Illustrator: Helen Lang

We love these cute, retro-ish illustrations from London illustrator Helen Lang.

Eye Candy: The United Plates

Illustrator John Holcomb depicted every state in the union out of food and called it The United Plates. See how your home state turned.

NYC Event: Perfectly Flawed at gallery hanahou

Super happy to see that one of my favorite artist is having a solo show in Manhattan at gallery hanahou. Stockholm artist Stina Persson creates beautiful ethereal water-colored illustrations. In the past couple of years, she has found herself using the computer more and more to digitally alter her illustrations so for this show, she is abandoning her computer and creating 30 new works created completely by hand in all their imperfect and handmade glory.

Andrew Loomis Illustration Manuals

Escape form Illustration Island (with the help of many other enthusiasts) has collected five out-of-print books on illustration techniques from Andrew Loomis and made them available as PDF files. They are truly amazing examples of anatomy for artists, color theory, perspective and so much more. Go. Now. Download and study these fabulous works!

Eye Candy: PLYprints with Alexander Girard

PLYprints is re-issuing some of Alexander Girard artwork from the 70s. So happy.

Milwaukee Exhibition: Warrington Colescott: Cabaret, Comedy & Satire

This past weekend I was in Milwaukee and I caught the "Warrington Colescott: Cabaret, Comedy & Satire" show at the Milwaukee Art Museum. I had never heard of Colescott or seen any of his work, but I loved what I saw. An awesome mix of prints that explored complex political and historical events with satire and dry wit. His colors and loose and loopy illustrations struck a cord with me. If you are in the area, check it out until the end of September.

Dancing Comics

"Hapless Hooligan in 'Still Moving'" is what happens when comics and dance collide. Award-winning graphic artist Art Spiegelman and Pilobolus dance troupe create an amazing tale based on early comics. The dancers recreate the story by interacting with Spiegelman's art.

Illustrator: Rik Stultz

Ric Stultz creates loose but strikingly well-crafted, painted illustrations. Some are silly, some are poignant but all of them require a longer look. Enjoy!



(Found on Double Takes Blog)

Calligrapher: Leigh Wells

Beautiful hand lettered type from Leigh Wells.

RIP: Harvey Pekar

We are sad that our favorite curmudgeon comic-book writer Harvey Pekar died earlier this week. He will be remember for his genius of making the everyday man the central character in his many wonderful autobiographical graphic novels. He showed us that comics don't have to be about fictious superheros. That heroes could live in Cleveland, work as a file clerk and survive cancer. We'll miss you Harvey.

Seattle event: Perfect Forecast – Work by Jesse DeLoux

I have loved Jesse LeDoux's artwork for years so I was excited to see that Schmancy Gallery in Seattle is having an awesome show of his work. You might recognize his on the album covers and poster artwork for the Shins, Iron and Wine and Death Cab for Cutie. Check out the solo show called titled "Perfect Forecast" on July 9 2010 from 6pm-9pm at Schmancy at 1932 2nd Ave, Seattle WA.

Fingerpainting on the iPad

Amazing to see what artist David Kassan can do on the iPad.

One Million Giraffes Art Project

Web designer Ola Helland wants you to send him your best giraffe. He bet his friend Jorge that he could collect 1 million hand-made giraffe images by 2011. As of today, Helland has 855,315 giraffes and just needs 144,685 more to reach his goal. To get inspired, check out all the giraffes that Helland has collected at his site onemilliongiraffes.com and then send him one of your own.

Illustrator: Gemma Correll

The other day we got a lovely email from illustrator Gemma Correll and all of her work made us smile. We loved her quirky, cute illustrations of cats, pugs and humans along with her whimsical patterns and typography.

Another Reason to Love Chris Ware

Chris Ware is one of our favorite artist here at Pica + Pixel. Our love for him has only grown after seeing his rejected cover for Fortune's 500 issue. Ware captured all the messiness and dishonesty of capitalism going on in our country today. The closeups show Guantanamo Bay, the government bailing out the wealthy, the horrible housing market and much more. To check out more of the closeups, check out this slideshow.





[via Huffington Post]

ESPN immortalizes the 32 World Cup Teams

The World Cup starts this Friday and both of us here at Pica + Pixel are super excited. To get all of us in the mood, we wanted to share some of the 32 pieces of artwork that ESPN commissioned to capture the spirit of each of the countries in the game. Ggoooaaalll!!!



[via A World Cup Report. Also thanks to my awesome husband for telling me about this.]

Every Person In New York drawing blog

Jason Polan is an illustrator living in NYC who has an ambitious goal: he wants to draw every single person in New York. To reach this goal, he draws a handful of people everyday and posts them to his blog, Every Person In New York. If you feel like helping him along, you can email him letting him know a time, place and date of where you will be and he will try and get there to draw you. Pretty awesome.

Illustrator: Anika Huett

Annika Huett is a Swedish illustrator who creates lovely and quirky illustrations filled with vivid colors and funky hand-draw type. Besides illustrations, she also makes awesome mosaics and embroidery.

RIP: Frank Frazetta

Illustrator, comic artist and book cover artist, Frank Frazetta died today at the age of 82. Through his iconic paperback covers of muscular men and half-naked women, he defined what many of us now think of as fantasy. Frank thanks for the amazing art and giving us a hero like Conan. You will be missed.

Illustrator: Taeeun Yoo

Pretty prints to brighten up any wall or room from children book author and illustrator Taeeun Yoo's esty store.