London-based Alice Stevenson is a surface designer, illustrator and artist who has worked with a diverse range of clients including Volvo, Nokia, Faber and Faber, St Jude’s, Vodafone, Pan Macmillan and Random House in the USA. I’ve noticed her patterns before but had forgotten about them somewhere along the way, until I found her again on Etsy. I’m glad I did because I just realized there was a whole new dimension to her work besides patterns — her watercolors are gorgeous and so are her landscape drawings — and she’s also dabbling in hand-lettering.
You can read more about her on her blog and get yourself some fine prints over at her Etsy shop.
I’m not sure what it’s like where you live, but here, it’s the season for Andy Kehoe. We’ve had damp foggy mornings and most of the trees around here are becoming naked.
Oooo, that reminds me of Andy’s story on how he became an artist! You should read it. Anyway, whether it’s sunny and warm by you, please take a moment to rake up some Andy Kehoe or store him on your wall year round with a giclee from his Etsy!
I’ve been getting a few mail with zines and books to review lately and separate posts will take too long, so I’m going to collect them all in one post for your enjoyment! 🙂
The full name of this book is NO! A lesson in love — which got my imagination into hyperdrive a little, since Sam hasn’t yet released pictures of her book a few weeks ago (images of gender issues immediately came to mind!) I was really surprised when I got the copy of the book though — it’s a really fun tribute to Sam’s dog: a schnauzer named Gunnie (also known as Jang Gun).
The book’s premise is a simple one — Sam describes the book as an allegory of good dog ownership, and shows how dogs show only unconditional love no matter how we interpret their little quirks. Sam initially drew the illustrations in black and white, but decided to scrap her original plans and drew with crayons instead to experiment with color, which I thought turned out perfect for the book and set the tone that would reel in both children and adults alike.
The Weird Fish Factopedia
When Martyn Warren approached me about the Weird Fish Factopedia, I was intrigued. As a person completely devoid of knowledge about fishes of any sort, I was interested to know what made a Weird Fish, well, weird. Turns out Martyn didn’t need to convince me a whole lot about Weird fishes (who swim alongside their other cousin, Normal fish) — I want one of my own now.
Filled with funny anecdotes and facts (all made up, just in case you were confused 😉 Martyn sure does a good job of entertaining this reader. I found the drawing of fishes mating particularly hilarious! (I’ve neglected to see if this is how some fishes do the deed, but I digress…) It also has some political satire woven in between its pages as well, and you can actually glean from this review is that Martyn has quite the imagination. I can’t wait for more!
Atem books
Atem books is an independent publishing house based in Catalunya, Spain that focus on artist books. They’re also the publisher of Carpaccio magazine — a magazine about illustration, photography and art. They’ve sent in two zines: De posible a imposible, 20 veces by Maria Mantella and A Quiet Stage by Daniel Mendoza.
Maria’s zine reads more like a showcase of her past works — with captions in Spanish (that I couldn’t quite understand). The zine was perfect bound and in full color — beautiful, save for the fact that a saddle stitched format would have made a better choice. (the thin zine lacked the amount of pages necessary to go through with perfect binding, so it showed signs of strain easily).
Daniel’s zine is entirely in black and white; his illustrations are detailed and so are the characters depicted. It’s a symbolic story, and the reader is ultimately left with their own conclusion to make. I interpreted it as still frames, each bearing a glimmer of hope for their character. If you’re into photography, illustration and art, there’s plenty more to choose from over at their site!
Anorak Books
Anorak from the UK is making waves in the children’s publishing industry with their excellent books — not surprising since their tagline reads The Happy Mag for Kids and I’m hard pressed to find anything otherwise. They sent me a couple of their coloring books (featured here are the ones illustrated by Tad Carpenter (featured previously ) and Adam Higton) and their first ever Activity Kit (with a lovely cover by Supermundane.)
I really love the energy of these books. Though printed in one color (and black’s not it) they’ve managed to set a fun canvas for kids’ imagination to run wild. I wished that Anorak was around when I was a young ‘un, precisely because these are the kind of books I’d want to read along with my kids.
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If you have a zine that you want me to see, drop me an email at amy{AT}pikaland.com (I can’t promise that I’ll feature each and every one though!)
Have a great weekend everyone and I’ll see you back on Monday!
Hi there and welcome to Pikaland! This is my personal playground where I write and research about art, creativity, and the pursuit of art entrepreneurship. Enjoy!
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