Drawn

SKYplay is a photoset that takes spotting shapes in clouds to the next level. These playful and creative photos are the work of Horst J. Bernhart who passed away in May this year.

So, this is really four pieces of news all in one post. First, Maurice Vellekoop finally has a website! He’s one of my all-time favourites, and I’m delighted to see he finally has a presence online (it’s probably hearsay, but a friend of a friend of a friend of Maurice’s once told me several years ago he wasn’t fond of the internet and had resisted having a site. See, now I’m just spreading rumours! Don’t repeat a word of this!).

Second: he’s also started a blog this year. Don’t miss this scans of the Polaroids he took when covering an event for Vogue back in 1994.

Third (seemingly unrelated, but stick with me): Anita Kunz, another favourite illustrator, also started a blog two years ago, and embarrassed to say I’m just finding it now.

But wait, it gets better! Anita and Maurice are having an art show together in Toronto in two days! TWO DAYS FROM TODAY! It’s killing me to know that I will miss this. Mind you, if I did attend and managed to work up the nerve to speak to either of them, I’d doubtless blurt out something idiotic, alienate myself as a weirdo fanboy, and possibly spill wine on them.

It’s called The Naughty Show (personally, I’d have pushed for VelleKunz, but that’s just me) and will feature over a hundred nudes by Kunz, and originals from Vellekoop’s newest pinup book.

Details for you lucky folks who can make it:
ONE800 Gallery, 800 Dundas Street West, Toronto — June 30: 7:00 – 9:00

I have a real soft spot for old printing and type specimen books, so I adore the beautiful scans over at BibliOdyssey of a German printer’s book called Schrift- und Polytypen-Proben (Fonts and examples of different type).

Follow the trail of links and you’ll discover a treasure of type, engravings, and flourishes to inspire your next ornamental illustration project.

Scampd is a new blog/showcase devoted to celebrating contemporary advertising illustration. From the site:

For a time, we silently bore witness as advertising award shows and design annuals killed off their once glorious illustration categories. But enough is enough, and we have decided to do something about it.

Illustrators, art directors, and agencies are invited to submit their work to be featured.

The pixel-kings of isometry, eBoy have released this tilting iPhone game. You can try the game on this site if you don’t have an iPhone or any of that other hardware.

So great. Plucked from an old Pogo comic book, here’s Walt Kelly’s Albert Alligator reciting Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky.

EphemeraStudies.org is a useful, intimate website for those of us with a love on for obscure printed matter of bygone days. Saul Zalesch, proprietor, is posting samples from his own collection – and in high resolution.

Ephemera is beginning to get more attention from academics these days, so I’m sure this site is going to become pretty popular soon. Saul says in his mission statement that he wants to help historians study this stuff, and as a historian of popular print, I am very grateful for his contribution.

Seen here: cover of a booklet issued in the 1920s, when the fad for painting old furniture took off with the increasing availability of premixed paints.

Alejandro and the Idea Machine is a sculpted intallation piece by Souther Salazar. I love seeing his joyful cut-and-paste collage style realized as something three dimensional. The installation was a part of the Fumetto Comix Festival, and if this photo isn’t enough, check out the sweet time-lapse of its construction (detailed close-ups at the end of the video):

More process photos here.

Allison Reimold is a skilled painter — you can check out her blog or portfolio for proof of that — but I’m more partial to this sculpted and mounted fox head she created.

(via Super Punch)

How did I miss this? New Construction is a blog of “cartooning practices and concerns” by Kevin Huizenga. Kevin H is a cartoonist’s cartoonist, and luckily I’m hungry for good writing on cartooning theory, craft, and process. Bookmarked and RSS’d.