With the Sweettalk event coming up this Thursday I thought we’d invite one of the speakers over for a chat and a nice cup of tea. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Colm Mac Athlaoich…

Do you have a process you follow when you are making your pictures? Research, trawling the internet, books, sketching, materials?

I do, before I even start scouring the Internet for source materials I religiously remove a ring from my baby finger as this marks the paper, and it means when the rings off I’m working. (more…)

Spotted this on illustration mundo, love the idea of using several different illustrators to get a message across. Great work too! Art directed by Dave Markes from Bailey Lauerman. The illustrators that participated were J. Otto Seibold, Calef Brown, Gilbert Ford, Nate Williams, Jessie Hartland, and Frederique Bertrand. You can see the full set here.
“Help them achieve their dreams…” illustrated by Nate Williams

This might be of interest to you comic types out there. The project is being run by ztoical with all profits going to Irish humanitarian charity GOAL. The Theme is “I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now but I’m off saving the world”. Maximum 6 pages, either black & white or gray scale, 21 cm high x 15 cm wide. Deadline August 8th 2008. Open Call for Submissions here. Contact cliodhna AT ztoical DOT com for more info.

As illustrators it’s with sad hearts that we learn that the popular free mag Mongrel is to shut up shop with its last issue this month. The Mongrel team were great supporters of illustration from day one, and had a clear understanding of the value illustration can bring to a magazine’s identity, a sentiment so sadly missing from the vast majority of Irish magazine publishing these days. Hopefully new magazines, like State (to be launched this week) and others may take up the mantle. We’ve scrambled together a potted sample of some of the illustrators who featured in the magazine over the years, take a peek…

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HURRAH! CandyCollective proudly presents the return of SweetTalk!

Making presentations on the night are Illustrator: COLM MAC ATHLAOICH, Fashion stylist: AISLING FARINELLA, Award winning directors, animators & producers: BROWN BAG FILMS and Photographer: MATTHEW THOMPSON

Doors open at 7pm at Dublins Sugar Club. Thursday 13th March.

We came, we saw and we lost! Our unexpected nomination for Best Arts & Culture Blog at this years Irish Blog Awards came to nowt.

There was a huge attendence in the Alexander Hotel on Saturday night and the presentation of the awards themselves were funny and obviously took a lot of effort so well done to all those involved.

We did however get mentioned in a feature in The Sunday Times Culture section in an article about how Irish Blogs were poor by international standards. Luckily we were one of a very few mentioned as being the exception to the rule and we even got the only picture in the article…

“Things are improving – the shortlist for this year’s Irish Blog Awards, held in Dublin last night, was noticeably stronger than last year’s. Some, such as the illustration blog Scamp, bristle with ideas and fizz with energy.”

So someone is reading us…we better tidy up a bit.