Bob Robber and Dancing Jane

'Bob Robber and Dancing Jane'; a children's book illustrated by Bee Willey and written by Andrew Matthews is to stage as a ballet!

Produced by Clare Prenton,  the story now evolved as 'Shadow Thief' is a thrilling development of the original book about the dark souled Bob Robber who learns to dance and live in the light with help from Dancing Jane. Bee says "Both myself and Andrew were delighted at the clip with the lyrics we were sent by Clare's agent, and also by the twitter info around the rehearsals in Barnes, seemingly leading to a premiere in 2014 in Edinburgh! It is wonderful for a story like this to take off in a new context…"

Dolores

This moody painting by T.S Spookytooth is a promotional piece for his short story "Dolores".
Spookytooth says " (The story) revolves around a house that sits on an unkempt lawn that was sun scorched from summers past and tangled with weeds that winter could not kill. It concerns a young girl called Dolores and who she is...or was." The mystery of the narrative echoes Spookytooth's enigmatic illustrations. We look forward to seeing more.

Mt First Kafka is One of the Best

'My First Kafka' illustrated by Rohan Daniel Eason makes one of the thirteen 'Best Children’s, Illustrated, and Picture Books of 2013'.
Selected by journalist and writer Maria Popover of Brain Pickings, the book is Matthue Roth's adaptation of Kafka for kids. Rohan gets much praise for his work too, Maria writes " Indeed, it’s hard not to see Sendak’s fatherly echo in Eason’s beautifully haunting black-and-white drawings." Read more on the book here.

Witches Trees

Inspired by a story of witchcraft and murder, Steinar Lund produces this suitably eerie illustration. The tale, set in 1737 in a town in Wiltshire, tells of the death of 130 people and the blame given to four sisters who were subsequently accused of witchcraft. Steinar's illustration and video show the 'Witches Trees', the place where each one was buried after their murder.

Patterson at The Affordable Art Fair

Breaking into the 'fine art scene' and following his success at the Decorative Art Fair recently, Barry Patterson will now be exhibiting at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea this month. Running from 24th - 27th October these stunning still life paintings are two of the four up for sale.

An Emmy for Aardvark

Nathan Aardvark played Art Director and Lead Illustrator on this Emmy Award winning title sequence for Starz's 'Da Vinci's Demons.'

Last night's Emmys saw Nathan and the team crowned with the 'Outstanding Main Title Design' award for the show. Talking of the commission, a very proud Nathan says "The job was to create short animated illustrations to go on top of footage from the show. I was supplied with various clips and painstakingly sketched over the top of each frame....frame by frame! In the end I had hundreds of drawings which were then composited later in post production. I tried to keep it close to the classic style of Da Vinci as much as possible."

Another cool feature of the title is the crab cannon; when the music is played backwards the melody is the same. Watch the titles.

Haunted

Rohan Eason's fine style lends itself perfectly to the mysterious. And here we see his recent book jacket for Oxford University Press; William Hussey's 'Haunted' demonstrating Rohan's brilliance with this genre so well. A childrens book complete with ghosts and a derelict house, the book is out now.
Buy the book here.

Turner's Heroes

When the Sun Goes Down

Fluorescent Adolescent

Brianstorm

NME Magazine has commissioned pen master Ben Tallon to illustrate an article called 'Turner's Heroes'. The special edition of the weekly magazine features the band 'Arctic Monkeys' and looks at the characters created in their songs written by Alex Turner. Ben supplied artwork for the tracks 'When The Sun Goes Down',  'Brianstorm' and 'Fluorescent Adolescent' and the feature coincides with the launch of the band's 5th studio album 'AM'.