Jo Rose's Scrapbook

Based in the New Forest, illustrator Jo Rose lets us glimpse into her magical creative world. See Jo's Scrapbook.

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.

Reading Unbound

Scholastic commission Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn to create a book cover illustration for 'Reading Unbound'.
The brief was to make a chalk cover using a list of buzzwords, Shauna says "I played (with) the words and worked to make them feel fun and lively, as well as pulling in a few fun elements like the Mockingjay pin for the Hunger Games (one of my favorite books!)".
The book argues 'Why Kids Need to Read What They Want--And Why We Should Let Them" and is out in January.

New Talent Alert: Amyisla McCombie

Amyisla McCombie's illustrations are both delicate in style and bold in design, take a look at her portfolio...

Grover at Zizzi

port crane detail

suspended frames

James Grover creates a mural for Zizzi Ipswich.
Commissioned by the Design manager at Zizzi, James worked over a five day period to complete the different elements of the painting. Using a scaffold tower for the high parts, James has produced an awesome piece of art for the restaurant. He says "The mural is a map of Ipswich’s centre, showing the main attractions and significant buildings. There are also a few little bits of info about the town dotted around too. The frames are made to look like they are suspended by a port crane which I was also asked to draw. The designs were produced using acrylic paint pens and emulsion."

Mace Bauer Mysteries

 

small images for spine and back

Gail Armstrong creates two book cover illustrations for Llewellyn Worldwide.

'Mama Gets Trashed' and 'Mama Does Time' by Deborah Sharp are part of the Mace Bauer Mystery series; stories based in Florida involving biologist Mace and his mother who stumble upon murder victims and then feel compelled to investigate. The brief was to make artwork that reflected the humour in the books whilst feeling 'light, fun and colourful' to evoke the Florida warmth. Gail says "... I worked with a palette that seemed to reflect Florida colours and created the front cover image that illustrates a key event in each of the books. The type and background repeat pattern work to tie the books together visually. There is also a smaller, related image for use on the spine and back of each of the books."

Creative Confidence

Alyana Cazalet illustrates "Creative Confidence: Unleashing the creative potential within us all".
Published last month, the book by Tom and David Kelley (IDEO founder and Stanford University Design School creator) has become an Amazon bestseller. Alyana worked on the illustrations for ten chapters of the book and says of the project "I was facing some challenging tasks for (the) visual interpretation of (the) chapters...the book was aimed mainly for corporate professionals and I knew very little about this world...yet it gave me a bit of freedom." All the images can be seen here.

Jo Rose at The Henries

Deer Little Forest

We are delighted with Jo Rose's nomination for The Henries 2013!
Jo's card range 'Deer Little Forest' was up for the award of 'Most Promising Artist/Designer 2013', a category with some 14,000 entries. This range which is one of Jo's latest creations about a 'cast of colourful creatures who form a magical and musical travelling parade', made it to the final five. She says "The awards evening (was back in October), I didn't win but am still totally chuffed to have been nominated".
We are sure her hand crafted work, full of character and theatre will be up for more awards in the future.

The Mistletoe Bride

Rohan Eason illustrates 'The Mistletoe Bride' by Kate Mosse.

Published by Orion, Rohan recently spent a day signing books with the author; a haunting book which includes fourteen pieces of Rohan's art. He says "the book does look beautiful", which is no surprise, with the fine examples of his images we see here. 'The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales' is out now.