Anne Crahay IV

 Belgian illustrator Anne Crahay has been selected by the Bologna Book Fair this year, for "Suzie's Smile" (CotCotCot éditions, 2019). I have blogged this artists work many times over the years and I am thrilled for her.

'To reassure those around her, Susie invents a thousand paper smiles to replace her own, which has disappeared. "Every morning, as we put on our socks, I hung a smile on my ears." Everything returns to normal with these defensive smiles. Until the day when the paper smile flies away and Susie finally has the opportunity to really talk to her parents about everything she had never told them.'

Inês Viegas Oliveira I

Rich complex layers of collage and mixed media form wonderful story images enabling your eye to wander in landscapes and cityscapes. These illustrations are by Inês Viegas Oliveira and should have been part of the Bologna Children's Bookfair 2020.

Steven Guarnaccia

"I am not comfortable around tools. I am always afraid they will jump up and attack me" Steven Guarnaccia

This morning I attended a talk by Steven Guarnaccia where he discussed his new exhibition 'Fatherland' sharing his sudden preoccupation with male accoutrements and tools.
This evening I had the pleasure of seeing this exhibition and it's larger than life creator.  I delighted that at this exhibition about a father, the first thing I saw was a mother feeding her baby, I loved this incongruous juxtaposition and wonderful combination of visions.

This was an exhibition of losing, finding and remembered through the paraphernalia of a generation of men all but gone, those men of pipes, discipline and male distance.
Steven saw these functional collections and belongings as something else, a connection with his father.

". . . these are not objects of function for me they're function is memory, they are my father." Steven Guarnaccia

The exhibition has great warmth, humour and love. It made me laugh out loud on many occasions.

It was also a great pleasure to put faces to friends known only by their work Donatella Crippa, Sara Cimarosti (Violetta Testacalda) and Beatrice Alemagna XXX

Vendi Vernic I

                        

                                    

                                     

Vendi Vernic's illustrations of 'Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier's, use ethereal line work with smoke curls of transparent watercolour. 

"For me drawing is a way of recording the interior monologue, so every drawing I do has a story (however abstract)." Vendi Vernic

Catarina Sobral

Illustrations today from Portuguese illustrator Catarina Sobral. The particular illustrations are from a children's magazine called 'Up Kids'. This year Catarina Sobral won the Bologna Children's Book Festival International Award for illustration for her book 'My Grandfather'.

Alê Abreu

I cannot go to Bologna Children's Illustration festival this year and in order to compensate and cheer myself up for missing this wonderful annual event, I am going to virtually attend and research as much as I can online. Brazil is this years guest of honour  country, and so I am going to bring you a selection of Brazilian illustrators starting with Alê Abreu. 
Alê Abreu works as an illustrator and animator. Here I have selected some of his abstract paintings and it is this abstract, loose layered style, that for me produces some of his most interesting illustration work because of its textures, effects and the division of the pictorial plain. 

Libretto Postale Animali in Viaggio.

It is almost two weeks since I was in Italy attending the Bologna International Children's Illustration Fair and I am still trying to assimilate all the information, photographs and memories. 
Being in Bologna also gave me the opportunity to attend a wonderful exhibition organised by Vanvere Edizioni and Le Figure die libri's Anna Castagnoli and Stefania Camilli called "Libretto Postale, Animali in Viaggio" at Zoo. 

This was such a lovely friendly, intimate event with lots of wonderful children's books of course, toys from Milimbo and others, and 55 different illustrators postcards, installations, wire sculptures by Elena Fregni

and joys such as animal shaped cookies and messages by Rebecca Fosser.

This is the first of a series of posts related to this exhibition.

Daniela Tordi

One of the lovely things about doing this blog is that I constantly get to meet such lovely people. Today I managed to see Daniela Tordi at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. 
Daniela is a self taught illustrator who after many years in journalism is now doing what she loves which is writing and illustrating, here she is with her lovely book about a rescued goose, Lo scrittore e l'oca (The writer and the Goose).

Mariana Rio I

Oh so so much to share  . . . 

This is Mariana Rio a Portuguese illustrator who's work stood out today with its bold colours, its stencilled / graffiti style on a mosaic of geometric shapes. 

"This is a book about different bodies.It is an unfinished puzzle for readers to think about… What is perfection? What are beautiful bodies? Does geometry have anything to do with these matters?" Mariana Rio

Bologna Bound

I am away, to Bologna!  Excitingly I am going to The 50th Bologna Children's Book Fair, but first the travel part and unfortunately my flight is at 5am so I will have to leave home at 2.30am. 

Here is Freya's drawing of what I will look like, I fear I may look a little less bright eyed. 

Next post from Bologna! 

Arianna Favaro

'All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'
 ~ Samuel Becket
I can certainly relate to this quote of Samuel Becket's and I found it in a blog post accompanying these lovely etchings. They were created by Italian illustrator Arianna Favaro and exhibited at Bologna Children's fair 2010. 
Sometimes life offers up rings of fire that you just have to keep jumping through.

Ayami Ito

I was beguiled by the top illustration enough here, to spend hours yesterday gleaning as much as I could of Ayami Ito's work, I am afraid all I can find of her is that she is a Japanese illustrator and her work was displayed at this years Bologna Children's Book Fair.