Three have just announced an exciting new illustration competition to mark their re-branding.

Three will be using some of Ireland’s leading professional illustrators in their upcoming campaigns but they’re also supplementing that commitment with an exciting competition open to all but certainly appealing to young design & illustration professionals, recent graduates and students.

Each artist must respond to the simple brief http://www.three.ie/blankcanvas and upload their entry to the site.
All entries will be featured in a gallery style website along with all entrants contact details.

The first prize is 2000euro, an iPhone 4 on the Three network and your work on a limited edition iPhone 4 cover! Which seems to be enough of an incentive to enter to me but your work could also be featured in a future full campaign too. This is definitely one of those rare cases where entering will actually be good for your portfolio and your bank balance!
The three category winners will receive 500euro each and be featured in a launch event in a Dublin exhibition space coinciding with the announcement of the overall winner.

BRENB (that’s me!) will also act as a mentor for the winner, to assess their portfolio and to advise on how to further their career.

The judging panel will be made up of BRENB/Bren Byrne – Illustrator and director of The Small Print, Elaine Carey – Sales and Marketing Director for Three & Shay Madden – Creative Director with McCann Erickson.

You can visit the full competition site at http://www.three.ie/blankcanvas for details on the brief and how to enter.

Illustrator Shaun Tan has won his first Oscar for best animated short at the Academy Awards in Hollywood. The Australian artist won for The Lost Thing, which was praised by critics but considered a longshot for the Academy Award. The 15-minute computer generated and hand-painted movie was only supposed to be a picture book. “Wow, this is quite surreal,” he said on stage. “Our film is about a creature that doesn’t get any attention so this is quite ironic.”

Here is a trailer for The Lost Thing…

Shaun is an incredibly talented childrens book illustrator as anyone who has marveled at The Arrival to name just one will testify.

He is also an extremely nice guy and I was very lucky to have met him 2 years ago during a special coffee morning in the Children’s Book Ireland office.

The perfect antidote to the current snow induced blues is sipping a hot port and listening to the Christmas special edition of “Ireland’s No.1 comics podcast” THE COMIC CAST. Regular SCAMP contributors Liam & Craig lure us into their lair with a fantasticly sung duet intro and follow it up with some tasty reviews and recommendations from the world of comics, as well as the latest comics related news. Listen directly on their blog or subscribe via iTunes.

The blurb…

“Andy Williams had one. Cliff Richard too. And by golly we’re ten times better than Cliff Richard. So fall on your knees, hear the angels voices – it’s the Comic Cast Christmas Special! Where, from beside a roaring fire, we review Lint by Chris Ware, The Little Prince by Joann Sfar, My New New York Diary by Julie Doucet and Michel Gondry as well as the latest in Irish comics – Windells’ Supernatural Showcase by Gar Shanley and Cathal Duggan, Finn and Fish by Leeann Hamilton, Eclectic Micks Sketchbook Volume 2, Something Wonderful Eats Babies by Tommie Kelly and Other Work by John Cullen. After dinner we’ll be watching (and reviewing) A Town Called Panic on DVD and MegaMind 3D. And what would Christmas be without family? Cartoonist extraordinaire Bob Byrne joins us direct from his villa in Spain to talk about his latest book  Dr. Moku’s Hiragana Mnemonics and his current online comic saga Today we worship Michael Landon.”

Illustration by Stephen Byrne (who’s recent parody of RTE TV’s Fade Street please me no end)

WE TOO WERE CHILDREN, MR. BARRIE is a blog about children’s books written by “adult” authors including Graham Greene and James Joyce. They focus on one author a week and they have a Flickr SET for full scans of books, some very nice retro illustration work.

There is a black cloud over the country right now (what a massive understatement!) and it looks like people are finally getting angry at the performances of our so called leaders. Thankfully some people are channeling that anger into creative avenues such as cartoonist Alan Moloney. His series Wheel Spinning Hamster Dead is ripping round the interweb especially through his twitter account @wrathofkang. There is a massive appetite for home-based political cartooning at the moment so it’s great that, along with Martyn Turner, someone is filling that void.

Monster Truck Gallery in Temple Bar have issued an open invitation for illustrators and designers to submit proposals for future shows. Its a great space with really huge footfall.

Here are the details:

Monster Truck is a contemporary art space engaged with artists and creatives working in a variety of mediums. We are currently accepting proposals from artists and curators for consideration within the programming of our gallery at 4 Temple Bar.  These submissions will be considered to be ‘Independent Projects’ and together with our Curated Exhibitions will form our 2011 Monster Truck Programme.

We are particularly interested in artists/curators/groups including Illustrators and Designers that want to challenge their work in a gallery context and understand the gallery model as outlined in the link below.

Exhibitions will be subsidised and supported by Monster Truck but a rental fee will be required from the artists/group to help cover the costs of the gallery. For more detail on this model please see link. MT would also like to encourage groups or funded individuals to make proposals in order to manage your costs (please apply for project based grants from the City and Arts Councils).

To submit your work or project, please send submissions:
1) CV
2) Artists Biography,
3) Exhibition statement of intent
4)5/6 (jpegs, PDFs, etc.) good quality images/examples and/or Quicktime files of your work (on CD). With group proposals please submit an adequate number to represent the work of each individual artist.

Send by post to Submissions, Monster Truck Gallery, 4 Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Ireland?
Deadline for submissions was Tuesday 16th of November but I’m sure you could squeeze it under their door with an apologetic wink if you go down quick!

This Wednesday sees the opening of a very exciting show of the work of Cor Klaasen, curated by Niall McCormack from the fantastic Hi-Tone Blog.

Cor Klaasen: Jackets, Covers & Sleeves

Venue: Adifferentkettleoffishaltogether, 18 Ormond Quay Upper

Times: Daily 11 – 5pm. Thurs 4 – Wed 10 November inclusive

Opening: Wednesday 3 November, 2010, 6 – 8 pm. Guest Speaker: Brian Lalor

Niall will be giving a talk about Klaasen at OFFSHOOT 4 in The Sugar Club on Thursday this week from 7Pm.

When we drew up the inaugural wish list of speakers for OFFSET I knew the first person I wanted to invite was Dave McKean. So it was a great thrill and honour when he said ‘YES’. We have uploaded the video of his presentation which is available for your enjoyment. So…enjoy.

Dave McKean has illustrated many award winning comics and books, including the incredible covers for the entire award-winning Sandman comic series, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook (Heston Blumenthal), What’s Welsh For Zen (John Cale), Varjak Paw (SF Said), The Savage (David Almond), Arkham Asylum (Grant Morrison), The Homecoming (Ray Bradbury), Wizard and Glass (Stephen King), The Graveyard Book, Wolves in the Walls, Coraline, Mr. Punch, Signal to Noise and Crazy Hair (all by Neil Gaiman).

Oliver Jeffers makes art. From figurative painting and installation to illustration and picture-book making, his work has been exhibited and published in New York, Dublin, London, Sydney, Washington DC, Belfast and elsewhere. His picture books, including Lost and Found, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, and most recently, The Great Paper Caper. Oliver was brought up in Northern Ireland and now lives and works in Brooklyn (hence the mustache!).

Enjoy this talk from OFFSET last year and don’t miss out this year by getting your ticket now!

Mail Me Art: Medium Without a Message is the follow-up to the successful 2008 Mail Me Art: Going Postal. With over 700 new pieces of mail art ‘Medium Without a Message’ is an amazing collection of envelopes and boxes from around the world decorated by some of today’s most talented illustrators and artists. What makes the work special is that every single piece of art was sent through the postal system, exposed and on view as regular mail. At the end of this month all of the work will be on display at the London Mail Me Art exhibition.

From Darren:
How can you help support the project and become part of it? Well… The running costs for the project are currently at around £6000($9120). We’re hoping to recoup most of that by selling the new book and we’re also hoping to make the artists lots of money by selling their work at the exhibition! We’ve just finished the book and we got as many of the mail artists into the book as possible in some way or another! So please help us recoup some of the costs by making a pledge and supporting the project! In return for a pledge we’re sending people copies of the new book. We’ve also got some really cool artwork up for grabs from the likes of Dan May & Jon Burgerman! Please check out the site for more details – http://mailmeart.com/going-postal/pledge/