Performers, Acrobats & Clowns

The last act of this year's Circus festival is an episode from the very charming and funny

2003 tv series Creature Comforts created by Nick Parks at Aardman Animations.

The original concept utilizes bits of interviews with members of the public,

whose voices are then used to animate a long series of animal characters. 

Especially interesting to those of you who can understand English, 

since the best thing about these shorts is the humorous matching 

between the words spoken and the situations portrayed.

Monday Matticchio

French Finesse

This gorgeous volume by Jean-François Martin was the winner of this year's 

Bologna Ragazzi Award in the fiction category.

Jean-François Martin is a graphic designer and illustrator living in Paris. Since 1993, 

he has published many children's books with major French companies like Nathan, Flammarion, and Bayard. 

Fables d'Esope has come out for Milan Jeunesse, the same lovely people who last year published 

Sebastiano's Animal Rainbow. In fact, when we visited Milan's booth to talk about future projects, 

I completely forgot to take a good look at the book, so the following photos come courtesy of School Library Journal.

Both illustrations and typography have a wonderful retro feel,

but I'll let the jury do the talk, since they are much more eloquent than me: 

“Countless illustrators have returned down the ages to the ancient magic of the fairytale.

 Here it seems that Felix Valloton in his halcyon years has returned to instill a new pace

 into a time-honoured tale, without, however, diminishing its power. The splendid illustrations resonate 

to mysterious melodies. Allusive line-work, intriguing faces and a subtle blend of ochre and grey tones

 are all bathed in a captivating surreal light that draws everything together. A truly magnificent 

“tale of all tales”, this book is a typographical masterpiece blending to perfection beautiful type faces 

with an unusual yet extraordinarily harmonious amalgam of delicate almost unsubstantiated hues.”

Funny thing is, when I visited Albin Michel's booth I was drawn to the striking cover

of this book of cat tales. The inside illustrations were also very intriguing, so I took 

quite a few photos and only days after I realized that they were by the same artist.

As you can see, these artworks too are rich with historical references.

The scene above in particular strongly reminds me of William Nicholson's woodcuts. 

Well, it was love at first sight...

Now I can't wait to see more of Martin's books, 

including the very promising Nouvel abécédaire Russe!

Illustrarium, part 2

A few more Lithuanian gems before we move on to other artists, other lands

 Ula Šimulynaitė, who created these four illustrations for Kotons in Paris in 2010,

says "when I’m creating illustrations, I look at the world and try to imagine it as if still being a child.

 And I always hope that the reader will discover and recognize a part of himself in the works I create". 

For sure, as a child I would have adored these, and I still love them... 

Eglė Gelažiūtė-Petrauskienė, two illustrations from Little Silvermouse

The Seagull and the Cat Who Showed It How to Fly by Luis Sepulveda.

Lina Dūdaitė was put on IBBY’s 2010 List of Honour for her illustrations to the book. 

Kęstutis Kasparavičius, two illustrations from The White Elephant

illustration from Florentius the Gardener

cover of There is a Little Old Man in this Hut

Kęstutis Kasparavičius is one of Lithuania's most famous illustrators, with over 50 children's books 

published in 22 languages, and has been the recipient of numerous awards. 

Two of his titles have recently come out in Italy thanks to the small publisher

Comma 22, who has also published the excellent and very cool design books 

for children by Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizielinski aka Hipopotam Studio.

Sunday Safari - War Zone

 Michael Glenwood

 Braldt Bralds, Gold'n Plump

 Alex Gross, Shokei

 Doug Johnson, Screaming for Vengeance album cover

 Beat Takeshi Kitano, Imperial Army Elephant via Creative Review

 Banksy

 Brad Holland

 John Heartfield, War and cadavers, the last hope of the rich, 1932

thanks to Gunther Stephan of Weimar Art and Modernity

 Heather Watts, The Rat King

 Waldemar Swierzy, Dog of War

illustration from the book Tales for Little Rebels

Marco Cazzato, cover illustration for La rivolta del caporale Asch

 Damian Loeb, Race Right By, thanks to Dark Silence In Suburbia

La Boca

Sunday Safari - Animal Orchestra

poster by Rolf Knie, 1996

These past couple of weeks have been strangely quiet around here, as you may have noticed. 

I have been in Viareggio working with my friend Pierluigi of airbag design on the layout of an art exhibition catalog, 

and we had so much to do and such a tight deadline that I wasn't able to dedicate my time to anything else. 

Luckily the project was interesting, and I'll be showing some of the artworks exhibited soon. 

But first, let's celebrate my return to Florence and to Animalarium with some happy music!

illustration from Animal Orchestra by Tibor Gergely, 1958,

thanks to flamenconut

Jonas Bergstrand for Gruppe Gut, Bolzano

Michael Robertson, Samba for Rats

Calef Brown

Józef Wilkoń, Blues Nosorozca

Franco Matticchio, Thelonyous Kat and the Black Hats

poster by Franciszek Starowieyski, 1960

cover of Tooters, Tweeters, Strings and Beaters by Art Seiden,

1964, thanks to Curious Pages

pattern by Nate Williams

Groovy grubworm, uncredited record cover, 

thanks to Groove Is In The Art

Karine Bernadou, thanks to Words and Eggs

Michael Gillette

Check out Pet Sounds for more animal music!