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© Jonathan Atkinson, 2013 gutenberg Copyright Hand Crafted in the U.S.A.
22nd of January

Jeremy Enecio


Sometimes it’s hard to put into words how I feel about someone’s illustration or art. Mostly it’s “I like!” “I like!!” But that’s a pretty boring and shallow way to react to all this visual stimulation. Blame it on watching too much mindless TV. I don’t know. Anyway Jeremy Enecio’s fantastic art makes me gibber “I like” quite a bit. I had to stop for a bit, and actually look harder, take a moment and review why “I like”. I think first he caught my attention with his tribute work entitled Cthulu ( acrylic on paper | 11 x 14 ) The glowing eyes of the beast, and it’s enormity depicted with the tiny shark (that you instinctively know is probably a gazzillion meters long, at least 13 anyway!) drifting through the tentacles, froze me in it’s gaze. I couldn’t look away. Is it not fantastic to have this sort of physical reaction to an artwork. The more I browsed through his portfolio, the more I was entranced. The use of colour and subject matter, especially his fantastical artworks, blew my imagination open wide. Go do yourself a favour and take a peek at his website and blog!

1st of January

Ralph McQuarrie



Ralph McQuarrie’s art must look familiar to generations of movie goers, his work featured in Star Wars, Battlestar Gallactica and a slew of sci-fi flicks. He was a conceptual artist, and past away this year in March at the age of 83. He left behind a legacy of fantastic moonscapes, robots, and epic futuristic space stations.

McQuarrie started off drawing teeth and aeroplane parts for a dentistry firm and Boeing respectively, and created posters for the Apollo Space Program. His technical illustration ended up catching the eye of George Lucas, who commissioned him to create conceptual art work for his new film, Starwars.

“McQuarrie designed many of the film’s characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO and drew many concepts for the film’s sets. It was McQuarrie who suggested that Vader wear breathing apparatus. McQuarrie’s concept paintings, including such scenes as R2-D2 and C-3PO arriving on Tatooine, helped convince 20th Century Fox to fund Star Wars, which became a huge success upon release in 1977.Neil Kendricks of The San Diego Union-Tribune stated McQuarrie “holds a unique position when it comes to defining much of the look of the “Star Wars” universe.”McQuarrie noted, “I thought I had the best job that an artist ever had on a film, and I had never worked on a feature film before. [...] I still get fan mail — people wondering if I worked on Episode I or just wanting to have my autograph.” source

His work carved out a particular style within the sci-fi-fantasy genre, creating landscapes and worlds that one could really imagine inhabiting, vast alien vistas receding into the distance, populated with characters that, brought into our lives through cinema, feel like old friends.

“Ralph McQuarrie’s life can be clearly divided into two distinct sections: before Star Wars, he was an industrious, skilled, virtually unknown technical illustrator; after Star Wars, he became the most sought after Production Illustrator ever to work in films.
A primary reason for this change, of course, has to do with the film’s unprecedented success. But, in a very real sense, Star Wars wouldn’t have been the film it was without McQuarrie. His eyes and hands were the first lenses through which Star Wars was focused and captured for Lucas’ inspection and refinement.” source

You can find out more, and see more of his art on his website.

4th of July

Tactile Illustrator Owen Gildersleeve


I got very excited when I came across Owen’s work. I truly love his handcrafted use of alternative materials in order to create something beautiful and communicative. The details in his cut out crunched up paper leaves and in his hand stitched poster is madness, patient-beautiful madness. Working from London, Owen’s as created illustrations for The TATE, The New York Times, Douglas & Gordon, Money Magazine and The Guardian. I love that handmade design/illustration still has a place in this world where artworks are created by means of a mouse click. I hope you enjoy Owen’s work as much as I do.

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3rd of January

Danny Gregory’s “An Illustrated Life”


“An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers” is a must have. There is nothing more precious then an artists journal or sketchbook. Journals are not just a planning and practice ground for art but are creative, honest and faithful, true and private expression of a persons experience of life. Danny Gregory has dived into countless sketchbooks and compiled a book with just over 260 pages of priceless sketchbook entries of artists, illustrators and designers. The author Danny Gregory introduces his book in the video below.

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23rd of December

Obama & McCain 2008: Art & Politics


How much influence did art, the politicians brand and exposure thereof have in the 2008 American elections?

Is there an integral role between art and politics which can guide us in discovering truth or does art and design in politics walk dangerously close to propaganda?

How much does art and design influence the way people think and act? Or is art an embodiment of people’s perceptions implying that the art is in-fact preordained? The logo of a political brand is then a personification of a symbol or in other words the embodiment of the person it represents – similar comments in the video at the end of this post.

To what degree has art and design influenced the way Americans voted in 2008?

With these questions in mind please take a look at the collection of illustrations, caricatures, logos and video’s relating to the 2008 American Elections. You will notice there is more material on Obama which has nothing to do with my personal views. There was simply more of it. For example there were no real variations of the McCain logo like there was for Obama nor where there video’s talking about McCains brand development.

Enjoy: (Click on the images to see fully)


Obama Brand & Logo Development:
An interview with Sol Sender about the Obama logo and the brand that was built.

Sol Sender – Obama Logo Design Part 1 of 2

Sol Sender – Obama Logo Design Part 1 of 2

Other Videos:

This is a video compilation of varies political expressions

Obama And Pop Culture – CBS News

HipHop Scratching Video

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed!

23rd of December

Universal Declaration of Human Rights


60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Awesome.

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