Illustration

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Art Illustration

Miniature Watercolor Landscapes and Fashion Sketches Delicately Painted on Used Tea Bags

After a good steep, Ruby Silvious (previously) reuses her tea bags as miniature canvases to paint sliced watermelon, serene landscapes, and models adorned in dress-shaped candy wrappers. The works typically keep the tags attached, reminding the viewer of their beverage-based origin. Her newest works were created during an art residency in Arenys de Munt, a town 45 minutes outside of Barcelona, Spain. In March 2019, her miniature paintings will be featured in a solo exhibition at Creative Space Hayashi located in Chigasaki, Japan. You can see more of Silvious’s work on her website and Instagram.

Design History Illustration

Hundreds of Japanese Firework Illustrations Now Available for Free Download

In the early 20th-century English fireworks company C.R. Brock and Company (now known as Brocks Fireworks) published colorful catalogs displaying designs from Japanese companies such as Hirayama Fireworks and Yokoi Fireworks. Six catalogs of diverse pyrotechnic diagrams have been digitized and made available for download thanks to the city of Yokohama’s public library. If you don’t read Japanese, you can download each publication’s PDF by visiting their website, clicking one of the book’s English titles near the bottom of the page, and then clicking “本体PDF画像” link below the image. Each catalog is a tremendous and varied selection of the firework shapes and colors of the time, with several designs you might recognize no matter where you view contemporary fireworks displays. (via Open Culture)

Art Illustration

Meditative Geometric Shapes Doodled on Old Ledgers by Albert Chamillard

Albert Chamillard’s monochromatic pen drawings have drawn acclaim for their ability to calm the minds of viewers. It’s interesting to learn, then, that Chamillard listens to punk and metal while crafting his art, which he shared in an interview with Faithwaites. Though each monochromatic pen-wrought work is undeniably flat, the artist’s careful use of cross-hatching creates a sense of volume by contrasting more- and less-saturated areas. Chamillard uses found and deadstock paper, especially vintage ledgers, and engages the papers’ subtle blue and red writing rules to frame subtle zig-zag patterns within each imagined plane, which further enlivens his seemingly simple drawings.

When he’s not working on his personal projects after hours, Chamillard runs a drawing and book making studio in Tucson, Arizona. He is represented by Eric Firestone Gallery in New York and Etherton Gallery in Tuscon. You can see more from the artist on Instagam.

Design Illustration

Technicolor Tattoos Mix Psychedelic Graphics with Memphis-Inspired Patterns

Oregon-based tattoo artist Dave, a.k.a. Winston the Whale, uses a wide spectrum of colors in his trippy tattoos. The works merge a 60s aesthetics with inspirations from Scandinavian folk art to Memphis design. Traditional floral and vine motifs border prismatic mouths and starry-eyed bats, while other pieces focus more on an 80s appeal with graphic grids and squiggly yellow lines. You can see more psychedelic compositions and brightly colored animals on Dave’s Instagram.

Art Illustration

Alarming Studio Works by Pejac Focus on Earth’s Environmental Crisis

After taking a much-needed break over the summer following his successful presentation in Paris in June, Pejac is now back in his studio, developing new works for his U.S. debut in New York City and preparing a special limited edition that will be released toward the end of the year. Mixing his most recognizable techniques and mediums, he’s been sharing some of the alluring new pieces via his Instagram, including most recent drawings and works on pressed wood panels.

The Spanish artist first introduced the captivating works on wooden chipboard from the Redemption series back in January 2017, and eventually had an entire showcase focused on these pieces back in September 2017 in Venice. Known for revisiting his ideas and concepts, he recently finished this poignant new piece titled Safari. Mixing some of the previously seen imagery, such as patrolling helicopters with a spotlight, or a lonely stag, Pejac combines these visuals into a dynamic image that depicts a wild animal caught in the open by an unknown authority. Using fastidious shading and light effects, he uses the unorthodox composite wood medium to create a powerful effect of objects flying around the animal as its surrounding crumble around it. Once again putting a focus on the careless and ignorant bearing of humans towards nature, the artist constructed a gripping image utilizing an original technique he developed.

With similar thematic content, Pejac’s most recent solo exhibition on an old waterway barge on the Seine in Paris included three masterful large-scale drawings, along with other works on paper. Portraying a post-apocalyptic, surreal future, these meticulously rendered drawings mounted on thick frames were matched the quality of his paintings while depicting the hefty subject with a direct and delicate technique. Showing a lone character diving deep to retrieve a sinking lifebuoy ring in between plastic waste, or a helicopter removing a lighthouse over a desert, these images showcase Pejac’s poetic vision and his ability to pass a sharp and weighty message in the most poetic way.

A great example of such narrative is his canvas Le Bateau Ivre (The drunken boat) from 2015, titled after a poem written by Arthur Rimbaud, describing the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea in a fragmented first-person narrative saturated with vivid imagery and symbolism. Making an analogy with poem’s verbal saturation, the image shows two boys finishing from a small boat drifting through a sea densely polluted with garbage. Originally exhibited at his 2016 London solo show “Law of the Weakest,” this troubling vision from only three years ago is repeatedly becoming an alarming reality around the globe. You can see Pejac’s works in progress and stay up to date on show and print release announcements by following him on Instagram.

Art Craft Illustration

Hand-Sewn Portraits by Sheena Liam Capture Quiet Moments of Self Care

Malaysian-born artist and model Sheena Liam (previously) creates self-portraiture through dark green thread and embroidery hoops. The hand-sewn images imitate her own subtle gestures from her day-to-day life, focusing on rituals of self care. “In a strange way modeling parallels my art in the sense I often have to use body language as means of expressing a certain sort of mood,” she explains. “It’s no different from my embroideries.”

Long locks flow off the canvas from sewn ponytails and braids, which give the monochromatic work a sense of movement from their static position on the wall. Liam’s first solo exhibition in France, Times New Romance, opens at Item Gallery in Paris on October 19, 2018 and runs through October 27, 2018. You can see more of her works on Instagram.

     

 

 

 

Art Illustration

Haunted Bodies: A Collection of New Hybrid Drawings About Healing and Loss by Christina Mrozik

Portland-based artist Christina Mrozik (previously) closely observes flora and fauna to create hybrid drawings that unite the two in haunting new forms. In her monochrome work hair springs from hollow snake skins, claws emerge from floral bulbs, and spiders reveal human-like innards. Although there is a nightmarish quality to these unnatural combinations, a graceful undercurrent marks the way each invented creature twists upon the page.

Recently Mrozik compiled a collection of drawings and writings she created while moving through a period of depression. Despite their surreal composition, they express the deeply human emotions of loss and fear. “Merging pieces of organ, flora, and animal, these faceless drawings are an attempt to capture the ‘haunted’ feeling of inaccessibility, expressing an experience outside the clarity of language,” she explains. “Releasing this collection as a book creates a physical reminder both of the reality of a difficult circumstance, and the community moving through the common casualty of life alongside you. It creates the space that only books can, where one can participate whilst in the solitude of their experience.”

Her new book, Haunted Bodies: An Art Book of Poems and Drawings is currently being funded through Kickstarter. You can see more of her drawings, illustrations, and recent ceramic works on her website and Instagram.