Drawn! is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw. Visit us daily for a dose of links and creative inspiration. More...
Coraline.com has been up and running for some time now, but with nothing worth noting. Until now. And it looks good. So far, I’m very impressed with the PR campaign for Henry Selick’s up-coming stop-motion feature produced entirely at LAIKA. First of all, check out the mystery packages they sent out to various members of the press. You’ll notice from that post a password to enter once you’re on the film’s site. Enter it (buttoneyes) and you’ll be treated to a vignette on the various characters in the film. There’s more. I’ve been able to scrounge around other passwords (thank you, internets), if you’re curious:
Check out the playful paper sculpture work of Ana Serrano. I love this piece, Cartonlandia, a vibrant cardboard microcosm of perfect little houses and vehicles.
You can read an interview with Ana at ReubenMiller.
Mario Feese created this surprisingly lovely image, Air Lines, out of global flightpath statistics. He writes:
Every scheduled airliner route has been extracted from booking and airline systems. Every single route is represented by a small line, so the transatlantic racetrack is a sea of lines, whereas African or local Cessna routes are only a subtle hint.
It took several months to gather information and program the software algorithm that interprets inputs like LHRDXBSIN3242AD into vector files.
Google, in cooperation with Time Life, has posted a ton of photographs from the Time Life archive online, most of which have never been published before. The photographs are categorized by decade, and if you take a look at the 1950s section, you will find pictures of Walt Disney Studios, many featuring the man himself, but also others featuring the brilliant folks behind the scenes (such as Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas, and who I think maybe Marc Davis?)
A while back I posted a link to a series of monster trading cards scanned in by illustrator Rafa Toro:Monstruos Diabolicos. Flipping around Flickr today I’ve discovered that Rafa has started to redraw the entire set, and the results are pretty fun: Monstruos Diabolicos Redux.
Victor and Susie is a cute illustrated book in which the illustrations are all created with typography. It’s the work of design shop Brighten the Corners.
Design Sponge is kicking off a new video web-series - Design by the Book. Kind of a Project Runway but with a bunch of Williamsburg designers. And instead of the Parsons School of Fashion, it’s set in (drum roll) the NY Public Library.
The first episode is up and it’s got interviews with a bunch of interesting people. Notably:
One of my favourite books this year has to be The Night Life of Trees. The book is a series of silkscreened illustrations (some nice photos here) of lushly patterned plants and animals accompanied by short mythical poetry and prose.
The illustrations are by three artists from the Gond tribe of India. Limited to a print-run of 1000, each page is effectively a beautiful limited-edition silkscreen print.
Here’s a video that shows the process. The subtitles are small, but the images are self-explanatory.
I’m writing to let you know about a charity event that some friends and I are putting on this Saturday in Pasadena, California. It is called “Hey You Guys” and will include a screening of “The Goonies”, a raffle, and an art auction that has begun online.
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The charity we are working to help is Donorschoose.org, they provide materials to needing classrooms. In this case, we are concentrating on classroom in Southern California that need art supplies. We are trying to help the next generation of artists!
Emru Townsend, founder and editor of Frames Per Second animation magazine and technology writer for PC World, passed away last night after a year-long battle with leukemia and a condition called Monosomy 7.
As Jerry and Amid at Cartoon Brew put it, Emru has “for decades been one of animation’s best friends and most intelligent critics.”
Emru was a good friend of mine and I will miss him a profoundly. A few years ago Emru and Tamu sent me to cover the Waterloo Animation Festival for FPS and Drawn and we’ve been friends ever since.
He was someone who was thrilled by every nuance of animated films. People around him - including me - loved to feed off that energy. It breaks my heart to imagine that he’s gone. But I know that his energy, enthusiasm and love for art and pop culture live on in his loving sister Tamu and his wife Vicky and son Max. I send them my love today.
Poster Boy remixes ads in the NY subway, often with hilarious results. Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan says:
Art: is it what he does? Culture jamming: a term too annoying to use any more, though everyone knows what it means. Sell out: is he bound to, eventually? Questions: he asks them.
While the rest of the world is dizzy with Hope and Change (and believe me, we’re happy for you us), we here in Canada are stuck with the status quo and a conservative government determined to slash and burn the arts.
It was in this spirit last week that the government led by Stephen Harper quietly canceled long-standing plans for a National Portrait Gallery.
So Art Threat, the political art blog, taken matters into their own hands:
Since Stephen Harper canceled the National Portrait Gallery, we decided to create our own in his honour. We’re inviting artists to submit their portrait of Canada’s Prime Minister for inclusion in the Stephen Harper Portrait Gallery, and their chance to win (minor) fame and riches!
One of my favourite books this year has to be 
