Candlelight Stories » Illustration

Gojin Ishihara’s Freak Art for Kids

Editor — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:51:12 +0000

Pink Tentacle has an amazing collection of freakishly bizarre Japanese children’s book illustrations by Gojin Ishihara from the 1970s. His marvelously comforting work features various humans being eaten, strangled, decapitated, tortured and generally threatened by every sort of demonic beast possible to imagine.

Well worth your time.

Visit the macabre collection of sweet children’s pictures.

Alice In Wonderland For iPad

Editor — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:34:10 +0000

I’ve got lots of grumps against Apple’s iPad, like the lack of support for Flash, one of the greatest web technologies in existence. But this Alice in Wonderland eBook looks fantastic. I’d love to make all the pictures move around and I think kids will too. This must be right because when I was a kid I fervently wished for every illustration to wake up and start moving.

New Illustrated Alice in Wonderland

Editor — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:18:36 +0000

Artist Camille Rose Garcia has illustrated a new version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’d read her book instead of seeing the Tim Burton film. He’s really just the most obnoxiously untalented movie-maker. He is mistakenly called a ‘dark’ director. He is not. Actually, he is as moronically cheerful and sunshiny as Walt Disney. And Johnny Depp’s entire talent and technique as a performer resides within his wrists. It’s bravura wrist-acting. So skip the lumbering slog of a film and read the excellent book with the beautiful illustrations by Garcia.

Her pictures make me want to read the book again. Here’s a L.A. Times Jacket Copy article about the artist.

Gustaf Tenggren and the Classic Golden Book Style

Editor — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:46:43 +0000

Sleeping Beauty by Gustaf Tenggren

Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has an excellent post about how Gustaf Tenggren developed illustrations techniques that led directly to the classic Golden Book style of illustration.

Read the article here

An Awesome Book

Editor — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:37:27 +0000

Dallas Clayton is an author who has written and illustrated An Awesome Book. It’s about making sure your dreams are enormous. Petty little dreams are so out. Big huge ones with rockets on their backs are ultra-in.

I like the looks of this book and I really like big dreams whenever they come around. I like the way the author draws too.

You can purchase Mr. Clayton’s book here.

But you can also read the whole entire thing for free right here.

I think you should read it online and then buy one or two to give away.

75 Ways to Draw More: Advice for People Who Don’t Draw

Editor — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:10:47 +0000

Michael Nobbs has posted a little booklet on Flickr that has a list of 75 ways to draw more. Interesting concept. But of course it should go without saying that if you need to read a list of 75 ways to find more time to draw, you probably should be doing something else anyway.

I think the main information to take away from an illustrated list like this is from the illustrations that show you how to print the list out. What they show you is that you can just look at an object and start drawing lines on a piece of paper. Something will emerge. It might be messy. It might be neat. That will be your drawing. I call this little piece of advice ’1 way to draw less.’

Illustration by Isabelle Arsenault

Editor — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:18:01 +0000

This is an illustration by Isabelle Arsenault for a picture book called Mr. Gauguin’s Heart, published in 2004. She is based in Montreal, Canada and has been a finalist for The Governor General’s Literary Awards in 2008.

I like the oil-painting approach and the way she evokes illustration styles from the past.

Watchmen Artist Draws Rorschach

Editor — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:48:46 +0000

Artist Dave Gibbons did a video workshop revealing how he paints the Watchmen character Rorschach using digital tools. The video was produced for ImagineFX magazine which is dedicated to fantasy, sci-fi, comic and manga artists.

Don Quixote Illustration by Gustave Doré

Editor — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:31:09 +0000

Here’s an illustration from Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote. It was done by Gustave Doré. It shows Don Quixote reading a book of chivalry in his library. I love the way Doré shows all the madness of Quixote’s imagination surrounding him in his chair as if his imagination and the book were coming to life. It’s a reminder that the sanest guy in the entire novel is really the Don himself… even though he does go off tilting at windmills as if they were giant monsters.

Click the image to enlarge.