Sunday, November 28, 2010

Illustration Inspiration: Natalie Ferstendik, Rene Gruau, Panik & Martin Wollerstam

I stopped collecting stuffed animals, books and other large items in middle school because my family moved a lot, almost every year, and my mom was a moving nazi, trying to keep our personal possessions to a minimum.  This may be the reason why a lot of the things I keep are pieces of paper, pictures, postcards, letters, birthday cards--things that take up very little space.  Ironically, my closet at home is stuffed with boxes, large folders, albums and binders full of these flat things I can't get myself to get rid of (and banned my mom from touching).

This habit of collecting paper things followed me to London when I studied abroad and became worse--I was collecting everything: museum tickets, free magazines, club and gig postcards, vinyl covers, neighborhood maps, etc. as a source of creative inspiration.  Simple in idea, a sheet of paper can be a million things, look like anything and serve many purposes.  Here are a few artists I discovered--from collecting a few cards in London when I visited recently--whose illustrations are really inspiring:

1) Natalie Ferstendik - I bought this greeting card (first image) from a small store on Columbia Road because I thought the girl in the card reminded me a lot of myself.  The detail in her hair and flowers and the colors are absolutely beautiful (my scanner doesn't do the glossy card justice)

2) Rene Gruau - I picked up this exhibition reminder (first image) at the Somerset House where the Dior Illustrated Rene Gruau exhibit recently opened on November 10th


3) Panik - I found this postcard (first image) for Street Artist Panik's collection at the Pure Evil Gallery in East London


4) Martin Wollerstam - Club promoters were passing out flyers (first image, excuse the shitty scanner job) for WetYourSelf night at ultraclub Fabric

All images besides my postcards were taken from Google

2 comments:

  1. Hi,
    Just want to inform you, the third image you have under Rene Gruau is actualy the work of David Downton. Feel free to delete this comment afterwards.
    Regards,
    NC

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for catching that Nash. I am glad you pointed it out because now I have discovered another extraordinary artist!

    ReplyDelete