Late in January Designer and Book Publisher Mark Murphy was asked to be part of the jury for the Communication Arts Illustration Annual competition. He put his thoughts and observations on a very interesting blog post.
Raymond Briggs shouldn’t need an introduction. He’s the godfather of UK children’s book illustration – and having taught at University of Brighton he has managed to influence plenty of current illustrators (including PJ Lynch).
Best known for creating the seasonal favourites Father Christmas and The Snowman - as well as Fungus the Bogeyman – there is a cannon of more than twenty books and 13 awards (including two Kate Greenaway and a Children’s Author of the Year).
There is always the sense in Briggs’s work that he makes his books for himself rather than for any target audience. He believes that children can cope quite nicely with adult subtleties and he’s happy enough to risk an equivocal or even an unhappy ending. This is one of the things that give his stories a depth that many contemporary illustrated children’s books lack. It is tempting to think of this as a British trait: certainly, of the crop of American books this summer, few can resist an empowering ‘Hollywood’ resolution. – Tim Adams
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I’m no expert and open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.
These sketches of the big apple were from a recent trip I made there, a surprise birthday present (very nice indeed). Some of my family who live in South America were visiting so I got dragged over on a plane at the last minute.
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Drawers is a co-production between the IGI and the people at South Studios – a small visual arts business complex based in Dublin. The show features 14 IGI members and the rest are designers, photographers, architects and a fashion stylist next 26th March.
More info in www.illustratorsireland.com
Illustrating and cartooning legend Ronald Searle celebrated his 90th recently. Above is a recent interview with Channel 4 news.
An Exhibition on book illustration by 3rd students of the Waterford Institute of Technology runs from 3rd – 20th March at Waterford Central Library, Lady Lane, Waterford City.
Here’s some recent work created by members of Illustrators Ireland (IGI). Each member has submitted one of their favourite illustrations from the previous month, either commissioned or personal. Follow the link below to see all this month’s entries.
Dublin based illustrator and IGI member Brian Coldrick is next up on The Comic Cast’s exhaustive (but never exhausting) trek through the world of Irish comics and illustration. Go download the podcast here.
For more on the Irish comics and illustration ’scene’ you can do worse than listening to previous interviews with Tomm Moore (director of Oscar nominated The Secret Of Kells), Nick Roche (artist on Transformers comic) and Gerry Hunt (creator of historical Graphic Novel – Blood Upon The Rose) and and many more besides.
I’m blatantly cheating again this week. The Guardian featured Chris Wormell’s work yesterday and I, by coincidence, read his book One Smart Fish last week. That is nearly the sum total of what I know about Chris’ work – I loved the premise (fish finding their feet) and the amazing colour, crowds and landscapes in One Smart Fish.
The Guardian, again this week, makes for an excellent introduction:
The pastel drawings are immensely pleasing, but the real charm lies in the way that the protagonists, like all small children, are oblivious to the chaos they cause. – Lyn Gardner talking about Off to the Fair.
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I’m no expert and open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.
Steven Heller takes an animated look through the evolution of Olympics pictogram systems, although he’s a bit harsh on poor Quatchi the sasquatch. CR Blog previously has a detailed look at the 2012 London system. Here’s a more detailed archive of previous pictogram sytems.
