Dialogue: The Fine Art of Conversation.

For the following weeks you will start to see my illustration references books that I have. I love to buy books form different illustrators and see how their illustrations have changed over time and plus seeing great illustrations inspires me and motivates me to one day have an illustration book with my illustrations or to be part of a collaborative illustration book. Today's "From my library to yours" I present you:

Dialogue: The Fine Art of Conversation:Inspirational Letters and Paintings.
This book was put together by Mark Murphy from Murphy design, you can visit his website HERE 
I love collaborative books, and even more when it has illustrators. The reason the book is titled DIALOGUE, has to do with the theme of the illustrations. The illustrators were encouraged to find a letter, note, receipt, document or anything that was given to them that included a handwritten note or a message that stuck with them --that they have kept-- and to illustrate that letter and the emotions it brought them. Some letters and their illustrations brings a smile, a laugh, a loss and a lesson. I quotes Murphy's because he describes it better than me, after all I'm not a writer:
 "You and I are emotional collectors of the past. Subconsciously, we're connected to these personal artifacts. We are physical packers of 'Stuff' that we do not feel comfortable of letting go. When we feel empowered and strong, we entertain moments to cleanse ourselves of these emotional objects. Maybe not? It's possible, we carefully plan the over-stuffing of our garages, closets, boxes and drawers full of things that make up our person. What do we do with all these cards, reports, love letters, notes from mom and dad, official documents, recipes, awards, and ticket stubs? All of us hang on to these things for one reason or another. Amazingly enough, we admit that these collections are deeply personal, loving, supportive and/or utterly ridiculous. We feel guilty throwing anything away that is handwritten. We keep the good with the bad, as we believe the thought, effort and time vested by an associate or loved one needs to be cherished. We keep the bad and incriminating notes, just in case. Our collected 'dialogue' move us through the tough times and makes us get tough during those challenging moments when no one seems to be around. We save to be remembered. Move through" Love it, Mark Murphy ladies and gentlemen.
And now the moment you are all waiting for, a sneak peek to the book.

Process

Everything has a process to get to the final result. And todays I want to share how I get to the final look on my illustrations, since I have never shared the way I worked, I always though I had an idea and illustrated and dive in ready to paint, but as I was working I realize I don plan it well. Here it is enjoy the tour of how I work. I recently turned back to my illustration style I did for my senior thesis in Otis College of Art and Design. Illustrating a whole story on one page. Here I did " The little Matchgirl by Hans Christina Handersen"


1: First I read the story and take out the most key moments of the story, then I see into how many frames I can fit the story into.
2: Then I'll do a very quick composition of the illustration. (this is all done in my sketchbook)

2: Then I'll do the bigger version in pencil.(This is my favorite part of working, the foundation of the illustration)

3: Then I'll inked.

4: And finally after figuring out the color palette, I'll paint it.

Ecollustration of the week: Think Positive

Think positive. Live Positive

Best way to live life I think, So I illustrated it on my archival box, so I can see it everyday. Surprisingly watercolors work really nice on paperbags. Love it

Archival box

Another D.I.Y Recycling project to organize yourself. An archival box, because my archival folder has no more room!.So much papers to keep and organize. So here I am, to show you how to make a simple archival box for your files.
You will need:
Folders of your choice
A box ( milk carton boxes are great size)
Paper to wrap your box (I'm using Paperbags).


1: Here's the milk carton box

2: Measure the sizes on the paper of your choice.

3: Here are my four sizes trimmed and ready to be glued.

4: You don't need to cover the whole paper to glued it into the box, just apply glue on the tabs.

5: The first side done! now let's do the rest.

6: Tada! this is how it looks done with my folders inside!

Now it's not really completely done because it needs an illustration. The ecollustration of the week will go on the box. So come back tomorrow to see the ecollustration of the week  that I have planned for this new archival box. Stay tuned!

Aimar Ecollustrado

Gustavo Aimar is the ecollustrador of the week. In his illustrations he creates beautiful collages from old paper, wallpaper, stamps and old pictures together with gesso, watercolor(wohoo!) and tempera. With that he creates  unique collages. Love his color palette and his playful characters. His illustrations have a strong sense of storytelling, which I definitely appreciate. Despite the soft colors the images have a strong presence. I really like his style, especially the way he draw peoples with unique eyes(round and uneven) he pulls it off really nice. Here are some of his illustrations that I love from his Flickr stream.

He has his own blog, even if you don't speak spanish, you can translate it to english with the google translator. I have done that for you HERE 
Check out his STUDIO too and SHOP as well!
Beautiful right? 


PS:He speaks spanish:from argentina.