The Zoo Inside Beatrice Alemagna

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Bologna was Beatrice Alemagna's exhibition at one of my favourite cafe galleries; Zoo. The opening was unbelievably crowded and hot, but very enjoyable and before I left Bologna I had a blissfully quiet and contemplative breakfast beneath these wonders. 

Above: Some of the original images for Beatrice's book; 'The Marvellous Fluffy Squishy Itty Bitty', which won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in 2016.
Below: Around the exhibition were some fantastic sculptures of the beautiful characters from; 'The Five Misfits'.

Below: A selection of the sketches and studies for 'The Five Misfits'. I never grow tired of seeing the original artworks for books the energy of them, the corrections, the character and joy of an artist getting to know the population of their imaginations.

 Below: A fantastic illustration of snails from; 'The day of nothing'.

If I Were You by Brian Wildsmith

Illustrations from a tiny paper back book that I found this weekend by Brian Wildsmith, I like the fortress style zoo and it's random cage shapes, but Brian Wildsmith's work is always wonderful, rich and bright.

Elena Fregni

I loved the Elena Fregni wire sculptures that were included in the Zoo exhibition of Bologna. Here are some photographs of the sculptures that were there and also some from  Elena Fregni's website which is just lovely, she lives and works in Bologna.

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.

Lion Taming

Now I'm almost free of Dogs, I'm thinking of Circuses and Zoo's here's my sketch for a new lion tamer.