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Time to celebrate... in song...





at the fair...




and just way out wonderful! This last image is in Picture Book on Page 56. I was really disappointed, however in the color quality and the way they cut off the bottom of the image. So at least here you can see the full image.

I love gift boxes and lovely wrappings. When I was younger I was the designated family gift-wrapper. I suspect that it was more because the rest were far too lazy to do it than any particularly excellent skills on my part, but I loved the whole wrapping process ... Apparently I also drove the family nuts as I would also takes AGES to unwrap my own gifts. Didn't want to spoil the gorgeous papers so I'd take the sticky tape (sellotape to some of you out there) off slooooowly and precisely. heh.

I'm still flooded by too many things to do at the moment! What with getting everything ready for the new home (a never-ending process it seems) and an exciting new project which I'm working on with strict deadlines ... I've been ignoring my daily drawings, online stores and visits to the artists on the net :( So I decided to take some time off today and post a quick drawing I did yesterday, AND pop over to some of your sites for inspiration. See you there!!

Christmas Gift card at Zazzle

Here’s some things we (Editors -at- illustrationfriday.com) have been told about recently and enjoyed:

• Polish up your Spanish and check out Anika Burton’s free-form sketch blog.
• Fancypantsrodgers.co.uk has a clever picture-framed portfolio design, as well as some greeting cards you might like.
• Erin Green is just finishing up her ultra-cute kid’s book, Usyou, with nifty found-object photographic illustrations, and has added a downloadable PDF of the whole thing!
• Eva-Lena Rehnmark is giving away a georgeous painting in a georgeous gesture in support of giving and the 29-day Giving Challenge.
• Dan Swartz is a vector expert with an impressive gallery.

A reminder: If you’re interested in joining the ad rotation over there on the right, we’ll need a “skyscraper” image 160 pixels wide by 600 pixels high. Then we can feature your work (at our entire discretion) occasionally/sporadically in the ad space. (See Brianna’s original idea in this post for more information.)

Happy Weekend!

Long-time IF’er flossy-p, whose drawings have graced our weekly topics since 2005, was selected for Curvy 5, Australia’s YEN magazine’s annual collection featuring “100 of the most exciting female graphic artists and illustrators in the world.”

Congratulations, Sarah! Check out flossy-p’s blog for more details and views…

free comic book day is the first saturday in may! every year, comic book stores across north america give away a selection of free comics to lure naive readers into a downward spiral of myopia and geekdom. find a comic shop near you for your free taste.

Here’s another fantastic art project: “The Campaign for Drawing’s aim is simple: to encourage everyone to draw. Its annual showpiece, The Big Draw, proves that drawing can be a public activity as well as a private passion.” The ninth Big Draw will run from throughout October 2008 but I mention it now so that you have plenty of time to register.

This Campaign for Drawing illustration is by Quentin Blake.

The annual Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival is one of my favourite things about living in Oxford. So many wonderful speakers, so little time. OUP always has a few events lined up, and the first happened last night. To celebrate our soon-to-be-relaunched Oxford World’s Classics, we put together an event called Blogging the Classics, which pitted professional literary critics against literary bloggers in a debate about who offers the best kind of guide to books. It is, as you can imagine, a subject close to my heart - I couldn’t wait… and I wasn’t disappointed.

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The Portrait Party is one year old today! To celebrate, everyone gets a birthday card and a few of you get presents!

Here are the details.

P.s., The birthday illustration above was drawn by Christine Castro.

I’ve been surprised to receive a lot of emails asking how to throw a portrait party. There is no wrong way to do it but, to get your party started, I wrote out some instructions.

Each of the portraits above was drawn by Christine Castro in just two minutes!