Build­ing on my recent talk of sketch­books and orga­ni­za­tional sys­tems, now seems like an appro­pri­ate time to share a series which out­lines a week in the lives of thir­teen artists, design­ers and thinkers. Orga­nized by I.D. Mag­a­zine to demon­strate the ver­sa­til­ity of Moleskine’s new folio col­lec­tion of sketch­books, the series was exhib­ited this past April dur­ing the 2009 Milan Design Week.

Here are a few of the sketch­books from the series:

Designer/illustrator, Mar­ian Bantjes

Fash­ion designer, Han Feng

Graphic designer and author, Jes­sica Helfand

Indus­trial Designer, Ayse Birsel

What would a week in your life look like, dear readers?

Here’s a sam­ple of recent work from the cut­ting room floor so to speak…

What are YOU work­ing on these days, dear readers?

While I’m on the sub­ject of artists whose work gets my cre­ative tail wag­ging this week, these videos of Lucy McLauch­lan work­ing just blow my mind. It makes me want to lock myself in an empty room with a gal­lon of paint or ink and have at it; though some­how I doubt the results would be com­pa­ra­ble. Check it out:

WOW, I love this woman! The den­sity of the illus­tra­tions she gen­er­ates are incred­i­ble, and the inten­sity with which she works is so inspir­ing. There is so much work to be done…

A few months ago, I blogged about the William Ken­tridge show, Five Themes, at SFMoMA. In that post, I described my intro­duc­tion to Kentridge’s work ten years ago at the Carnegie Inter­na­tional Show. Since that first encounter with his work, I have been a fan. This evening, I thought I’d post a copy of the orig­i­nal film that caught my attention:

The film has a sound­track, but I was unable to find a full-length copy of it with the sound. Here is an abridged sam­ple fea­tur­ing the sound:

I love the raw qual­ity of line and ges­ture; this piece still cap­ti­vates me. What do you think, dear read­ers? Seen any great ani­ma­tions or art exhibits lately that you just can’t get out of your mind?

Peo­ple have been ask­ing me what I’ve been work­ing on lately, so here’s a quick snap­shot of one of the projects on my desk:

This was stuck in my head while work­ing on the most recent daily por­trait, Maybe Spar­row by Neko Case. The video was done by Julie and Paul Morstad.

Today I would like to share the work of a Bay area artist whose work has caught my eye. Illus­tra­tor Caitlin Kuh­wald cur­rently teaches at the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts while also free­lanc­ing full time. Her list of clients spans a broad spec­trum, includ­ing names like Puma, Rolling Stone, Good House­keep­ing, Her­man Miller, Pen­guin Books and a whole host of others.

I love Black­birds and Praha; makes me wish I could hang them in my home tomorrow.

Tons more of Caitlin’s gor­geous illus­tra­tions are col­lected on her Web site. Her work is avail­able for pur­chase online in her Etsy bou­tique.

Images: Caitlin Kuh­wald

Pop­pytalk Hand­made has just launched their lat­est monthly online “street mar­ket.” Begin­ning today and run­ning through Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 18, this month’s theme is “School Days: A back to school market.”

If you haven’t already taken a look this month’s good­ies, here is a peek at some of the things that caught my eye:

If you haven’t checked them out before, Pop­pytalk curates a monthly online show­case of inter­na­tional design tal­ent; beau­ti­ful hand­made items are avail­able in this fun and diverse mar­ket­place. Go check it out!

Images: Pop­pytalk Handmade

As if the prod­ucts of Papaya’s own designs weren’t fun enough, they’ve teamed up with artist Sab­rina Ward Har­ri­son whose work I’ve been a fan of for the last decade.

When her first book, Spilling Open; The Art of Becom­ing Your­self came out in 1999, it quickly joined the ranks of my favorite books and often trav­els with me, offer­ing inspi­ra­tion and encour­age­ment. I have enjoyed that first book so much in fact, that over the years I have given it to numer­ous friends as a gift.

Papaya’s new col­lec­tion fea­tur­ing Sabrina’s work includes a fun range of note and post cards, sketch­books and beau­ti­ful prints of her orig­i­nal works.

I love the sen­ti­ment of the Make a Job print; I might just have to treat myself…

Images: PaPaYa!

Today I would like share the work of Port­land based, Mex­i­can illustrator/designer, Alberto Cer­riteño. Inspired by the pop sur­re­al­ism move­ment, his work is densely packed with dream­like whimsy.

Prints of Alberto’s beau­ti­ful illus­tra­tions are avail­able for pur­chase online at his Etsy bou­tique. And for those as enam­ored of his work as I am, he has a blog here.

Images: Alberto Cerriteño

Today I’d like to share the play­ful art of Vermont-base artist Amber Alexan­der. Her per­son­i­fi­ca­tions of ani­mals are delight­ful and are a tempt­ing gift for a child or ani­mal lover. Since it is Beat­rix Potter’s birth­day today, it seemed fit­ting to share Amber’s work today. Her work is avail­able for pur­chase online in her Etsy bou­tique.

Images: Amber Alexan­der

For those of you who know me in real life, you know prob­a­bly know I like birds and you’ve no doubt tasted my bak­ing– the tasty byprod­uct of one of my favorite pas­times. So the artist whose work I’ve decided to share with you today should be an humor­ously obvi­ous choice.

Based in Lon­don, Lit­tle Doo­dles is pro­duced by illus­tra­tor Kate Wil­son. A recent grad­u­ate from Uni­ver­sity of the Arts, Kate’s clients include The New York Times Mag­a­zine, Marc Jacobs and Lib­erty of Lon­don.

Aren’t these lit­tle guys just dar­ling? I wish I could look out my stu­dio win­dow and find a fruit tree full of these lit­tle guys… a cou­ple of cup­cake car­di­nals nest­ing and a few short­cake star­lings glean­ing in the grass… delightful!

Check­out more Lit­tle Doo­dles avail­able online at Etsy.

Images: Lit­tle Doodles

For as long as I can remem­ber, art has been a pro­found source of joy and is some­thing for which I main­tain a healthy appetite. The por­tion of my brain rel­e­gated to art is no doubt the major­ity which might explain my dis­taste for all things trigono­met­ric or vacuum-related. Any­way, I tend to spend a lot of time seek­ing out new work, artists and sources of inspi­ra­tion. While I visit muse­ums and gal­leries as much as pos­si­ble, there are so many online sources from which to derive inspi­ra­tion these days that it is almost staggering.

Lately, I’ve been look­ing at illus­tra­tion more and more. Today the work of Iveta Abolina, also know as OneSwee­t­Or­ange has caught my eye. I tripped over her by way of Etsy.com and imme­di­ately found a num­ber of her pieces that I would love to hang in my home. The graphic qual­ity of her work and the organic flow of the com­po­si­tions excites my eye. Here are a few of my favorites from her Etsy shop:

Son­net

For­bid­den Thoughts

Lit­tle Bird

At $20-$50USD, most of her work is ter­ri­bly afford­able; the only ques­tion is, which to buy? Take a look at Irena’s Etsy Shop and more of her illus­tra­tions and design work at OneSweetOrange.com.

Images: Iveta Abolina/OneSweetOrange

Recently, I vis­ited the SF Museum of Mod­ern Art to see the William Ken­tridge show, Five Themes before it closed. I dis­cov­ered his work at the Carnegie Inter­na­tional show in 1999 when his piece, Stere­o­scope caught my atten­tion; I’ve been a fan ever since. The show beau­ti­fully rep­re­sented the breadth of Mr. Kentridge’s work. I could’ve spent a week­end just in that exhibit alone:

Upon fur­ther explo­ration, this piece by Mario Merz caught my eye too:

The Lens of Rot­ter­dam


What was so great about this piece wasn’t just its scale, but its ele­gant sim­plic­ity— glass plates clamped to a min­i­mal steel frame, shel­ter­ing or focus­ing over rough hewn stones.


After a few weeks of cre­ative stag­na­tion, explor­ing the museum was just the spark I needed to shift my brain back into focus. After a wan­der among the exhibits, even the tex­tures of the walls excited me:



The effect in the last two pho­tos above was achieved by paint­ing the pat­tern with vary­ing lev­els of gloss and matte fin­ish. A cool effect to remem­ber once I’ve found a home to purchse…