inspiration: Erin Bradley designs

Today I was looking for online clip art and patterns when I came across Erin Bradley and her digital illustrations. Her prints are so cute and colourful, and perfect for customizing your own cards and labels. Here are some samples of her designs below!

To see more of her online designs for personal/commercial use, visit her website here!

oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so

Author/Illustrator Maurice Sendak passed away this week. He wrote my all-time favourite children's book - Where the Wild Things Are (1963). The story is only 338 words long, but along with the ferociously fabulous drawings and Max's terrible eye-rolling, teeth-gnashing adventure, the book captures the wild world of childhood so well!

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Now...here are some fierce artistic renditions inspired by the Wild Things!

LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!!!

illustrated by Ana Galvan

illustrated by Craig Watkins

*this last image was found reblogged a billion times on Tumblr. 
if anyone knows the original artist, please let me know so I can credit him/her properly!


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If you want to see more, visit Terrible Yellow Eyes - a website entirely dedicated to artwork inspired by the Wild Things. Click here for the link!

Here's to childhood. I hope we never lose the wild thing in all of us.

artist spotlight: erin jang + food sketches

I recently stumbled upon a blog called FOOD SKETCHES, and being a food lover, I was instantly intrigued. Erin Jang, of The Indigo Bunting, is a New York graphic designer who started this site as a personal project to document some of the food she eats. Side note: (she also used to be the senior art director at Martha Stewart Living... how cool is that!?!)...

Anyway, with her permission, I'm going to share with you two of my favourite food images from her site! The first is "Parm Birthday Cake" which I particularly love because of the colourful sprinkles. Just looking at this deliciously delectable drawing makes me want to eat cake.

This second image is "Gumballs" which is such a fun, rainbow-coloured print.

To check out more tasty food pics, head over to FOOD SKETCHES here. Just looking at all her images prompted me to create my own "food sketch" with a tribute to one of my favourite foods -

the hamburger.

So here's my version, inspired by Erin's colourful images!

 

 

Actually, I've thought of creating a flat 2D burger print like this before as an acrylic painting (and probably will do a large-scale version of it on a giant canvas one day). It would probably make me very very hungry if I saw this print hanging in my living room every day. haha.

 I'd probably try to nibble at the canvas.

artist spotlight: Janet Echelman - ethereal sculptures

 I happened to be watching some TED Talks about creativity when I stumbled upon a talk by Janet Echelman, an artist who was talking about her work with sculptures. It was really interesting because she talked about how she collaborated with small-village fisherman, aeronautical engineers, landscape architects, and a whole myriad of different people in order to permanently install her art in huge public areas. I was amazed at the whole extensive process and effort that went into all her sculptures and marveling at how beautiful they looked, when suddenly I recognized one of the images in the video.

 It was a picture of this "red net sculpture" residing in my hometown, Richmond, at the Olympic Oval. I used to drive by that giant net all the time but I had never really showed any appreciation towards this random gargantuan art installation that had seemingly appeared overnight when the 2010 Winter Olympics had been held right in my backyard, but apparently, Janet Echelman was the one who had designed and commissioned that huge sculpture to be built.

 It definitely gave me a newfound admiration for artists who slave away at a concept for years in order to finally have a masterpiece to showcase. Seriously, it's crazy how much time and effort went into that thing. That got me researching - I went on her website and I love the installations she created in Pheonix and Sydney.

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"Tsunami" (2011) Sydney, Australia

"Her Secret is Patience" (2009) Phoenix, Arizona

"Water Sky Garden" (2009) Richmond, British Columbia

all images from Janet Echelman's website

I am especially in love with the one in Phoenix, because it looks like this ethereal and calm yet crazy-cosmic tornado that makes me want to lie underneath it and stare at it for hours. I think this calls for a trip to Arizona. haha.

Anyway, you should definitely watch this video where she tells you about the whole process and how she started making these huge urban sculptures.

Here's the link:

TED TALK: Janet Echelman - Taking Imagination Seriously

Enjoy =)

artist spotlight: Cathy McMurray from "Habit of Art"

I stumbled upon Cathy McMurray's art when she was an artist featured on Etsy. She used to be a high-school art teacher and now makes beautiful paintings from her home in Portland. I absolutely love the different symbols and patterns she uses (she likes incorporating triangles into her art - I actually like triangles too!) and I'm definitely going to buy one of her paintings to hang in my future home one day. 

below: one of my favourites - "Legend Has It" 

To visit Cathy McMurray's art blog, Habit of Art click here.