Today I’m talking to Vincent Serritella, a very talented, highly trained {and generous} artist who, somewhere along the way, also taught himself to be an animation effects specialist … which landed him an amazing job at PIXAR! What? Yep. We’re chatting about free drawings, a bizarre artsy family tree connection, and the inside scoop about working on PIXAR’S latest film, Inside Out! You can listen right up there, or you can subscribe on iTunes. Here is what we talked about, in the order that we talked about it. First of all, a few images from his ‘365 FREE DRAWINGS project’… which is how I scored that awesome blow-pop above!

Obviously this is just a fraction of the 365 drawings he gave away, but these are a few of my favorites. Here is the final, self-published, kickstarter-funded book! If you want one, you can order them here, through the Children’s Creativity Museum … to which Vincent has donated 100% of the proceeds. For real. Generous on top of generous!

Alright, now on to his day job. Inside Out... have you seen this yet? It’s the latest film from PIXAR and it’s so good! Vincent is an “Effects Technical Director”, and he worked on this {very exciting to see his name go by in the credits!}. Building magically appearing trestles and cables for the “train of thought”, and shooting fire out of the top of Anger’s head… that sounds like a pretty fabulous day job to me!

Ha! Love that angry little guy! And finally, a very weird discovery that Vincent’s mom made… he is related to a 17th century Baroque painter from Spain, named Pedro Nunez de Villavicencio. Hm. Notice anything similar about their paintings:

What?! So insane! Vincent painted that self portrait years before he found out about this artsy connection to the past. Look at the pose?! And the color palette!? So weird. And amazing. And a bit spooky. Alright, and with that bit of craziness, I’ll say thanks to Vincent {who totally sounds like Mark Ruffalo, no?}, to Saatchi Art for supporting this episode, and to you for looking ‘n listening! So excited for next Saturday… my friend Lisa Congdon will be on the podcast!

Are you seeing double too, or am I just dizzy from this fantastic, vintage, very sassy work! Rich gouache, curvy/confident gals, and shiny high heels as far as the eye can see! This is the vintage inspired mixed media work of Vancouver based artist Ryan Heshka. My friend Martha Rich introduced us over email today… and before I even wrote him back I had this post ready to roll! Instant love… x2.

Bizarre, dream-like scenes complete with found images, little sketches, and a lovely/quiet palette. This is the mixed media collage work of LA based artist, illustrator, and designer Tracy Hung. I love each of these pieces on their own, but when you see them all come together, as part of this album cover design that she was commissioned to do for Satoshi Gogo, an acoustic guitarist based in Nara, Japan… well, it’s a dreamy “bedtime story” waiting to happen:

Sigh. The collage artist and graphic designer in me are totally smitten.

Tiger plates, pirate bowls, and what might possibly be the best cat urn in the entire world. This is the whimsicle work of Canadian ceramicist Mariko Paterson. I love this description, that I found on her site, of her studio and her process:

“So, this is the thing. We are a little operation and my wiener dogs,
as much as I would like for them to help in the studio…well, they are useless.

Each piece is handmade either on the wheel or by sheer force of my hands.
They are then decorated to death and fired up to four, count ’em, four times.
I wish I could work faster, but alas, I am a slow, but steady little machine.”

Love! I have two wiener dogs too… also useless {but cute}. Some of her work is available in her shop, or you can follow her on Instagram to see her latest pieces. ps. Thanks to Bella for sending me a link to Mariko’s work!

Aaaand exhale. I wish I could wander around in the garden that is LA based painter Jill Sykes‘ portfolio. Dreamy colors, simple compositions, and large-scale leafy goodness {up to 60″x37″ in some of these cases}. I’ve been invited to curate a show in LA this September, and I’ve included a few of Jill’s pieces… I’m counting down the days ’til I can see them in person!

Simple, washy brush strokes that feel effortlessly feminine. Oh, and that rusty, autumnal color palette? Gorgeous. It’s actually making me miss sweater weather… in the blazing heat of summer! This is the gorgeous work of Berlin based artist/fashion illustrator Ekaterina Koroleva. Love.

Amazing things will happen… yes they will! Today’s episode is an interview with Philadelphia based artist, illustrator, hand-lettering master, Mary Kate McDevitt. We talk about the best letters to draw, quotes from Ned Flanders, and we even have a little hand-lettering assignment for all of us at the end! You can listen right up there, under all of the amazingness, or you can subscribe on iTunes. Here is what we talked about, in the order that we talked about it. First of all, her hilarious, sweet and super fantastic 100 day project:

Love! And there are plenty more where these came from… she’s now on day 66 so there are a whole lot of people and pets in her instagram feed! Next, onto client work. Commissioned work is how Mary Kate spends most of her days. This is just a tiny little snippet {so much more on her site}:

I need that shirt. She does book covers, magazine covers, ads, you name it… all by hand. No computers, no fonts. So good. She also does a lot of personal work. These are two of the pieces that we were talking about… being a huge fan of reruns, she gets a lot of her favorite quotes from old TV shows, like News Radio and The Simpsons:

Ah, Ned. So wise. And finally the last thing we talked about was the letter l. Lovely little letter ‘L’, and so we decided to put out a creative challenge out for all of us… this is the hashtag you’ll need: #handletterlullaby

Thanks to Mary Kate for taking a break from unpacking her new studio, to Saatchi Art for supporting this episode, and to all of you for listening… the next episode will be up next Saturday!

Oh. There are so many things I love about this work by American artist Rebecca Vaughan… the color palette {all of those soft pinks are killing me}, the vintage landscape paintings, the ornate shapes, and of course, I need one those sculptural collages. Sigh. They make me want to run into my studio and start attaching stuff to other stuff until the wee hours of the morning.

{Sent to me by another sculptor, Jennifer Pettus}

Gasp! Love! Porcelain trophies given for the best reasons ever {be sure to read the blue handwriting on each piece}.  This is the fantastic work of Russian artist {Amsterdam based} Vika Mitrichenko. I’ve been trying to find the meaning of this series, titled Trophy Cups, and what I gather is that her father was a swim coach for the Soviet National team. Apparently he was asked to coach in the USA, but he chose not to do it because he couldn’t take his family with him. What a wonderful dad… clearly he deserves all of these gorgeous awards {that final piece really makes sense now!}

*Thanks to Jessica for seeing these beauties in Amsterdam and then emailing me about them.

Ok, I know it’s July, but in the world of Land of Nod, Fall has arrived! This is my second collection for Land of Nod, and I could not be more excited about all of the gorgeous work, and talented artists who made brand new pieces for this project. Watercolor, tapestries, papier mache mobiles, paper cats… I love it all so much! Oh, and this is a cool little tidbit … those two sweet little wiener dogs, by Canadian artist Louisa Jensen, are named after my dogs, Stella & Murphy! ♥  You can find all of these, and pieces from my Spring 2015 collection, right here.