Peter Crawley . An artist who draws a fine line.
Peter Crawley studied and continues to work in the field of Product Design. He also creates stitched illustrations, created by hand piercing various stocks of paper with a pin and then stitching the paper with a needle and cotton thread. The first piece was inspired by a road trip across America, and the desire to illustrate the journey. Other commissions include these for Liberty in London.
The illustrations have been used commercially by world leading brands, publications and advertising agencies. Illustrations and are held in private collections in the UK, Europe and North America. Peter’s work has been featured in exhibitions and leading art and design publications such as Wallpaper magazine.
Refreshing to see a new slant on illustration and advertising. You can find more of Peter’s work here, or through Jules Beazley who represents him in the UK.
Amy Schimler . Children’s Book Illustrator and much more
Amy Schimler has been working as a freelance illustrator for the past ten years. Inspired by the kid that lives in all of us, she loves to experiment with colour, texture, and pattern. Amy particularly enjoys working in mixed media and collage.
Her artwork has been sold and licensed for many projects including children’s books, children’s apparel and products, fabric collections, greeting cards and gift wrap, children’s wall art, some of which you can see here.
There is a comforting relaxed manner in the world she creates. Great colours too.
More of Amy’s work available for sale through her Etsy Red Fish Circle shop, even some pieces of a more painterly nature.
John Maltby . Birds and Boats.
Image by Lowfarm.net
Born in Lincolnshire in 1936, John Maltby studied at Leicester College of Art and Goldsmith’s College in London. He joined David Leach at Lowerdown Pottery in Devon in 1962, starting his own pottery at Stoneshill in 1964, where he still lives and works.
John Maltby remains one of the most enigmatic figures working with clay today. His work has taken several major changes of direction, taking him away from functional work towards the making of individual sculptural pieces. He originally trained as a sculptor and names Paul Klee, Alfred Wallis and Picasso among his influences. So, perhaps the progression was inevitable. I love his long necked birds and the way that his boats and lighthouses feature in many different forms throughout his work.
Thanks to Godfrey and Watt‘s Gallery site for use of these images. If you are in the Harrogate area now you can see an amazing exhibition of John’s work there, it’s only on between the 10th and 17th December, so be quick ! You can see more of John’s creative and sculptural work on the Lowfarm site here.
Henry Fraser. An Artist making the invisible, visible.
It is hardly surprising that Henry Fraser’s work has grown rapidly in popularity since he graduated
from Edinburgh College of Art almost nine years ago. His paintings achieve what great work should
accomplish. They draw you in, they lay the essence of their subjects bare and they connect with the
viewer. There is a ‘soulfulness’ that shines out. It’s also their slightly dark, quiet watchfulness that
leads you to look again and wonder if it’s sadness or menace that is really going on.
All the feelings about life that Henry sees on people’s faces round his Edinburgh studio – innocence,
guilt, great happiness or sadness, enlightenment or frustration – can be seen. He says ” In my work
I endeavour to paint the soul. To make the invisible, visible. I hope to engage the viewer in reflecting on
their own sense of being and mortality.”
Whatever you may think to Henrys’ work, it’s already becoming popular and collectors are saying good
things about it too. Someone to be watched.
Oliver Jeffers . New Paintings and Jewellery
Oliver Jeffers is so familiar to this site, that it says something about how prolific his output must be. His latest news comes in the form of a new gallery exhibition. The Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in Chelsea, New York are exhibiting a small collection of his work throughout December. Here’s a selection of his previous works in Oil and more examples from his site here.
He has also been busy working with Brooklyn jewellery designers Digby and Iona. They have developed a fab, fun range of silver charms that are taken from Olivers illustrations, if you’re a Jeffers fan you may well recognise the odd one or two ! You can see their collaborative work here.
There’s also a 25% off sale of some of his beautiful prints, seen and available here. Some great ideas for Christmas presents.
Chris Haughton . An Illustrator who’s not a bit lost!
I didn’t get around to telling you about a book I bought a month or two back by Chris Haughton. It’s called ‘A Bit Lost’ and is filled with wonderfully simplified children’s illustrations that look like they’ve come from the 1960’s. There may or may not be a small nod to the work of David Weidman here as the style has a similar quality. Chris is an Irish illustrator living and working in London. He regularly illustrates for publications such as The Guardian and The Independent.
Chris has a wonderful loose style and humour seems to be a large part of his work. See these examples he did for the DVLA, to show possible reasons why people didn’t pay their car tax.
Do you ever feel the wild calling to you ? He’s been busy making small animations and recently started looking at Pop Up Books too.
He also has strong links with a Fair Trade organisation called People Tree and has designed motifs for their clothing ranges. There’s a great interview over on Designboom.
Another all rounder I’d say. There’s also some of his lovely prints available from Canvas online store.
There’s a fascinating article here Chris wrote about publishing his book in Korea, prior to it being also taken up with Walker Books. After spending a few months out in Nepal Chris has worked with Node, a company producing a range of rugs based on his artwork. Chris has recently also given a small London exhibition to promote this work. You can see more images on his blog.
There’s also a sniff of a new book called ‘Oh No George’.
Fantastic work Chris, look forward to more books on the bookshelf !
Manon Gauthier . Children’s Illustrator and Painter
Montreal native Manon Gauthier is a self- taught illustrator and painter who studied graphic design and worked in that field for more than ten years. In 2006, after experiencing the joy of illustrating her first children’s book, she decided to devote herself to books for young people. Since then, Gauthier has illustrated a dozen books for Canadian and European publishers.
She has won several important prizes and nominations for her work, among them, two nominations for the Governor General’s Literary Awards (illustration), Canada’s most prestigious annual literary prize. As a member of the Quebec illustrators’ association, Illustration Québec, Gauthier has participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally.
She is also involved in a Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications’ program called Culture in the School, which was designed to ensure that the cultural dimension is integrated into classroom and school activities, and to promote careers in the arts. She regularly leads art workshops for children at the preschool, elementary and secondary school levels.
There is more work on her blog and Etsy Store. Such a quirky beautiful style, more please Manon !.
Phuong Mai Nguyen . Animator and artist.
Phuong Mai Nguyen graduated from Gobelins School of Image in Paris in 2009 and produces some beautiful work as you can see below.
There’s a complexity of styles that unfold through her work but cleverly she manages to combine them.
I love the shapes and feel to this short film and how one animal turns into the next, very clever.
One other quirky animation I came across is by Quentin Baillieux and Raphaëlle Tinland who also studied at Gobelins. Check out their wonderful film called Lavomatic.
Superb work everyone.
Victor Melamed . Russian Character Illustrator
Victor Melamed is a Russian illustator who also teaches in Moscow and contributes to the Russian Rolling Stone and New Yorker Magazines.
He regularly writes for an illustration site you can view through google translate here.
He seems to capture not only the faces of the stars he illustrates but their characters too.
I knew who most of these guys were before I even saw their names beneath. How many did you spot ? And for any of you in the Manchester area today (that’s UK folks), I’m doing a Craft Fair at Pownall Green Primary School on Bramhall Lane South, Stockport, SK72EB. Between 11am and 2pm, please pop in and say hello.
Small is beautiful. Michael Paul Smith, Erin Tyner and Slinkachu.
Do you feel that you’ve been here before ? Perhaps you’re parents grew up in the USA here ?
Or how about these streets ?
Would you be surprised to find out that the above places don’t exist anywhere that you can drive to, they have all been created by the very talented model builder Michael Paul Smith. The places form an imaginary town from Michael’s memories of his growing up. He has skilfully constructed them over hours and hours of patient labour and photographs the end results, often using real backgrounds in the distance that fit into the scale of his model street landscape.
There’s a great interview from The International Craftsmanship Museum on Michael here. If you like this era (as you will know by now that I do) then pick up a copy of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson and you’re in for a treat of 50’s and 60’s Americana. Another artist who works with models is Erin Tyner. She sells photographs of her creations on Etsy.
She says ” My background is in the field of mental health with degrees in Psychology, Criminal Studies and a Masters in Social Work. Before taking up photography I worked as a behavioral therapist. Now I am creating and selling photography but my interest in human behavior continues to influence my work.”
I love the moods that her images suggest.
Another artist who’s been creating small worlds, but with a degree of humour is Slinkachu.
There’s a great interview about the artist on the More Intelligent Life site here.
He quite often leaves the miniature sets where he photographs them and says that he returned to one about five days later and it was still there ! He says ” I started buying hard plastic train set figures and modifying them. I scrape away the details with a tiny knife, using a magnifying glass. I change them, too. One guy who was riding a bike, I turned him into a superhero about to fly off a building. I’ve used old zoo figures from the ’60s.” Keep an eye out for something small coming to your neighbourhood soon !
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