Illustrators Ireland is delighted to announce it is taking part in this year’s Pointe Blank exhibition in association with The Birmingham Royal Ballet…

This is the fourth time The Birmingham Royal Ballet will have teamed up with professional artists for an exhibition to coincide with their performances.

This year sees a selection of 27 of the members creating A3 pieces on the theme of ‘Giselle‘.

The new collection will be revealed on the evening of Monday 24 June 2013, and the exhibitions will take place in or around where the Birmingham Royal Ballet performs Giselle this summer, at the following venues:

Birmingham Hippodrome: 19 – 22 June 2013
Belfast Grand Opera House: 26 – 29 June 2013
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre: 4 – 6 July 2013

To keep up to date with all developments, including finer details on where to see the work, check their website, and/or Facebook…

The members taking part are:

Niall McCormack, Roger O’Reilly, Joven Kerekes, Donough O’Malley, Eva Byrne, Olivia Golden, Karen Nolan, Laura Callaghan, Aidan Cooney, Peter Donnelly, Jesse Campbell-Brown, Jon Berkeley, Alé Mercado, Matthew Griffin, Mark Reihill, The Project Twins, Alan Clarke, Damian O’Donohue, Chris Judge, Padhraig Nolan, Brian Fitzgerald, Jennifer Farley, Una Gildea, David McCelland, Steve Cannon, Adrienne Geoghegan &Orla Roche…

Opening on the 13th of June, “Attitudes” is an exhibition featuring a selection of illustrations by Eoin Coveney for the iconic gay magazine, Attitude.

See more info here…

Rabble Magazine is a free non-profit volunteer driven magazine in Dublin, which has featured work by numerous Irish illustrators and comic artists like Paddy Lynch, Phil Barrett and Boz among many younger talents and is looking for more illustrators to work with in the future.

The magazine recently surpassed its €9,000 goal to cover future printings on Fundit but donations are always welcome.

For more details, go here.

May 16th saw the arrival of the third Adobe Behance Portfolio Review night at The Copper House Gallery in Dublin. Once again, it was hosted by Lukasz Kulakowski and featured a range of speakers including award-winning Illustrators Ireland member Peter Donnelly. The annual event brings together local creatives in cities and towns around the world to present and discuss their work through their use of the online platform Behance.

Photo © Kevin Goss-Ross 2013

“It is a great occasion to network with the local creative community” says Peter. “The crowd on the night was a brilliant mix of people coming from design, photography and illustration. The opportunity to speak and hear about how people develop their work is always fascinating and it opens communication between those working in different creative fields.”

Behance is growing strong in Ireland with many professional creatives now joining the portfolio and discussion forum as the leading way to promote their work online.

As part of the Dublin Writers Festival, prolific children’s book writers and illustrators Hervé Tullet (France) Sarah McIntyre (England), Sara Fanelli (Italy) and Niamh Sharkey (Laureate na nÓg, Ireland) will be giving a talk on their various routes into illustration. This session is sure to prove both enlightening and inspiring for professional and aspiring illustrators alike and best of all is free! The event will be held in The Ark on May 21st and more details can be found here:http://www.dublinwritersfestival.com/event/getting-drawn-into-professional-illustration

Regan Hutchins recently went on a walkabout with children’s book author & illustrator Kevin Waldron in Dublin Zoo – if you know his work (which you should – amazing) then you’ll know why they picked that particular venue…

Originally broadcast on Culture File on RTE Lyric FM, you can now listen to the podcast here…

Danleo is an Irish Artist with a very unique; clean and colourful style. His work draws heavily on nature and organic forms, frequently merging the grotesque with the beautiful to stunning effect. He works in a variety of different mediums and says of his work ” The aim is to create works that look as if they were created using vector software but have been painted by hand. Inspiration can come from anywhere and anything, however I owe a lot to the cartoons and comic books of the early nineties as these where the things that led me in this direction.”

For more check out http://danleodesign.com/

Impressive is the best way of describing the line up for the Annual CBI conference taking place the next 18th and 19th of May in Dublin.

Guest speakers include translator, festival curator and journalist Sarah Ardizzone, ‘Prince of Preschool’ Hervé Tullet, bestseller John Boyne, comic book heroes Sarah McIntyre, Alan Nolan and Rory McConville, Claude the Dog’s creator Alex T. Smith, author of The Weight of Water Sarah Crossan, Brazilian author Ana Maria Machado, Cló Mhaigh Eo publisher Colmán Ó Raghallaigh and recent Caldecott medal winner Jon Klassen.

For more information or to simply book your place, visit the CBI website.

Over on the Illustrators Ireland blog they have just posted the first part of a ‘Bologna Book Fair Questionnaire’, whereby they asked members who had attended this year’s fair the same set of questions, to see what their various experiences were like.

If you are an illustrator who is interested in the publishing industry, this is a must-read for you.

Part Two will follow over the next couple of days…