What Do You Want to Do Before You Die?

The four guys from The Buried Life on the cover of their book

I'm currently reading the book What Do You Want to do Before You Die?

It's a really inspiring read of how four young guys formed a group called The Buried Life and wrote a bucket list of 100 goals. They ended up achieving most of them like playing basketball with President Obama and being on the Oprah show.

The rest of the book is filled with bucket list ideas from people all around the world. Reading this book is so inspiring, after reading some of the goals they achieved it reinforces that truly, anything is possible.

Also as a side note - I posted this pic on my new instagram account, to keep up with my illustrations and work please check it out here.

Happy Easter & Painted Eggs

Painting white gouache on boiled eggs

Finished!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Easter weekend!  x

Currently reading: Modern Dog

I'm currently reading Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art. 20 years is a long time to be creating art, and there's some awesome posters in this book, but I also love reading the often funny stories behind how the artwork was created.

Botticelli’s muse

Botticelli has always been my favourite artist, the elegant women he paints seem to possess a mysterious, ethereal beauty. When I visited the Uffizi gallery, I could not take my eyes away from his paintings, and seeing all the amazing details up close. Until now, I had no idea the women he painted was based on his muse, Simonetta Vespucci, the most beautiful woman of Florence. Read more here.

Marc McKee

It's been a while since I posted any book reviews, but I haven't seen any art/design books that caught my attention. Apart from this one, of course. What caught my eye with Warning: The Art of Marc Mckee was the front cover, and the rest of the book is pretty darn awesome as well. It's by the same book publishers that published a book on Todd Bratrud (and I wrote a review of that book here) so if you love skateboard art then you just might love this book, too.

Tara Phillips

I recently discovered the amazing work of Sydney-based illustrator Tara Phillips. Her work has a ethereal feel and she creates worlds filled with air-brushed beauties. I love it! View more of her work here.

David Vicente

Pin-ups, skulls, American cars, motorcycles... I am completely in awe of the work of French illustrator David Vicente. Check out his website here.

Neil Gaiman Inspirational Speech

Yes, this video is 20 minutes long, but it is fascinating viewing for anyone in the creative field. I listened to it in the background while working on something else. SO INSPIRING!

Andreas Krapf

'Sweeet!' Were my thoughts when I saw the work of Andreas Krapf. I love the cuteness and storylines in his illustrations, the Ray Ban's ad is my fave. Check out more of his work here.

Aurora Lady

Cathedral of Rebellion by Aurora Lady

I love reading the Agent Lover blog, and they featured a lovely interview with LA artist Aurora Lady. They asked her if she has any advice for aspiring lady artists, and she gave an awesome reply:

Eliminate the static! Find a job that allows you to showcase and use your talents, and if you don’t have that job yet, create it. Don’t waste time on people who are dream killers—seriously, break off all ties from them and get the hell out. Be ruthless and use every moment to work on your art—even if you are working a desk job, have notepads next to you so you can write down every idea, and listen to podcasts that inspire you while you are pushing papers. Wake up an hour early to draw before your commute. Use your sketchbook at lunch and take notes on everything.  Talk to EVERYONE about what you are passionate about, and don’t limit your social circle to other artists! Your vision is needed and there is room for every sort of perspective. Look for opportunities to help others—ask what their passions are and connect people. Most of all, just keep going and don’t get discouraged. I mean that. It’s really, really easy to say I’m never going to get anywhere with this, and stop. That’s a sad way to live. If I had given up, I’d still be living in a podunk town, wishing I had had the guts to go balls to the wall and make money off my art.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Six Years Later

Embossed and varnished cover - so nice!

Two of my illustrations are featured in Issue 2 of Six Years Later Magazine. I created Cross My Heart and Truth, Love, Beauty as separate illustrations but it was great to see them together as a spread, as the oval shapes were nicely symmetrical.

There are loads of creative individuals featured, so if you're in the need for some inspiration you can purchase issue 2 of 6YL here.

So Yoon Lym

Gee Hale

Left: Bruno Borges        Right: Carmel Seymour

Curvy Book 8

My Frankettes illustration is featured in Curvy Book 8! It's super cool to be in the book as Curvy has spent nearly a decade uncovering the world’s most creative female illustrators and artists. There's a ton of amazing artists in the book - I posted a few of my faves below...

Sonya Fu

Deb

Miss Van

R. Black

The book comes with 3D glasses as a few of his illustrations have been rendered 3D.

R. Black is the man behind some of the most memorable gig posters in the past few years. The book Futura documents his style of creating vector illustrations that are often quite dark.

There is an intro by Brian Ewing (remember I posted a review about his book here?), but there isn't much else in terms of interviews or notes to read. Which is a shame, since I like to read about the people behind the artworks and I like to know how they got started, etc. I did find an interesting interview with him online here, where he talks about his work.

Nevertheless, the work is AMAZING and as a visual history it is an awesome book. I definitely recommend it!

Aseo

I love the incredible vector artworks by Philippine artist Vincent Rhafael Aseo. Aren't the vibrant colours and swirling linework just so amazing? Check out his website here.

Domestic Etch Growth & Decay

Domestic Etch cover illustration by Danny Brito

Earlier this year, I posted about the Frankettes illustration I did for Domestic Etch Magazine. I received a copy of the mag in the post, and was super happy to see that the electric pink and green colours pop off the page!

The issue featured some interesting interviews with Danny Brito and Sam McKenzie. You can see a preview of the issue here.

Lettering

Last year, I had a go at some typographic works using found objects (click here to see). It was loads of fun, and made me more interested in illustrating words to tell a story.

A book I recently purchased for typographic inspiration is Lettering: Beyond Computer Graphics. As the name suggests, it's choc-a-bloc with hand drawn typography using all mediums (one example uses cheese on a pizza!)

I'd recommend this book for all the typographic nuts.

Yuko Shimizu

Some great advice from Yuko Shimizu:

First of all, love what you do. If you are not in love with what you do you can never compete in a field where everyone else have so much passion in what they do.
Have high ambitions, and work harder than your ambitions. School may be a hard work, but you will soon realize that you have to work even harder in the real world. Hard work is not so hard if you are in love with what you do.
Let yourself experiment and grow. Be open to constructive criticism. You are an artist and not craftsman who's job is to create the same things over and over again.
Don’t forget that you are running a small business as well as being an artist. Learn to be a good business person. Be nice.
Don’t ever try to be someone else who is already in the field. Be the best of who you are and who you can become. Try and aim to create something nobody else has done/seen.

I highly recommend reading the rest of her advice here.