STATION ZERO

I was  psyched when Light Grey Art Lab announced the call for artists for their Station Zero show. They had been working on amassing a collection of old sci-fi books from the 50s through the 70s and were looking for artists to reinterpret the covers.

I definitely wouldn't call myself a sci-fi buff. More a sci-fi admirer. When I opened up the package containing my book from Light Grey, I was excited to find the beauty pictured on the top left. Such a great cover already!

When I thought about what I like in great cover design, more often than not it is pretty clear, graphic and slightly quirky design. I liked the fun line of shapes under Leiber's name on the original cover and thought that creating vignettes on my cover using similar shapes could be a fun homage to the original design.

This cover turned into one of those cases where I work on it and keep adding things only to undo everything because it starts looking too cluttered. The book is actually comprised of four short stories. I thought four of the shaped vignettes would be an interesting concept to work with, one alluding to each of the stories. In the end, I simplified it down to two. One with the radar to hint at the government/technological aspects involved in the stories and one to hint at the barren landscape that permeates the book.

You can see photos from the show's opening last Friday on the Light Grey Art Lab blog. The show will be up for another few weeks so if you live in the Twin Cities area you should check it out! If not, the rest of the artwork can be viewed in their online gallery and prints are available from the shop. Thanks to the awesome folks at Light Grey Art Lab for including me in another one of their amazing shows!

THE FIRST BOOK OF CONGRESS

If vintage children's books were a drug, Mallory would be my dealer. Her etsy shop, Elwood & Eloise, is a frequent internet stop of mine and I always find something good. One of my more recent purchases was this book. Written by Harold Coy and illustrated by Helen Borten, it was published in 1956. I love the simple colour palette of the illustrations as well as reading through and finding all of the anachronistic sentences....because I'm a nerd ("The Senate, or upper house, consists of 96 Senators, two from each state.") It's kind of the same joy I get from listening to people speculating in old podcasts and thinking, "You have no idea! That's a real thing now!"

Mallory also shares illustrations from her vintage book collection (including the ones for sale in her shop) on her aptly named blog My Vintage Book Collection (in Blog Form).

WHAT MAKES AN ORCHESTRA

This book was an amazing find that I picked up at Bay View Books & Music a couple of weeks ago. Published in 1951, it was written and illustrated by Jan Balet. It walks through all of the instruments in an orchestra with fantastic sonic descriptions of the different tones elicited from each. I love the mix of line vs. shape in these illustrations as well as the patternwork in the various musicians suits. The expressions in each of the characters' body language and faces is also great (with the tambourine player being my personal favourite. He means business). Also has great endpapers to boot.

THE BENTO BESTIARY

I posted this on my other blog but it's been awhile since I've shared some of the art books on my shelf over here. This book caught my eye when I was browsing at Left Bank Books on my trip to St. Louis a little while ago. (And of course it came home with me). It is the latest incarnation of The Bento Bestiary produced by the fine folks at Nobrow. The book is full of clever descriptions by Scott Donaldson paired with fantastic illustrations by Ben Newman of some of the Yokai, an ancient race of Japanese demons.

Here's a short  video showing the printing process of the earlier edition of Bento Bestiary. I love watching printmaking in action.

THE LATEST ADDITION TO MY BOOKSHELF

I've got quite the collection of illustrated children's books (when I signed up for a Barnes & Noble Kids Club card a little while ago, the woman at the desk seemed a little puzzled when I said I didn't actually have any kids) and I thought it might be fun to share my new additions every now and then. The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins is my latest find. I have been enamoured with bug-forms ever since I made that beetle illustration for Oh Comely last year. Jenkins' beetle illustrations are stupendous. Both artful and scientific, they appear to be collaged of many different kinds of paper. My illustrations are usually built out of a bunch of digitally collaged segments of whatever I am depicting so I love looking at all of the pieces used to compose these beetles. Here are a few interior shots for you to oggle and the back cover (which is possibly my favourite part).