Saturday, November 26, 2011

My Vintage Avenue


Just found this cool blog My Vintage Avenue. I was lucky enough to stick my face into twitter for a second and grab this little gem that illustrator Ward Jenkins tweeted. Sweet Tweet!
Check it out!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Lisa Cinar Interview :)

Yes, so basically... this is an interview with ...me:)
Phil Johnston who took my class last summer wanted to interview me for a personal project of his and I was lucky enough to get him to send me this really well edited video of it that he made. I had forgotten about it for a while but now I found it again and even though I am of course a huge nerd in it, I do think that it came out quite interesting. A lot of that is of course Phil's doing, because if he didn't put those cuts where they are, it would just be me rambling on for hours and hours.... ;)
Also, I'd like to mention that the drawings you see me doing in the video are part of my 'character development exercise' where the point is to draw as many different characters in as little time as possible, so don't judge;)

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Julie Morstad Book Launch



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Book Launch

You are invited to join us for the launch of this fantastic new book by Sara O'Leary, illustrated by Julie Morstad!

Monday November 7, 2011 • 7pm

Christianne's Lyceum of Literature and Art

3696 West 8th Avenue on the corner of Alma Street


Proclamation!



Yes!!!


Thursday, October 27, 2011

The colours of Marcel Dzama












Last week I asked my students in one of the classes I teach to make their own drawing tool, or to create their own colours. In other words, create something that will give you a line, or a colour not just everyone can buy by walking into an art supply store. The lines you use in your work, the patterns you make and the colours you choose can become part of the thing that will eventually become our 'style' as visual artists. I remember while still in school myself loving the work of Marcel Dzama and seeing all of his shows with the Royal Artlodge Collective here in Vancouver at the beautiful and now gone Atelier Gallery. I remember writing a paper on his work and being thrilled when I found out he added Root Beer to his colour to create the consistent braun/green tones in his work. I wondered how the galleries representing him felt about this since it would definitely affect the longevity of his work, and which made me like him even more.
So here is some of his work. Notice the importance colour plays here in the overall style of work.
Here are some blog posts regarding a newer show of his at the David Zwirner Gallery in N.Y.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Fall is in full swing


Here is something that I found online by my favorite Marc Boutavant. Reminded me of when I was walking in the park earlier on. Fall is happening again. Tick Tock, tick tock....

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Mary Blair 100th Birthday!




Yay! Google gave Mary Blair props today by including her in the Google icon with links. Cool! It's crazy that this woman was born 100 years ago already. Time flies! I had kind of forgotten all about her and I'm glad that I was kindly reminded of her work by the Googlers. Thanks! :)
Check out her work, cuz it's awesome!



Thursday, October 6, 2011

3x3 Illustrator income Survey


For any of you who are seriously interested of pursuing being an illustrator... I recommend checking out this really well designed and actually fun to read survey done by 3x3 Magazine. I just downloaded mine for only 5$ and it's definitely worth it! You can also buy a hard copy of it for more money, but why waste paper and spend more, if this is really all you need? Recommended!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Studio visits on Drawger

Image from Rob Dunlavey's studio tour on Drawger.

Here are some really great posts on various illustrators studios on Drawger. My favorite are Rob Dunlavey, Chris Buzelli, and Paul Rogers. But really they're all great. It's always inspiring to see the places where ideas are had and amazing work is created. Each space is so unique and yet they are all so similar. Having a place you feel comfortable and inspired in is a big part of doing good work I think. Mind you it does not always have to just one place, or even a physical place, for some it is more a state of mind, or a number of places around town where they like to go and sketch and work. Libraries, Coffee shops, parks, friends places, ... but for a lot of us, it will be a rented studio or a designated place in our homes. Figure out what works for you and go with it!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Noah's Ark on the 'Children's Illustration' Blog!


This is one of the first blogs on illustration I ever looked at. While I don't have nearly as much time these days to check out other blogs anymore, I just had a peep back here and I really loved this entry on the theme of Noah's Ark. It's always so great to see what different artists come up with for the same story, thus making it a different experience each time. Check it out here! On the Children's Illustration blog run by Julie Fortenberry. Great post Julie Thanks! And also... thanks for following this blog! :) I should really start to promote it a bit more.
I just never seem to have the time....ahhhh!

Here is a picture of a cake (!) of the ark. Preeety cool. Found it here.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Reiner Zimnik



















I love it when I find a new illustrator & writer I love that I'd never heard of before and then it turns out that he's from my home country Germany! I stumbled across one of his books 'The Bear and the People' here in Vancouver, or rather on beautiful Mayne Island while camping. I had never been to Mayne Island before this summer and it was greaaaatttt! Of course I had to stick my head into the lovely bookshop there called 'Miners Bay Books'. It was a great little shop with tons of character and a really fantastic selection in all genres I have to say. Their picture book selection was quite unusual. I remember being pleasantly surprised at how many books they had that I'd never seen before. Among them were Maxfield Parrish's unique 'The Knave of Hearts" and Reiner Zimnik's reprint of said book, 'The Bear and the People'. While I didn't buy either of the books because I was camping and wanted to stay light, and probably also because my bookshelf has absolutely no more room on it at this point. :) I did note both books and illustrators, and have thus discovered the many amazing books by Reiner Zimnik.

There is something about pen drawings of German picture books that I can't quite put my finger on, but I can tell when looking at them that the person who did them was from Germany. Does this sound crazy? There is a certain aesthetic of line that seems to happen in a lot of them that I really appreciate. One of these is now the drawings of Reiner Zimnik. Searching around online for more of his work, one thing I couldn't help but notice what his fantastic ability to make interesting work for his book covers. I am in love with the original cover illustration for 'Der Angler/(The fisherman)'. Also note the different versions of his covers through the ages. Enjoy.
Oh, one more thing. I also found that this neat blog, 'The apple and the egg' did a post on one of his books 'The Snow Party', where you can see the entire pages of the inside of the book. Check it out here.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Picture Book Report


I just stumbled across this great blog here which I had not previously seen.
Of course it's a great exercise if you're looking for a project as an aspiring illustrator to illustrate one of your favorite books (picture books, or novel) yourself! The Picture Book Report has challenged 15 illustrators to do exactly that. Great idea to showcase the whole experiment by compiling it into this neat blog. Do check these out.

One of my favorite illustrators from the project just so happens to be the woman who made the whole thing happen in the first place. Her name is Meg Hunt and her work is fantastic! Do check out her website.

I also really love this illustration (above) for the cover of one of my favorite stories ever... 'The Neverending Story" by German Author Michael Ende. So beautiful.

A Wee Change of Sea...

It's been coming for a long time, and has really already started a long ways back with posts here and there, but I just want to take the time to let everyone who reads this know that I'm officially getting rid of the 'children's picture book' description of this blog and changing it to the more all encompassing 'picture books' and all related. This is because it has occurred to me from time to time to write something about a graphic novel or comic book, but then realized that the book would not really fit the criteria for the blog. And while my interest in Picture books specifically for children has by no means declined, I can't really ignore the fact that I am also insanely into comics, graphic novels and of course also picture books made specifically with us 'older kids' in mind. So instead of starting yet a separate blog which I really could not do, this one will simply expand in it's content a bit. Hurrah for ... adults. .. :)

Back to school!





Hey hey. After a little break from posts, it's back to school and back to posting stuff! This one's for everyone in my class who is wondering where to get the cheap but great calligraphy brushes in chinatown, Vancouver. Here is a picture of the place so you don't miss it. Really close to the Pender street entrance of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen gardens in location.
The shop is called "Chinese Art Crafts" and is located at 72 E. Pender Street. Tell them the woman who buys 20 brushes at a time sent you there. :)
While you're there and since they're so cheap, buy a couple of different sizes and see which ones work best for you. Pay attention to the tip of the brush. Don't get one that does not have a nice pointy tip. Most of them will be fine, but sometimes there's the odd one that's bent out of shape a bit... literally.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Brigitte Findakly & Joann Sfar


















I love the comics of Joann Sfar, which are mostly in french and so when I came across 'L' Ancien Temps' at Renaissance Books in Victoria the other day I had to get it even though I really can't understand a lot of the text itself, since I've only every had a French level 1 class... which I actually took just so I could read another favorite comic of mine only available in french... But I think it's great to get picture books in languages you don't understand sometimes, especially comics so that you can still read them but make up your own story as you do. It can be really fun, and not only that, it makes you pay double attention to things like composition, layout, and of course COLOUR, because all of a sudden you aren't 100% drawn in by the story and those elements don't just vanish more into the background like they usually do.
So as I was 'reading' 'L'Ancien Temps', I noticed for the hundredths time how much I always love the colour of Joan Sfar's work, and how big of a role it plays in his work for me. On the cover of 'L Ancien Temps' it only credits Joann Sfar as the author, but then on the inside of the book it says 'Colour by Brigitte Findakly'.
Hmmm, Brigitte Findakly I thought. Let's check out who does the colour for all the other Joan Sfar books that I love. I knew that someone else coloured for him sometimes, but guess what, pretty much all of them are either coloured by Brigitte Findakly or someone else. Sure Joann Sfar is a total Genius and his work is amazing, but I so think that with work like that the colorists name should be on the cover too. It's such a huge part of it.... but then again, it makes me respect the colourist even more. So vital to the work as a whole and yet so humble. Check out this video here of Brigitte Findakly if you can understand any french... and then, .. if you do... please let me know what she's saying, cause I can really only understand the work 'colour' and 'photoshop' in there. :)
The next post will now have to be more on Joann Sfar himself though. If you don't know him and like comics,... get ready to have your mind blown... and pray that you can speak french.

Here are some images of Sfars work, with colour by Brigitte Findakly who's sense of colour is amazing, dream like and who makes Sfars work look it's very best. Her colour brings a whole new level of composition and feeling to his images. So much depends on it.