JOHNS

What a Relief

I sometimes wish I drew really well on Illustrator like this. Image above is from Always With Honor's What a Relief graphic for a Monocle article covering the moments after a natural disaster.
Discovered through Frank Chimero's tumblr, Secret Cloak.

More gopher thoughts

Gopher thoughts

While we were busy devising ways to get rid of our garden's pet gopher over the weekend, I couldn't help but imagine how he'd get back at us. Here are some of my thoughts visualized.

We The Robots

A comic strip entitled "We The Robots" by animator and former syndicated cartoonist, Chris Harding. I love candid FAQ's like his. Makes me laugh :)

Gallery Nucleus: Chris Appelhans

After dinner last night at The Boiling Crab, we decided to visit Gallery Nucleus, where I discovered and bought prints by Chris Appelhans. I had two in hand, when I saw another one I liked. It had no name. When I asked who the artist was, I was told it was Chris too. I guess I like his style. Below is one of the prints I bought from his Unicorn set.

Envy

I've thought about this a lot.

We live in a culture of envy. Pick up a magazine, and what happens after flipping through a few pages? 'Ooh, I wish I had those shoes. I wish I lived in that house.' I do it too. It's kind of fun sometimes. (And it's not just in magazines - it happens on those Covet-This-Stuff blogs we all read. You know which ones I'm talking about.) But I think it's important to acknowledge that we do it, and more importantly that we choose to do it, and that it can lead us astray. We end up making decisions based on envy, instead of making them based on who we'd like to become, and staying true to ourselves. So this is simply my attempt at distilling a big aspect of our culture down to three words.

VIA MARC JOHNS

Watercolor

ILLUSTRATION BY WENDY MCNAUGHTON

I think I'm in love with watercolor. I am an illustrator in an alternate universe. If I were you, I would click the image to enlarge it.