Bill Donovan

Wow- love his simplicity in his strokes of ink/paint and his color sense. Great forms and sense of composition...

Bill Donovan

Vintage Deco Bridge Tallies

I found these amazing vintage art deco bridge tallies featuring all sorts of cute girsl and flapperes from the 1920s on flickr. I love the super cute designs and colors- such eye candy!  I really dig the art deco designs and the use of bright candy colors with this vaguely pin-up sort of feel.

From the flickr set: "They are diecut--cut along the edges. They have a score area on the opposite side--used for the game of bridge but during 1920s and 1930s - it was all the rage, apparently." 
 
Flickr set- http://www.flickr.com/photos/picture-perfect-designs-jewelry/sets/72157613269398023/
(many thanks to flickr user finsby for uploading all these!!)

The Beautiful illustrations of Virginia Sterrett

Just came across Virginia Sterrett's work, a dazzlingly talented female illustrator, and am just in love with her stuff. A contemporary of Kay Nielsen, she illustrated beautiful illustrations for a variety of picture books in the 1920s, including Tanglewood Tales, Old French Fairy Tales, and Arabian Nights.

She died remarkably young at only 31 of tuberculosis, and I found it so impressive to read her life story (especially being a female artist myself, working in California, like she did)- she was truly a talent- hope you find her as inspiring as I do! I love the way she handles the female form, the colors, the art deco lines, and the content (fairy tales, etc)

Biography
Flickr Set

EL HUERTO by Mik Baro

Not clear on if this is a poster or an illustration from a book, but from what I can gather, it's an illustation of a child's dream (Dream by Lucía/ SPAIN.)  (more info/ illustrations here and here ... via Drawn!)

I love it because of the horse theme, the bold colors, and striking beauty of the roots/nerves/blood system contrasting with the body and ground.

Hiroshi Yoshida- Japanese Woodcut

Found this lovely postcard of Hiroshi Yoshida's woodcut "Kameido Bridge" from 1927 from a darling new little shop down in Echo Park (in Los Angeles) named Stories , which carries a wonderful selection of books, postcards, random little gifts, and has a small cafe inside.

Seriously cute little bookshop with a great selection of used and new books- I could have walked away with many armfuls of great reference/inspiration books that I'd just use to post to this blog all day, plus they had such a great selection of collections of short stories and just nice random LA stuff (cute retro dish towels, day of the dead stuff, etc). They do poetry readings and lots of events there too!

http://www.storiesla.com/

Anyway, I couldn't not buy this postcard because it was so beautiful- the colors, art deco architecture in the bridge, and delicate linework are just wonderful! Enjoy!

Audrey Kawasaki

I think I have to officially thank my friend Arvin for turning me on to Audrey's work, although I had seen it before, it was going to get a print at her Thinkspace opening a few months ago that I got to see a full show of her work in person and up close.

As I've been painting more and more recently, and thinking about where I want to take my own art, I've been studying her style a lot more, and admiring her sense of color and the soft erotic nature of her female forms. I also love the way she works in animals into her pieces- it's very intimate and emotional in a very subtle but strong way.


http://www.audrey-kawasaki.com

 

 

 

Camilla d'Errico

I've had a slow burning fascination with Camilla d'Errico's work- when I first saw her work profiled on Boing Boing, then in person at G1988 at the Crazy for Cult show, I liked it, but the more I see of her stuff, and the more I look at it, the more I really start to appreciate it more and more.

I really like her subject matter of juxtaposing girls and animals, her sugary-sweet color palette (strong but sweet and delicate at the same time), and the way the girls eyes pop out of the canvases is so arresting.

These are some of my favorite works of her, and some sampling of some of her beautiful color palettes. Check our her website (which has her blog, online store, and a bunch of links) here-

http://www.camilladerrico.com