my folk lover

never been...

Never Been by Stuart Kolakovic is wonderful!

Click here:

Never Been

Wait until the above image appears and click enter to go on a magnificent, dreamy little journey...

kiki smith...

I'm really enjoying the prints of Kiki Smith at the moment...

la femme...

I have a few shows coming up in May that I am about to start working towards. The first one is at Nucleus Gallery called 'La Femme', an all girl show featuring some of my favourite artists. Here's a little bit of info from the Nucleus website:

"La Femme is a visual celebration of mothers, daughters, and sisters everywhere €”featuring a diverse and talented group of exclusively female illustrators. The artworks pay tribute to the complexities and joys of motherhood in addition to reflecting life from a woman's perspective."

When searching for inspiration the first thing that came to mind were the etchings of Mary Cassatt, whenever someone mentions motherhood and art I always think of her. Here are some examples (they were produced around 1890)...

I wonder what I will come up with! For more about the show and a list of artists participating you can click right here.

inca pan...

Still nothing to show in terms of my own work, so instead some more of what I have been feeding on for inspiration. I love the work of Inca Pan, he is an artist from Taiwan who makes very lovely things...

treasure...

If you are a fan of early twentieth century children's book illustrations you may already know about this site:

www.nocloo.com

In case you don't it is well worth a look. In fact I can't believe the amount of amazing work that has been collected (many Arthur Rackham images, but also my favourites Jessie M King and Jessie Wilcox Smith). Now don't get me wrong, I don't usually buy into the whole 'I like your old stuff better than your new stuff' argument and I know there is some great contemporary book illustration about the place but... I think I like the old stuff better than most of the new stuff. There is so much complexity and depth in these old images and they have a subtle darkness that manages to create the right amount of tension to leave you with a tiny spook. Something that I think always helps to open a few more of the little doors in your imagination. Here are some examples that could give me enough inspiration to last a whole year...

Arthur Rackham


Jessie M King


Adrienne Segur

tim walker...

Today I discovered the work of Tim Walker (another favourite to add to my very long list)...

Lots more lovely things to look at over here.

boys...

Today all my favourite artists are... boys!


A J Fosik


Tim Vagg


Andy Kehoe

gibbous...

I'm in love... again... with Gibbous.
(I know I've posted about them before somewhere.)

Gibbous live in a magical little world where the girls look like this...

and the boys look like this...

Please can I go and live there for a little bit...

Here are some links so you can fall in love too:
www.gibbousfashions.com
mothmust.livejournal.com
www.myspace.com/pleasemum

 

a book by its cover...

Today I just want to show you something that I have been gazing at for a good while. These are some pages from Jen Corace's sketchbook that I find just wonderful...

They come from one of my favourite blogs of the moment called Book By Its Cover by Julia Rothman. She reviews a large variety of beautiful books and it is alway an inspiration to browse through her selection. She has started posting snippets from artist's sketchbooks each friday, hence the above images by Jen Corace. If you haven't already seen this blog, hop over here to take a lovely look...

home again, home again...

We're back! I have had the most amazing two weeks in Japan, it is a fantastic place that I hope to visit many more times in the future. We did so much in two weeks however I can't help but feel that we didn't even scratch the surface. Here are some random photos taken in both Tokyo and Kyoto...

I still have to post photos of the wedding we went to, it was amazing. Set in a Shinto shrine the whole bridal party wore kimono, there were three outfit changes and a sixteen course meal! Of course I managed to forget my camera on that day. This was partly due to the fact that ten minutes before we were ready to leave Neil realised he only packed one shoe, so we had to drop everything and do a mad dash around the burbs of Tokyo looking for a shoe shop. I'm sure I will be able to pinch some photos off someone else.

Now it is back to the real world! Thankyou for all the comments on the last couple of posts, I'm sorry I couldn't reply to each one but I have enjoyed reading them very much. Also thankyou to anyone who bought something from my shop while I was away, I'm slowly getting all the orders sorted and packed so you should see yours very soon!