Fu Wenzheng

Bird illustrations in Red, Black, and White from Chinese illustrator Fu Wensheng. Again I found this illustrators work at Bologna and I am afraid I cannot find her on the internet to link back to further work.

Iwona Chimielska III

Textile illustrations from Polish illustrator; Iwona Chimielwska's book 'W Kieszonce' or 'In The Pocket' where she imagines the contents of a pocket that would correspond to the two protruding shapes.

Jihyun Woo and Jungduk Lee

'A Walk' written and illustrated by Jihyun Woo and embroidered by Jungduk Lee. This Korean book has delicate naive illustrations beautifully rendered in embroidery.

Cho Eun Young II

This week I am trying to catch up with treasures that I have saved. I found this book 'First Breast Feeding' at the Bologna Children's Book Festival in the spring.  It is a Korean book, illustrated by Cho Eun Young, about breast feeding created using expressive, monochrome line drawing. Due to the subject matter, it is so unlikely that this book would ever have been published in this country and I think it is amazing, wonderfully expressive and beautiful work.
All through this year books have come up in discussions and lectures that would not be published  in this country. This censorship by market-driven publishing then  extends to illustrators and authors who self-censor and avoid subjects, stories and work that they consider will be unpublishable. I find this very sad and worry about the limitations that this places on creativity, knowledge and culture.

Madalena Matoso

'O Pato Amarelo E O Gato Riscado' is a Portuguese children's book written by Manuela Castro Neves and illustrated by the wonderful Madalena Matoso published by  Caminho in 2015 The illustrations are simply beautiful a combination of print and collage, whilst the story tells of an unlikely friendship between a cat and a duck.

Elsa Henriquez Muñoz II

Colour illustrations by Elsa Henriquez Muñoz for Jacques Prevert's 'Contes' 1947.

Elsa Henriquez Muñoz I

These illustrations are from 'Cuentos para niños no tan buenos' written by Jacques Prévert and illustrated by Elsa Henriquez Muñoz and first published in 1947.
The illustrations are strange, surreal, quirky and naive and bring to mind the illustrative work that both Edward Lear and Spike Miligan made to support their Limericks and rhymes.

Elsa Henriquez Muñoz an Argentinian, was the daughter of dancer Helba Huara (see below) and musician Gonzalo Morè.

She lived in  Paris and was friends with many of the Surrealists and intellectuals of the city such as Cesar Vallejo, Neruda, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Carpentier and Octavio Paz. She worked as a graphic designer and made scenery for theatre. Her illustration work appears almost exclusively in books by the poet Jacques Prévert.

(Above) Photograph by Emile Savitry of Elsa and some of her Argentinian friends.

In 1940 she married painter and photographer Emile Savitry they were married until his death in 1967. Elsa died in her adopted city of Paris in 2010.

An evening with Oliver Jeffers, Sam Winston and Eoin Colfer

Last night Edinburgh's illustration community gathered to spend an evening with Oliver Jeffers, who is on a tour with Sam Winston promoting their book; 'A Child of Books' and author Eoin Colfer with whom he collaborated to create 'Imaginary Fred'. These three warm, humorous, talented, Irish men were interviewed by author and co-founder of Picture Hooks, Vivian French.

(Above)From left to right Vivian French, Sam Winston, Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers.

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." 

Muriel Rukeyser, 'The speed of darkness.' 1968

What message did they give to the hungry audience? Well their message was as ever a collection of stories, their stories? Stories of gluing cornflakes to the wall, of transatlantic collaboration, of impossible rescues of kites, the danger of flying chairs and the treacherous honesty of children.  

For illustrators and authors, the message was clear be true to yourself and love what you do, without a care for others opinions. 

(Below) My friend Lucie Mouchova, my daughter Freya, Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. 

Thank you to Blackwells for hosting this event. 

Gaia Stella II

Ti tengo a book for Save The Children by Gaia Stella.

Gaia Stella I

Two images to introduce Italian illustrator Gaia Stella from her book Chez-Nous. Gaia uses tiny blocks that may be rubbers to print her characters.

Tip toeing and sleeping like a bat.

I attended a PictureHooks workshop last weekend at the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. I am currently amid many, very varied projects for fast approaching deadlines and still in exhausted-fallout from completing my MA, so this workshop probably wasn't the best timing for me.
However it was led by the wonderful Sara Ogilvie and I love these workshops as they are a chance to mix with other illustrators and have time to work together and share techniques and ideas.
This weekend I eventually managed to create a colony of bats and the beginnings of a storyboard for a new book, that I hope to have time for later in the autumn.