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Kelpies Design & Illustration Prize Shortlist

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The winner, chosen by a Floris judging panel, will see their front cover on the new edition of The Hill of the Red Fox, which will be published by Floris as part of their Kelpies range of Scottish children’s novels in autumn 2015. The winner will also receive a cheque for £250.

The award will be presented at a private reception at The Creative Exchange, Leith, on 10th April, where the twelve shortlisted entries will be on display until the 17th April.

The shortlisted artists in full [scroll down to see their work]:

Freya Allan, Glasgow
Lewis Copland, Gray’s School of Art
David Lymburn, Edinburgh College
Brad Newman, Aberdeen
Keith Anderson, Edinburgh
Laura Darling, Edinburgh
Kieren McDonald, Robert Gordon University
Simon Ray, Edinburgh
Rebecca Catterson, Gray’s School of Art
Darren Gate, Glasgow
Jon Nagl, Fife
Anna Elez Rodrigo, Edinburgh College

    • Anna Elez Rodrigo - Student at Edinburgh College
      A
      Anna Elez Rodrigo – Student at Edinburgh College
    • David Lymburn - Student at Edinburgh College
      B
      David Lymburn – Student at Edinburgh College
    • Rebecca Catterson - Student at Gray's School of Art
      C
      Rebecca Catterson – Student at Gray’s School of Art
    • Freya Allan - Amateur Designer from Glasgow
      D
      Freya Allan – Amateur Designer from Glasgow
    • Jon Nagl - Amateur Designer from Fife
      E
      Jon Nagl – Amateur Designer from Fife
    • Darren Gate - Professional Designer from Glasgow
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      Darren Gate – Professional Designer from Glasgow
    • Laura Darling - Artist in Residence at Edinburgh College of Art
      G
      Laura Darling – Artist in Residence at Edinburgh College of Art
    • Kieren McDonald - Student at Robert Gordon University
      H
      Kieren McDonald – Student at Robert Gordon University
    • Simon Ray - Artist from Edinburgh
      I
      Simon Ray – Artist from Edinburgh
    • Brad Newman - Professional Designer from Aberdeen
      J
      Brad Newman – Professional Designer from Aberdeen
    • Lewis Copland - Student at Gray's School of Art
      K
      Lewis Copland – Student at Gray’s School of Art
    • Keith Anderson - Professional Designer from Edinburgh
      L
      Keith Anderson – Professional Designer from Edinburgh

http://www.florisbooks.co.uk/kelpiesdesignprize/

Why art critic Brian Sewell has written his first children’s book at the age of 83

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“I’m really worried about children’s literature,” [Brian Sewell] said “It seems to me to be profoundly unserious.”

Art critic Brian Sewell has written his first children’s book at the age of 83 – because he is concerned that the young lack curiosity.

The White Umbrella, which will be published next month, is inspired by the true story of a wounded donkey he was desperate to save when filming in Peshawar, Pakistan, 20 years ago.

via Why art critic Brian Sewell has written his first children’s book at the age of 83 – Life Style Books – Life & Style – London Evening Standard.

Stephen King on Teaching (&) Writing

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Atlantic

King: Many writers have to teach in order to put bread on the table. But I have no doubt teaching sucks away the creative juices and slows production. “Doomed proposition” is too strong, but it’s hard, Jessica. Even when you have the time, it’s hard to find the old N-R-G.

Lahey: If your writing had not panned out, do you think you would have continued teaching?

King: Yes, but I would have gotten a degree in elementary ed. I was discussing that with my wife just before I broke through with Carrie. Here’s the flat, sad truth: By the time they get to high school, a lot of these kids have already closed their minds to what we love. I wanted to get to them while they were still wide open. Teenagers are wonderful, beautiful freethinkers at the best of times. At the worst, it’s like beating your fists on a brick wall. Also, they’re so preoccupied with their hormones it’s often hard to get their attention.

Lahey: Do you think great teachers are born or do you think they can be trained?

King: Good teachers can be trained, if they really want to learn (some are pretty lazy). Great teachers, like Socrates, are born.

Lahey: You refer to writing as a craft rather than an art. What about teaching? Craft, or art?

King: It’s both. The best teachers are artists.

via How Stephen King Teaches Writing – The Atlantic.

FLIC Magazine | Oliver Jeffers

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Interview with Oliver Jeffers on Flic Magazine, by Sarah Maclean

How do you divide your concentration?
I write a lot of lists and give myself deadlines, even when there’s not one I’ll force one on myself, and I’ll travel backwards from dates.

Is your mind always thinking and churning on your work and stories?
Yes very much so. Normally I’ll have a notebook in my pocket and will write down ideas as soon as they occur, or think of a better solution for something. Wherever I am I’ll always do it. For me I have to log everything down because of how good an idea it might be as everything in my head has got an equal chance of being forgotten. My hands struggle to keep up with my head at the best of times. So it’s very important to document.

via FLIC Magazine | Oliver Jeffers.

Mattias Adolfsson – Another Completed Moleskine

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The amazing Swedish illustrator, Mattias Adolfsson, has completed another moleskine.
His blog, where he regularly posts completed sketches, and sketches in progress, is highly recommended.

You can also follow him on Google+ +MattiasAdolfsson and on Twitter @MattiasInk

http://mattiasa.blogspot.co.uk/


Artwork from his sketchbooks…

Timelapse Photographer Michael Shainblum Talks About His Art & His Dyslexia

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Early on in my life I was diagnosed with dyslexia, and some other learning difficulties. It’s hard as a kid seeing everyone else doing so well at everything, and you just can’t. So the way I found myself as a person was through art. I just loved taking pictures… MICHAEL SHAINBLUm

 

Nick Paumgarten: Why Are So Many People Paying So Much for Art? : The New Yorker

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This lengthy (11 webpages long) but excellent New Yorker profile of the art dealer David Zwirmer is a little tangential to the things I usually include in this blog – books, photography, education – but I include it in the hope that it will fascinate others as much as it fascinates me.
I was struck, on a recent visit to the LUMAS gallery in London, to see an infographic in their magazine claiming an average 312% increase in value at auction of art sold through their gallery, with a top-rate increase of 884% and the smallest increase of 59%.
As anyone who is struggling to find a return on orthodox financial savings that can even equate to the current low rate of inflation will know, these figures are extremely alluring. But, as this New Yorker article highlights, you have to be able to afford the art in the first place.
Of course, as this page on the LUMAS website detailing these auction results makes clear, the gains are over a period of time, and the claims reflect the current market. There is no guarantee that if you purchased artwork now you would be able to realise the same sorts of gain in 5 to 10 years’ time.
There is another reason for drawing attention to this piece by Nick Paumgarten. It’s an excellent example of the kind of extended essay-journalism that we see too little of these days.

The accumulation of greater wealth in the hands of a smaller percentage of the world’s population has created immense fortunes with a limitless capacity to pursue a limited supply of art work. The globalization of the art market—the interest in contemporary art among newly wealthy Asians, Latin Americans, Arabs, and Russians—has furnished it with scores of new buyers, and perhaps fresh supplies of greater fools. Once you have hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s hard to know where to put it all. Art is transportable, unregulated, glamorous, arcane, beautiful, difficult. It is easier to store than oil, more esoteric than diamonds, more durable than political influence. Its elusive valuation makes it conducive to extremely creative tax accounting.

via Nick Paumgarten: Why Are So Many People Paying So Much for Art? : The New Yorker.

How children’s books thrived under Stalin – Inside The Rainbow reviewed by Philip Pullman

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When Stalin’s great purges made writing dangerous, a group of avant garde artists turned their attention to children’s books. Philip Pullman on a new collection that reveals a vigorous freedom in a time of repression…

the early Soviet period was a miraculously rich time for children’s books and their illustration. A new book, Inside the Rainbow: Russian Children’s Literature 1920-1935 offers a glimpse into that astonishing world. The designer, Julian Rothenstein, and the writer of an essay in the book, Olga Budashevskaya, have produced something truly remarkable. Brilliant primary colours, simple geometrical shapes – at first sight it looks like a textbook of suprematism, the movement that emerged from the intellectual ferment of pre-revolutionary Russia to express the supremacy of pure, artistic feeling above the mere depiction of objects. In the hands of Kazimir Malevich, for example, the great theoretician of suprematism, a black square expressed such feeling, and the white field on which it appeared was the void beyond all feeling.

For the illustrator K Rudakov, in a children’s book of 1927, a black square is still a black square, but with the addition of two bells underneath and a hook at the side for the handset, it becomes a telephone. In this picture it’s being used by a monkey in red trousers and a black waistcoat, and it illustrates a poem by the great nonsense-poet of Russian children’s literature, Kornei Chukovsky (1882-1969).

via How children's books thrived under Stalin | Books | The Guardian.