Video

It has been a while since my last blog post.
I've been busy lately and I promise there will be some really good news very very soon...!!

In the meantime, I would like to share this video I've just found on Vimeo.
It's about the brilliant Renata Liwska and the journey of how she became a children's book illustrator. The story is told by her husband, who is also an amazing illustrator.

It's always so interesting to discover about how other people got to the point they are now. Usually, it's very different from what I was expecting.
If that interested you too, don't miss this nice little video.
Happy Sunday!


A Quiet Look - How to become a children's book illustrator in one (not so easy) step from mike kerr on Vimeo.

Italian discoveries

When I went to Italy for my these past Christmas holidays, I had the chance to visit lots of bookstores and look at what Italian illustration looks like on the bookshelves. 

And I must say I was really impressed! 

Having started my illustration career here in Australia, I haven't really get the chance to see what was happening in my old country. Lots of books they have there are inaccessible here, and vice versa. 

So I seized the moment and bought some Italian illustrated books! 

My absolutely favourite one is "Favole per bambini spiritosi", a collection of short (and cheeky!) stories written by Gianni Rodari (a very well know children's books writer) and illustrated by Mariachiara Di Giorgio, whose name was totally unfamiliar to me. 

But that's why I was so pleasantly surprised, I think. I totally fell in love with her illustrations, they are sooo amazing! 

The style -in particular, medium and colours- reminds me a lot of Isabel Arsenault, a Canadian illustrator that I craaaazy love. 

Here some snapshot of what the book looks like. 

I read the stories and they are as beautiful as the illustrations. 

Best Christmas buy, indeed. 

Peggy

Happy start of spring everyone!

Last Saturday I went to The Little Bookroom for the launch of "Peggy", the new picture book of the lovely Anna Walker.
There were lots of people attending the launch and Anna read the book for us.
Obviously, I bought a copy for myself and got it signed! Yay!
Here are some photos.

Horrible Harriet

Yesterday I spent my lunch break in the library at school reading picture books. While browsing I came across a book by Australian author and illustrator Leigh Hobbs, Horrible Harriet
. I can now say this is the funniest and cleverest picture book I've ever read. I loved the story and the main character, Harriet, is just amazingly pictured. What really opened my eyes was the end (don't worry, I won't spoilt anything)... it definitely didn't end how I expected! Which is always a good thing!!

Victoria Jamieson Illustration course

Hey! Today I found something I REALLY need to share. Because it's so good that needs to be shared!
So, I've found the blog of illustrator and teacher Victoria Jamieson. A while ago she published on her blog summaries of classes she did to her students about how to create picture books. They're quick sums of a whole classes but really packed of super useful info from beginning to end!! I really recommend to read all of them if you're interested in illustrating and/or writing a picture book.
The followings are the links to the lessons in random order. Enjoy and let me know if you've founded it amazing as I did!!

Colours
Image composition
Characters
Characters 2
Narrative structure
Narrative structure 2
Endings
Great tips for illustrators

Shopping

Last weekend I stopped in a bookshop in the city. I spent ages flicking through the books in the children's section and found so many I wanted to buy... in the end I bought just two, but really awesome ones! Have a look!

The stories are pretty lovely too...

Lorena Alvarez

Here we go with another awesome illustrator from my list.
Lorena Alvarez is a freelance illustrator, based in Bogotá, Colombia. Her work includes traditional techniques, digital media and photography.
She's also part of an experimental puppetry group. How cool!
I just love her original backgrounds and use of colour.
Here some of her awesome work

Second illustrator I wanna to thank is the awesome Laura Hughes.
How awesome is her style? How awesome are her colours? How cute are her characters? How can you not fall in love with her illustrations?
How can you not visit her website??

Thanks!

Last week I contacted five of my favourite illustrators asking them for advice. I can't tell you yet what my question was about (I will tell you soon, hopefully!) but in the meantime what I can do is thank them. In fact, all of them reply and gave me wonderful tips! How kind! So I thought the least I can do is to do a little review about them and their work.

First one is Maria Bogade. She is a children's book illustrator and her work is all about watercolours, delicacy and cuteness.
She also does some digital work and that's what I really prefer about her work.
Please have a look at her website.

Back!

Hello friendly people!
I haven't write anything in the last two weeks because a friend of mine came to visit from Italy and we had a wonderful two weeks holiday together, so basically I was too busy having fun to write on the blog!:) Now I feel recharged and ready to be productive again!

The first thing I would like to do is sharing with you this awesome book called Wildwood written by Colin Meloy and illustrated by the unbelievably awesome Carson Ellis.

I haven't bought and read the book yet, but I will (hopefully soon!). In the meantime I read things about it all around the internet and I can't wait to have a copy of it.

On the book's blog you can find the process for the illustration cover. When I read it I was totally amazed since she revealed how long took her to do that and how hard was to come up with the final piece.
I believe it's always incredibly fascinating looking at other people processes because it's almost like going inside their heads and retrace the exact path they went through in order to come up with the final... so fascinating!!

Please have a look, it's interesting and beautiful

Wildwood blog

What a day!

What a day yesterday!
So many things happened in just one day that I felt I couldn't even be able to appreciate them properly all at once.
First of all in the morning I started to work on a new project.
British magazine Stylist has started a competition where readers can submit their illustrated cover and the winner will see his own artwork on the 100th issue. The theme is celebration and I've decided to try. Yay! Sounds exciting. To read more just follow this link

Design Stylist 100th cover

Then in the afternoon I went to the Australian Academy of Design here in Melbourne to see a talk given by Shaun Tan. And how nice! He is such a good speaker and you could tell by listening to how he speaks about illustration that he is such an honest artist.
I was amazed by his talk I decided to bought a book and I've got it signed!


If you haven't got a chance to see him live yet, you can watch this speech he gave at the University of WA on the ABC website.

Shaun Tan Talk

After that, I went to the Blue Tile Lounge, a little bar in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, where my friend and classmate Donna last week organized a little exhibition with some of the screen print work we did at school.


(Sorry, photos are terrible but it was very dark in there!)

As I said already, what a day... !

The dark art of pricing

Illustrator and designer Jessica Hische recently wrote an awesome post on her blog with tips and thoughts about pricing art jobs.
It is definitely something that every freelance artist should read.

She talks about pros and cons of hourly rates, and the importance of licensing. She also gives practical examples and that's why I love this article.

Moreover in her blog you can find lots of other good info. So go now!

Jessica Hische's blog

Anya's ghost

Yesterday I received a parcel from Amazon and inside there was something really nice... "Anya's ghost"!! Finally!:D
I was so excited I started reading it straight away and a couple of hours later I was already at the last page!

The critic on the cover from Neil Gaiman says "A masterpiece!" and yes, it is!
It such a lovely comic about a girl named Anya who has to deal with the difficult years of High School and a ghost friend.

The author is called Vera Brosgol and this is her debut book. What a awesome way to start! She was a storyboard artist for the animated film version of Coraline and one of my favorite artist.

The drawings are amazing, the character is lovely (and it probably will remind you of your own struggle as a teenager), the story is paced and convincing.
So if you like comics just buy it and read it!
Let's support young and talented people!


Vera Brosgol website
Buy the book from here
Read the book's preview here!

Quentin Blake in action

Did you know you can look at the legendary Quentin Blake creating an illustration in front of you? How awesome is that??

---> Quentin Blake in action

Shaun Tan in Melbourne

Hello world, I've just found out in September Shaun Tan is going to be in Melbourne having a presentation at the Australian Academy of Design.

I'm going to quote the flier of the event:

"Join Shaun as he takes the audience through his creative process and his journey as an artist/writer, which has involved moving from painting to illustration, and then graphic novels to film, with the central theme that everything comes from a very local and personal source.

The presentation will be part of an Exhibition on the making of Shaun’s Oscar winning film “The Lost Thing”. Registration includes an invitation to attend the Australian Academy Awards in Animation following Shaun’s presentation.

Don’t miss this amazing opportunity! Tickets only $25 per person and are strictly limited".

Therefore, for God's sake, don't miss out this event, it will be fun! So if any Melbournians want to come I suggest to book soon! And please let me know!! It would be nice to meet there.

For more info visit designacademy.edu.au/

Jodee Taylah

Today at school we had a nice surprise: illustrator Jodee Taylah came to talk to the class. She graduated in 2009 from the same course I'm attending at the moment, diploma of illustration at NMIT in Melbourne, and since then she worked hard to affirm herself as an illustrator.
Her style is dark and gothic, so basically if you like Tim Burton, dark fiction and vampires she will be your favourite illustrator ever. Personally, I was into this kind of things ten years ago, now I'm definitely into more colorful stuff but I have to say that her artworks are really amazing. I had the chance to have a look at her preliminary drawings for the book she recently published and they are absolutely stunning.

Also she was really nice with us and gave us a lot of useful tips about the "world out there".

If you want to have a look at her great artwork, this is her website
toxicapplestudios.com

How to start?

She an illustrator from Italy (like me!:)) and she very talented other than funny.
Moreover, she put together a little but super useful guide which she published here of some really interesting articles about how to start an illustration career.
Oh, yes, her name is Giulia Sagramola... have a look and your day will be better.