Finally catching up with things after the exhibition. Here's another illustration blog,ILLUSTRATION ART, a sharply observed insight on the lost craft of technique.

It got me thinking. (Here we go, another grumble...)

It's been suggested that the two world wars basically destroyed the skills of finish and technique for illustrators, (you know, the "craft" part of Arts & Crafts), though the 20th Century was pretty much of a helter-skelter for creativity even without two titanic struggles in the middle. I think it has more to do with the rise of sliced bread, photography, and Andy Warhol's "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" but I won't delve into sociology here too deeply.
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Today the exhibition at Space Yui finally ended after a very hectic week. I can't say exactly how many people came to the show, 117 people signed the guest book, but many others left without signing, so perhaps something in the region of 150-170 visitors in total perhaps.

If anyone who attended or helped to promote the show is reading this, a very big THANKYOU!

For me personally the exhibition has been a great success.
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Some more photos of the gallery....

A big thank you to everyone who came down to the launch party for my exhibition at Space Yui. Unfortunately not many photos were taken, but here are a few of the guests on the night!

Hyoronsha editors Chihomi Okamoto (l) and Junko Takeshita (r), with the translator of the Andersen books Yoichi Nagashima, who was opportunely in Tokyo from Denmark.

Surprise guest - Nagano Prefecture Governor Yasuo Tanaka!

Super Material Producer Kano Hamabatake and Illustrator Koji Ishikawa.
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From Monday I'm exhibiting almost 40 illustrations from my four volume series of Hans Christian Andersen tales, published by Hyoronsha in Japan (organizing this show is one reason why I've not been posting much to the blog lately!) With stories ranging from The Shadow to The Little Mermaid, the books were published to coincide with the bicentenary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen in 2005, translated by Professor Yoichi Nagashima of Copenhagen University.

And here are a couple of the animal characters. As they only came out as stitch patterns I'd like to see the artwork put to some use.
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I've not posted much in the way of artwork, so here's something you won't find on my website.

It's the background image for a series of stitch pattern animals I made for sewing software company Janome. The actual characters were only ever released as stitching patterns so the original artwork has never been reproduced anywhere.

Recently I've been reading Malcom Yorke's fascinating biography of author/illustrator Mervyn Peake (1911-1968), one of my illustration 'heroes'.

In 1947 Peake was interviewed on BBC Radio and waxed lyrical on the subject of book illustration. His ideas are so close to my own opinions on the subject I can't resist quoting the great man's words here:

For a book illustrator "above all things there must be the power to slide into another man's soul.
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