This week’s topic is:

LOST

suggested by Antonio Bernal.

Happy drawing!

I was thrilled when IF asked me to share a lesson or two here with IF readers from my new book: Art Lab for Kids by Quarry Books. There are 52 “labs” inside the book with many more variations in each of the go further section. All of the lessons have been used over and over again with multi-aged groups that I have taught over the past 19 years. For this post I thought it would be fun to share a lesson that could be a blast to do outside (if it’s summer in your neck of the woods!) but of course you can do it inside as well. The materials are easy to gather and the whole experience could be enhanced with your favorite music! You can also get plenty of inspiration before starting by checking out Jackson Pollock’s large scale works. Ready? Okay! Let’s go!

Materials:

- Liquid paint (tempera or acrylic) in three colors (or more!) of your choice
- Small containers for the paint
- Craft sticks
- Cotton string cut in lengths as long as your forearm – one for each color
- Heavy weight paper

Clear an area to work in and put down a few layers of newspaper or covering to protect the table.

1. Dip your string into the paint

2. Using a craft stick, immerse and coat the string with the paint (or fingers!)

3. Holding the string above your paper, let your arm drop and let the string go limp onto the paper

4. Continue with this motion until you are ready to change colors

5. Use one string per color to avoid mixing.

Go further and try these three ideas out:

- Fold the paper over the string and hold the paper with your hand wile you pull out the string.
- Drag the string around the paper in different directions.
- Fill the paper fully with one method, let dry and then use another method on top.

This is a great indoor/outdoor art experience for loosening up, making beautiful collage papers, a finished work or simply play! I hope that you try this out with a child (or not!) and if you are willing – share the results o

Neil Brigham began drawing at a very young age, spurred on by his kindergarten classmates. Some years later, he put aside the finger paint and crayons while he completed a Masters of Art in illustration from Syracuse University. It was there that he really learned to scribble under the guidance of David Passalacqua and Murray Tinkleman. In addition to his illustration projects, Neil spends time making prints as a member of the Zea Mays Printmaking Studio in Florence, Massachusetts. His work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators and Society of Illustrators Los Angeles.

View more of his work.

From the editorial submissions:

Artist: Massimiliano di Lauro is an italian illustrator who just published his first book with OQO Editora, “Mi primer viaje“. His work is very painterly, scratchy and textured. Here he shows us how to paint Pinocchio with a woodblock.

View more on his blog.

What portion of your job is illustration-based?

Please leave a comment below or take the poll on the IF Facebook page.

Juana Martinez-Neal is a children’s book illustrator currently based in Scottsdale, Arizona. She was born in Lima, the capital of Peru and started in the illustration industry at the age 16. After 5 years, she went to art school to get her education at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru – School of Fine Arts.

View more of her children’s illustration work here.

Jill McDonald graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1998 with a degree in textile design. She then went on to work for Baby Gap as a print stylist in Gap’s Manhattan, NY design headquarters. After two years at Gap Jill made the decision to return to her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri where she joined Hallmark Cards working as an illustrator for three years.

In January 2004 Jill felt the time was right to strike out on her own and founded Jill McDonald Design. Jill specializes in surface design collections and illustrations oriented towards baby and kids. Jill has illustrated many children’s books, created bedding collections, Scrapbooking lines, Christmas collections, Stationary collections & Wall art. Jill is now working with her team on a line of products under her name.

View more of Jill’s work.

This week’s topic is:

Suspend

suggested by Allyn Howard.

Happy creating!

Egon Schiele was an important figurative painter from Austria. His paintings of people are known for their contorted, expressive poses. The most famous ones include Seated Woman with a Bent Knee and any of the many self-portraits that he created.

Schiele’s teachers recognized his talent at an early age. His uncle, who cared for Egon, sent him to Kunstgewerbeschule, the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna, where Gustav Klimt studied art. Within a year, Egon’s teachers sent him to the more rigorous Akademie der Bildenden Kunste. He studied painting and drawing there, but was frustrated by the school’s old-fashioned approach.

Gustav Klimt took a special interest in Egon. The older artist mentored Schiele, bought his drawings, and introduced him to models and patrons. With his help, Egon had his first art shows. At the 1909 Vienna Kunstschau, he discovered and was inspired by the paintings of Edvward Munch and Vincent Van Gogh.

He left school that year to found the Neukunstgruppe, the New Art Group, with some other dissatisfied classmates. Free to pursue their own interests, Egon painted landscapes, still-lifes, and “tributes to Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.” But he was best know for his studies of the human form. His paintings of people focused on sexuality, death, and self-discovery.

Critics called Schiele’s artwork grotesque, pornographic, and disturbing. To escape the “claustrophobic Viennese milieu,” Egon moved to Krumau, a small town in southern Bohemia. The residents disapproved of Schiele’s life style though, and they ran him out of town for hiring teenage girls to model for his paintings.

Schiele moved next to Neulengbach. His studio became a gathering place for delinquent children. His neighbors were angered by his way of life. They accused him of kidnapping and he was arrested for seducing a young girl. A judge dropped those charges, but he found the artist guilty of “exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children.” In court, the judge burned one of Egon’s drawings over a candle flame. While in jail, Schiele created 12 paintings depicting the discomfort of a prison.

Soon after, Egon moved to the Viennese suburb where he met his future wife, Edith. Three days after their wedding, he was drafted into World War I. The officers respected his artistic talent. He never saw any fighting, and he was allowed to paint and draw while guarding prisoners of war.

When he returned from war, Schiele’s work “reflected the maturity of an artist in full command of his talents.” Fifty of his pieces were accepted for the Secession’s 49th exhibition in Vienna. He designed a poster for the show, and was offered his own exhibitions in Zurich, Prague, and Dresden. Thanks to their success, the price for Egon’s work increased and he received many requests for portraits.

Later that year though, the Spanish flu reached Vienna. It killed Edith Schiele when she was six months pregnant. Egon died three days later. His final works were sketches of his wife.

The Egon Schiele Museum is located in Tulln, Austria where Schiele was born. A more complete collection of his paintings can be seen in the Leopold Museum, Vienna. There is even a Schiele museum in Krumau, the small Bohemian city where Egon was run out of town. You can see his work and learn more about him at egon-schiele.net.

Madalena Matoso  studied Communication Design at Lisbon College of Fine Arts and post-graduated in Graphic Editorial Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona. View more of her portfolio work.

Madalena Matoso  studied Communication Design at Lisbon College of Fine Arts and post-graduated in Graphic Editorial Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona. View more of her portfolio work.

Hi all,

Just a quick update now that the new site is launched, and people are getting a chance to use the new structure a bit more.

Overall, people are loving the way the new I-Fri works! I’ve gotten several emails praising the update and applauding how easy it is to browse and submit images. (Not submitting images from iPads, though. We’re looking to the iOS 6 update to make file uploads a reality.) Those “easy peasy” comments make sense–pretty much all the changes were made in hopes of making it simpler for visitors to look through all the fabulous illustrations. I have to admit that I myself can’t stop scrolling, admiring, scrolling, admiring, clicking, oohing and ahh-ing at what our artists are posting.

One unexpected downside of the new design is a direct result of that ease of use: Now that visitors can see all this art on the main Illustration Friday site, they might* be less likely to click through and visit the artist’s personal blog or portfolio site to see more.

*I say “might” because I think this raises an interesting dilemma. if you’re an artist who created a work, would you rather have people be forced to click in order to view it fully, or give them a peek and cross your fingers that they’ll decide to investigate further? I’m picturing a physical art gallery displaying *my* work, and trying to think how I’d answer if the curator gave me a choice between having a painting displayed in the front window or given its own room in the back of the gallery, which people would only see if they came inside… Hmm.

Not that it’s particularly tricky for people to take that next step… Of course they can still see a piece they love, clickety click and be whisked off to the artist’s site to comment, rave, “favorite” or do whatever it is we all do when we find something particularly inspiring.

My hope, I guess, is that more of us will do just that: If you instantaneously swoon over something, say so! One click on the image takes you right to the artist’s page, where you can browse though more of their work and comment to your heart’s content. I hate to imagine our artists losing out on valuable feedback or words of encouragement as a consequence of this new look.

In phase 2 of this update, I’d love to incorporate a way to make commenting even one step simpler and add a comments function right here on the site. Suffice it to say, that’s a pretty involved bit of programming, and beyond what I could pull off (or afford!) this time around. If you have thoughts or preferences about this idea, please feel free to let me know.

So, to wrap up, I thank everyone for their understanding about this change, and appreciate all the feedback on the new Illustration Friday. To my eyes, and echoing what I’ve heard in a lot of the emails I’m getting, it’s working beautifully toward the goal of being what I always envisioned it being: A “participatory art exhibit” where people from all over the world can come and see the great illustrations that our talented artists create. It’s so inspiring to see that happening every week.

*One more thing: If you’re finding yourself getting nostalgic for the old I-Fri, and in particular the thumbnail feature that teased viewers with just a small section of your work, rather than displaying the whole thing, fear not! There’s no rule saying you can’t post just a thumbnail in the gallery, and trust that intrigued viewers will click on through to your personal site to see the whole thing. It might make illustrationfriday.com look a little less gallery-like, with tantalizing crops of paintings and drawings interspersed with the full compositions, but I think I’m okay with that. Especially if it makes the site more rewarding for our artists.

Thanks for reading, and

Happy creating,

Penelope Dullaghan

Hi all,

Just a quick update now that the new site is launched, and people are getting a chance to use the new structure a bit more.

Overall, people are loving the way the new I-Fri works! I’ve gotten several emails praising the update and applauding how easy it is to browse and submit images. (Not submitting images from iPads, though. We’re looking to the iOS 6 update to make file uploads a reality.) Those “easy peasy” comments make sense–pretty much all the changes were made in hopes of making it simpler for visitors to look through all the fabulous illustrations. I have to admit that I myself can’t stop scrolling, admiring, scrolling, admiring, clicking, oohing and ahh-ing at what our artists are posting.

One unexpected downside of the new design is a direct result of that ease of use: Now that visitors can see all this art on the main Illustration Friday site, they might* be less likely to click through and visit the artist’s personal blog or portfolio site to see more.

*I say “might” because I think this raises an interesting dilemma. if you’re an artist who created a work, would you rather have people be forced to click in order to view it fully, or give them a peek and cross your fingers that they’ll decide to investigate further? I’m picturing a physical art gallery displaying *my* work, and trying to think how I’d answer if the curator gave me a choice between having a painting displayed in the front window or given its own room in the back of the gallery, which people would only see if they came inside… Hmm.

Not that it’s particularly tricky for people to take that next step… Of course they can still see a piece they love, clickety click and be whisked off to the artist’s site to comment, rave, “favorite” or do whatever it is we all do when we find something particularly inspiring.

My hope, I guess, is that more of us will do just that: If you instantaneously swoon over something, say so! One click on the image takes you right to the artist’s page, where you can browse though more of their work and comment to your heart’s content. I hate to imagine our artists losing out on valuable feedback or words of encouragement as a consequence of this new look.

In phase 2 of this update, I’d love to incorporate a way to make commenting even one step simpler and add a comments function right here on the site. Suffice it to say, that’s a pretty involved bit of programming, and beyond what I could pull off (or afford!) this time around. If you have thoughts or preferences about this idea, please feel free to let me know.

So, to wrap up, I thank everyone for their understanding about this change, and appreciate all the feedback on the new Illustration Friday. To my eyes, and echoing what I’ve heard in a lot of the emails I’m getting, it’s working beautifully toward the goal of being what I always envisioned it being: A “participatory art exhibit” where people from all over the world can come and see the great illustrations that our talented artists create. It’s so inspiring to see that happening every week.

*One more thing: If you’re finding yourself getting nostalgic for the old I-Fri, and in particular the thumbnail feature that teased viewers with just a small section of your work, rather than displaying the whole thing, fear not! There’s no rule saying you can’t post just a thumbnail in the gallery, and trust that intrigued viewers will click on through to your personal site to see the whole thing. It might make illustrationfriday.com look a little less gallery-like, with tantalizing crops of paintings and drawings interspersed with the full compositions, but I think I’m okay with that. Especially if it makes the site more rewarding for our artists.

Thanks for reading, and

Happy creating,

Penelope Dullaghan

Valerio Vidali Is an Italian illustrator of magazines and children’s books. View more of his loose, colorful illustration work on his blog.

Valerio Vidali Is an Italian illustrator of magazines and children’s books. View more of his loose, colorful illustration work on his blog.

Blueberry Express is a collection of images from New York based, Japanese artist Misaki Kawai. The book features Kawai’s larger scale paintings, sculptural installations and snapshots of her working in her New York studio over the past two years. Read more about her, or view more images of the book.

Blueberry Express is a collection of images from New York based, Japanese artist Misaki Kawai. The book features Kawai’s larger scale paintings, sculptural installations and snapshots of her working in her New York studio over the past two years. Read more about her, or view more images of the book.

Katrin Stangl was born in 1977 in Filderstadt. Studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, and currently lives as a freelance artist in Cologne. View more of her great work.

Illustrations by Sato Kanae.

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The art of Isabelle Arsenault.

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I really love Mark Ulriksen’s work, especially his dogs.

He has a great series of photos of his studio, too!

Share/Bookmark

Art by Omar Rayyan.

Share/Bookmark

I am so thrilled to finally share with you our freshly updated website, including easier ways to share your art, browse illustrations, and connect with your creative community. With the new site, you can see all the beautiful artwork front and center, pop up a window to take a closer peek, and easily “Like” the pieces that make you smile, and “Share” them with your friends!

A few highlights:

* Thumbnails are now huge (!) and can be automatically generated (!!) for you if you choose. Try it out this week when you post your artwork — Go to the homepage, choose “Submit your illustration” and fill out the form. After you paste in your url and choose your Medium, the auto-generator will start doing its thing and you can choose your thumbnail easily! (Yippee!) You can also choose a thumbnail from your desktop if you choose. Either way is cool!

* It’s easier and fun to Submit a Topic! Think up a good word or short phrase that can be interpreted visually in lots of ways and submit it! If your topic is chosen you’re website link will be on the homepage and on the new weekly topic email.

* Speaking of weekly topic emails… We are using a new service so the newsletters are prettier and easier for you to manage. Sign up for topic and goodies in your inbox!

* We are now accepting sponsorship ads on the site if you’re interested in getting more eyeballs on your artwork / little prints shop / new project. Check out the sponsors on the sidebar. View sponsorship info.

* For even more ideas to get involve with the new Illustration Friday, visit the About page.

I hope you enjoy the new site! Please help spread the word by “Liking” IF on Facebook, tweeting about it, blogging about it or posting your art to the  

Katrin Stangl was born in 1977 in Filderstadt. Studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, and currently lives as a freelance artist in Cologne. View more of her great work.

I am so thrilled to finally share with you our freshly updated website, including easier ways to share your art, browse illustrations, and connect with your creative community. With the new site, you can see all the beautiful artwork front and center, pop up a window to take a closer peek, and easily “Like” the pieces that make you smile, and “Share” them with your friends!

A few highlights:

* Thumbnails are now huge (!) and can be automatically generated (!!) for you if you choose. Try it out this week when you post your artwork — Go to the homepage, choose “Submit your illustration” and fill out the form. After you paste in your url and choose your Medium, the auto-generator will start doing its thing and you can choose your thumbnail easily! (Yippee!) You can also choose a thumbnail from your desktop if you choose. Either way is cool!

* It’s easier and fun to Submit a Topic! Think up a good word or short phrase that can be interpreted visually in lots of ways and submit it! If your topic is chosen you’re website link will be on the homepage and on the new weekly topic email.

* Speaking of weekly topic emails… We are using a new service so the newsletters are prettier and easier for you to manage. Sign up for topic and goodies in your inbox!

* We are now accepting sponsorship ads on the site if you’re interested in getting more eyeballs on your artwork / little prints shop / new project. Check out the sponsors on the sidebar. View sponsorship info.

* For even more ideas to get involve with the new Illustration Friday, visit the About page.

I hope you enjoy the new site! Please help spread the word by “Liking” IF on Facebook, tweeting about it, blogging about it or posting your art to the