Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Pink Elephants on Parade
Cover illustration by Toshiyuki Fukuda
One of the few reasons I did like going to the Circus as a kid,
at the end I got to ride the baby elephant...
CYRK elephant poster by Jan Mlodozeniech, 1966
CYRK elephant poster by Hubert Hilscher, 1964
Elephant by Naoto Kitamura
Elephant with long trunk by Mieczyslaw Wasilewski, 1974
Skinny elephant with butterfly ears by Andrzej Pagowski, 1979
Carlsberg Elephant Beer by Kjed Nielsen, 1960
La Collina degli Elefanti book cover by Sabrina Lupacchini, 2007
Illustration from La Petite Famille by John Alcorn, 1964
thanks to art.crazed's fantastic flickr stream
The Elephant Book cover by Ed Powers, 1963
thanks to Eric Sturdevant's awesome flickr collection of vintage children's books
Red Elephant by Edward Gorey
Monday, December 28, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Sunday Safari – The Circus is in Town
Christmastime in Italy is also Circus time (ok, here everyday is Circus time -
but that's another story). I have never been a fan of traditional circus animal acts,
but how could I escape the charm of their colorful and quirky transfiguration into
a rainbow of shapes, silhouettes and symmetries by imaginative artists across the land?
Two illustrations from the comic book Alex, Il Piccolo fantastico Giocoliere
(Alex, the Amazing Juggler) by Gianni Peg, 1981
Cyrk by Józef Wilkon
Hooggeëerd publiek. Circus in Nederland Toneelmuseum poster,
Amsterdam, 1978, from ReclameArsenaal
3 Beagles, Monkey on bicycle, 2 growling tigers, and 2 hugging bears
posters by Wiktor Gorka, 1968–71
Gianluigi Toccafondo - The Tail
Gianluigi Toccafondo is a very talented painter, illustrator and animator who lives in Milan since 1987. He was born in the tiny country of San Marino (like Nicoletta Ceccoli) in 1965, and received his artistic training from his ceramist father and later at ISIA graphic school in Urbino. He has collaborated with many important Italian publishers and magazines, and is famous for the animated videos he creates for advertising and tv show title sequences. Toccafondo has also produced seven animated short films as personal projects. For his 1989 debut La coda (the tail), he used about 1200 stills from Buster Keaton movies, which he photographed, xeroxed, painted and then filmed with a 35mm camera.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Bestiarium Wilkonia - The Horses
This is the second in a series of posts dedicated to the works of Polish artist Józef Wilkon.
You can see Wilkon's big cats and read a short biography here.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
We sailed away on a winter's day
...thinking of Joanna Newsom, this sweet stop-motion video was produced
by Jovana Sarver in the Film and Video classroom of her high school in Harrisburg, PA.
the sight of bridges and balloons makes calm canaries irritable!
The Meadowlark and the Chim-choo-ree and the Sparrow
Amy Dover is a young artist from County Durham in North East England.
She studied Art and Graphic Design, and after graduating in 2008,
has been devoting her talents to art, illustration and letterpress printing.
Amy's draws inspiration from nature, folktales and ancient myths.
She loves antiques and vintage ephemera, and sometimes uses old books
and letters as a support for her graphite pencil drawings.
Amy also loves listening to music, and for her degree show she decided to illustrate
some of the animal metaphors contained in Joanna Newsom's Ys. Seeing her Ys-inspired
artworks on Behance really piqued my interest, since I am a huge Newsom fan.
In fact, after discovering Ys, I spent months obsessively listening to it and extolling
its virtues to family and friends. I think that Amy's project is a fantastic idea, since
Newsom's songs are full of poetic narratives, deep symbolism and beautiful imagery.
Dover's haunting animal pictures, much like Joanna's songs, are exquisitely
and traditionally crafted, and explore the dramatic aspects of the natural world
and its conflictual relation with our "civilized" approach to life.
Blind My Buttons with Salt. Fill My Long Ears with Bees,
from Newsom's Sawdust and Diamonds
Ursula, from Monkey and Bear
Half-word, from Only Skin
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