Darren Booth

Just saw a posting over at drawn.ca about the work/life book for uppercase gallery - what made my jaw drop is the cover by illustrator Darren Booth. Golllllllly!

Work/Life is here.
Darren Booth is here.

Charley Harper - An Illustrated Life

Wandering through Montreal last winter I stumbled onto (into?) the Drawn and Quarterly shop in Mile End where I proceeded to black out and feed my book addiction while my friend patiently waited for me. For hours. I can't say it was the worst place to be stranded!

One lovely book that I didn't pick up due to its sheer size (how shall it fit in my backpack?) and hefty price (how shall I pay my rent?) was an oversized tome of the late Charley Harper's illustrations.

He is a master colourist and his graphic but simple illustrations of birds, insects and nature are brilliantly composed in flat planes of colour. It reminds me of 50's kitsch mashed with modernist influences, though of course no modernist would ever allow this much color into their work, which is just fine by me. He's also known for some children's books such as "Birds and Words", which the publisher's website tells me is a classic. I'm looking forward to discovering more about him.

Read more/order (I wish!) here.

Letterpressin'

Got to play with SNAP's letterpress the other day. I had ordered some woodblock type off of ebay and the next thing I knew, I was inking up rollers and playing with leading. Joy!

The thing I find queer about letterpress is the actual text block is so filled with texture and colour and variation and metal and wood and everything else and the print comes out so clean and blank. I'll post pics of the print when it's done.