Illustration by Margot Bowman

I have become a litte obsessed by fashion illustration of late. The reason being that my daughter Hope announced the other day that she was going to be one. This was not totally out of the blue, as her father had come to Australia in the late 80′s hoping to make his fortune doing just that and her big sister Ella, has just done an intensive fashion drawing course in Paris.
So like all good and slightly over enthusiastic mothers I have devoted myself to finding her lots of examples of different fashion illustration styles. I’m sure she is appreciative of this…anyway I am sure you will be interested in some of the cool illustrators I have found.

Zoe Taylor http://www.zoetaylor.co.uk
Kat Macleod http://www.ortolon.com.au
Rebecca Wetzler http://www.rebeccawetzler.com
Eduard Erlikh http://www.erlikh.com
Mats Gustafson http://matsgustafson.org
David Downtown http://www.daviddowntown.com
Margot Bowman http://www.margotbowman.com

I am sure there are many, many more but I guess I should do some work:)

This one is by Steve McCarthy

Anyway here are six that I like alot. Have a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.mralanclarke.com

http://chrisjudge.4ormat.com

http://mrstevemccarthy.blogspot.com

http://www.davidcreative.co.uk

http://www.markreihill.com

http://www.davidrooney.com

Brain, John Holcroft

I was flipping through the overseas supplements yesterday and I came across six UK illustrators I hadn’t heard of and became reacquainted with Francesco Bongiorni’s work.

Music Travel, Francesco Bongiorni

Here are their web addresses. Go and have a look for yourself.

Francesco Bongiorni http://www.francescobongiorni.com

John Holcroft http://www.johnholcroft.com

Brett Ryder http://www.brettryder.co.uk

Sandra Suy http://sandrasuy.com

Martin Haake http://martinhaake.de

Julian Mosedale http://www.julianmosedale.co.uk

Michael Kirkham http://www.michaelkirkham.com

However there is a whole group of artists who disagree. Tea towels are now becoming art. Companies such as Third Draw Down, http://www.thirddrawerdown.com ,  http://www.remedyonline.net.au and http://www.todryfor.com are commissioning artists and illustrators to design tea towels for them.

Abigal Crompton, Remedy Online

Katherine Brickman, Third Drawer down

Gemma Correll, To Dry For

The British Council even have tea towels in their collection by the artists Unity Peg http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/19174

Unity Peg, British Council

The problem is, what do you do with your tea towel art, do you use it, put it in a draw, or maybe hang it on the wall?  Tell me what you think.

Jamie, we are on first name basis, is a spanish artist-designer. He studied industrail design in Madrid and Paris. After college he joined Fabrica, the Benetton-funded design group and communications academy. He was very quickly promoted to head of the design department and worked closely with Oliverio Toscani on a wide range of projects.

After eight years he went out on his own, starting out with a collection of designer toys, ceramics and furniture. He also branched out into interior design and installations. 

For more information about him check out his website www.hayonstudio.com

Now, in the world of anything to do with design, he is a legend.

What many people don’t know about Jamie is that he is also an illustrator and whilst I was art director of Boss magazine he did three or four illustrations for me.

He was always lovely to work with and his quirky take on those boring stories made them almost readable. It was only after I came back from maternity in 2006 that he was no longer able to work with us. By then he was too busy running around the world being a design superstar.

Thanks Jamie.

On the weekend dad was telling about a town in New South Wales called Walcha, that is making a concerted effort to support the arts.

The Walcha Council, at the suggestion of the Walcha Arts Council, decided to develop Walcha as an Open Air Gallery.

There are 41 pieces of art around the town, a lot of them made from local timber, by local, nation and international artist.

Go and have a look at some of them.

http://www.walchansw.com.au/attractions/open-air-sculptures.php

I took my son and daughter and her friend, Issy, to the White Rabbit Gallery during the break.

This is White Rabbit’s third exhibition, and it is titled ‘The Big Bang”. It ‘celebrates the explosion of creativity that has rocked China since its “Opening Up” to the global economy began in 2000′.  http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/news/now-showing/

There are 35 artists in the exhibition and it has some truely wonderful pieces in it. My favourite I think was Li Hongbo’s amazing work Paper

The attendant kindly explained to us what it was made of and how it had come in two indentical pieces and that one of the pieces had been un-assembled to create this amazing organic and endlessly expandable  sculpture that you can see in the picture.

I also loved Thrown to the Wind, Wang Zhiyuan’s three-storey tornado of discarded plastic bottles, Wang Jianwei’s The Flying Bird is Motionless, a giant sculpture-video installation on the paradoxes of time and motion, Han Jinpeng’s video-paintings, in which bad weather has its way with classic paintings (although only one was working) and Ai Weiwei’s, 500-kg pile of porcelain sunflower seeds, which had been individually painted by hand.

All the kids enjoyed it and on the way home in the car we discussed which artwork was our favourite. Jack, my five year old loved The Flying Bird is Motionless, because he liked the Kung Fu fighting in the video. Hope liked the dripping Mona Lisa of Han Jingpeng and Issyliked, Asking God and Red Memory-smile, both by Chen Wenling, which are on permanent display in the foyer of the gallery.

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year.

“Lowlands away” is a song about a man who drowns at sea and comes back to tell his lover of his death. Philipsz sings the song herself , acapella, and it was first performed under the three bridges of the River Clyde in Glasgow, Philipsz home town. This is a link to it.

http://www.wikio.com/video/lowlands—susan-philipsz-turner-winner-4726668

Aural art is always so interesting and what each person gets from it so varied. Children always love it and will listen captivated for as long as your patience lasts.

What is it about some fonts that they just make some letters or punctuation look awesome. This one is called Farnham and I think the question mark looks great in it, although I don’t really like the rest of the font. See what you think at http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/fontbureau/farnham/

My Friend Oli Vickery who has a design company called Six Black Pens once asked a bunch of art directors what their favourite character was in their favourite font.  http://www.sixblackpens.com/09_SIXOFTHEBEST_type.html

Check it out and tell me what yours is?