Hello Friends

Lucy Eldridge makes magic with her watercolors, illustrating for various zines, greetings cards, and books from Brighton. I love her hand-drawn patterning and I love the roughness and texture of her portraits. But it’s her compositions that I’m attracted to the most. Where most talented illustrators would build a center-heavy and intricate drawing, Lucy creates room for a breeze while still being meticulous. 

LA-based illustrator Audrey Kawasaki is in the middle of creating a line for Hint Mints’ artist series which will be launching sometime this summer. Her packaging design, like her paintings, take a lot of inspiration from Alphonse Mucha and art nouveau. Look at how she composes the hair and her use of floral motifs. Though her most recent paintings are actually a departure from these.

LA Weekly did an interview with the shy Kawaski back in ‘11 and I was surprised to learn that the girls in her paintings are actually all the same girl. 

First of all, the team at Maricor/Maricar have a gorgeous website. In their own words the Australians are illustrators, designers, animators and embroiderers. I’m going to have to do a whole separate post on their embroidery work alone but for today I just wanted to highlight this simple chalk mural. The little detail of having shading on the curves knocks it out of the park for me.  ”Fail better” couldn’t better capture what I’m trying to do out in California, too. 

Found these amazing illustrations for Peter and the Wolf by Josef Paleck on Mallory McInnis’ illustration blog. She actually has a set of tumblrs too that breaks up her vintage books into Illustrated Ladies, Illustrated Gents and The Zoo Keeper.

Josef Paleck has a pretty rockin’ website too that you should absolutely experience.

What immediately stuck me with Elizabeth Graeber’s style is how much it reminds me of something from a Wes Anderson flick. Then I found her Royal Tenenbaums illustration. She’s also made a series of books including “An Illustrated Guide to Cocktails.” 

C86 is the work of Matt Lyon, an illustrator with a passion for geometry and gradients (in a good way). His work actually kinda reminds me of 60’s artist Peter Max; every astral but more digitally sculpted. I especially like his textures which give the work an almost water color effect.

And a quick update: Matt Lyon has a tumblr that’s as on point as his artwork.

Color Cubic published a vector artwork book called Vectorism that is actually really nice. Compared to other vector artwork periodicals I’ve flipped through this is leaps and bounds better; we’re definitely getting better with bezier curves.

Great identity developed by Russian designer Roma Erohnovich for Moscow event agency Citrus. Everything is so asymmetrical, even on the cards things are pushed to one corner. Erohnovich has a good grasp of balance though. Of course, I love the illustrations which apparently are inspired by Rene Magritte’s work. 

Juri Zaech is a Paris-based art director and type designer who made Write A Bike as a side project. Would love to see his 9-5 work sometime. 

Vladimir’s mixed media illustrations for Biophilia remind me of Ernst Haeckel’s work but with a  dark twist. Vlad is working with colored pencils, watercolor, markers and then bringing them over digitally; a few of my favorite things. 

Never thought I’d say I’m into landscape art but I found Tim Reynolds work on Wander blog and the Fox Is Black and I had to change my mind. His 3d fragmented illustrations really get my inner geometry-nerd child. Generally the type of illustrations I get into have this irregular patterning aspect to them. But I also love Tim’s color pallet; the warm, plastic-like tones make these even better.

Found these old pin-up calendar ads for Rigid machine tools, circa 1952. It’s funny how I’m appreciating these for the nostalgic value but in the 50’s this was really like a Penthouse calendar. Their womanizing ways will last much longer than ours, cheers to that!

Douglas Smith’s Adventures series made my jaw drop. Who does scratchboard illustrations anymore besides some elective art class? Smith’s color schemes are amazing too.