Don Kenn (whose blog also confusingly lists him as John Kenn) is a Danish writer and director of childrens’ television shows. In his limited spare time he draws “Monsterdrawings” on Post-It notes; as he describes them “…a little window into a different world, made on office supplies”. The drawings, of ghouls and ghosts, sea monsters and living islands, haunted woods and city streets, combine the imaginative... 

I have long been fascinated by pen and ink drawing, and its mirror world cousin, scratchboard. Both are demanding mediums, but scratchboard is additionally difficult in that the unfamiliarity of working by subtraction rather than addition takes some practice, as well a mental shift (in common with some printmaking techniques); but the rewards are a kind of textural quality and visual appeal unlike any other medium. There are some excellent contemporary... 

Kenn Backhaus is a contemporary realist painter who is a Signature Member of Oil Painters of America and past president of Plein Air Painters of America . Backhaus was one of the painters featured in the 2007 PBS series Plein Air, Painting the American Landscape , and is instrumental in the independently produced series Passport and Palette , which was recently running on the Create TV cable network. The latter is one of the better instructional... 

Christopher Denise is a visual development artist who has worked with companies like Fox/Blue Sky Studios and Treanor Brothers Animation. He is also a children’s book illustrator whose clients include Candlewick Press, Penguin, Harcourt Brace McMillan and McGraw Hill. His website portfolio includes sections for character design, props design, environments and more. The work on display here owes much to his children’s book illustration... 

A “pencil test”, as I mentioned in my recent post about Pencil Test Depot , is a hand-drawn animation sequence (or entire cartoon) in pencil, prior to the steps to final inking and painting. A rare Disney animated short that was never finished, a classic style 7 minute Mickey Mouse cartoon called Plight of the Bumble Bee , directed by Jack Kinney in 1951, has surfaced on YouTube., giving us a rare glimpse of the classic animation... 

Since I wrote about Danish landscape painter Peder M  Read More →

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerc e, sometimes shortened to Royal Society of Arts , or RSA , is a British institution founded in 1754 to “embolden enterprise, enlarge science, refine art, improve our manufactures and extend our commerce”. Among their many endeavors is a series of talks in which leading thinkers examine social challenges and seek to shed light on issues both contemporary and... 

James Christensen’s paintings range from straightforward portraits to fantasy tinged depictions of angels and Renaissance ladies to phantasmic tableaux of fantasy subjects that look as though the books in a children’s library had been run through a fan and reassembled by a cross-eyed surrealist. Christensen seems to swim in a rich sea of influences, from medieval, Renaissance and baroque art to Golden Age illustrators like Arthur... 

The Haggin Museum in Stockton, California has the largest collection works by the great American illustrator J.C. Leyendecker held by any museum. The collection had been on tour for some time and returned to the museum in May. Since then work has been completed on a newly remodeled gallery in which the collection will be on display until December 31, 2010 (just long enough for the next installment of my traditional Happy Leyendecker Baby New... 

As necessary is it is these days for artists to have a presence online , there are times when print is the medium of choice for showing one’s artwork, whether as a leave-beind for galleries, a sample book or portfolio for prospective clients or as a printed book for collectors. I wrote back in 2008 about Blurb , and other modern print-on-demand services that allow you to create and print a professional looking 8x 10″ book, up to... 

I’ve written before about the beautiful etchings of James McNeill Whistler , whose work as an etcher is even less well known than his paintings . On Beauty and the Everyday: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler is a new exhibition opening this Saturday, August 21, 2010, at the University of Michigan Museum of Art , which has one of the most extensive collections of Whistler’s graphic…  Read More →

Well along in a successful career as a designer and illustrator, German artist Sebastian Kr  Read More →

I’ver written before about Illustration magazine, the beautiful quarterly periodical published by Dan Zimmer that showcases in-depth, lavishly illustrated articles on classic illustrators, both well known and undeservedly obscure, all presented with stunning production values. Illustration 30 is out, featuring articles on Ellen B. T. Pyle, one of Howard Pyle’s students who married his brother Walter (images above, top); the strikingly... 

“Predictable” is a word that, sadly, often applies to the contents of modern newspaper comics pages (what remains of them). In February of 2004 readers of the San Francisco Chronicle suddenly found themselves confronted with a new feature on the comics page called “All Over Coffee” by Paul Madonna that set that notion nicely askew. As an East Coast resident, I don’t get the Chronicle, but I can imagine that, for... 

Moonshine is the name of a group show that opens this Saturday, August 24, 2010, at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra California. It features the personal work of 45 concept artists, production designers, art directors and character designers from DreamWorks Studio. The list of participating artists includes a number of artists that I have featured here on Lines and Colors : Chris Appelhans , Goro Fujita , Marcos Mateu-Mastre , Samuel Michlap , Simon...