Oh, I love a good storybook gone wrong… I’m jealous, and a tiny bit scared, of this painting by Brazilian artist Kael Kasabian. Strangely enough, I’m not too worried about that blue wolf, but I’m more than a little freaked out by those three pigs. They look like they might do a lot more than ‘huff & puff’.

I love these portraits by Russian artist Jenny Meilihove for three reasons. The bold colour choices, the strange but cozy knitted head gear, and the giant glasses… especially the blue tinted ones. I would love to see what Jenny would come up with if she did a portrait of me! I’ve got the glasses, I just need a skilled knitter to make something for my head. Any volunteers?

Now, if you know me at all, you would know that I have a small obsession with slightly disturbing storybook images, I’m a sucker for wood grain and, of course, who doesn’t love a good ol’ caramel apple from time to time?! Look… even baby birds love them!

Valerie Thai is a designer and illustrator who has a company called cabin+cub. You can find all of her art direction work there, but for more of these very cool vintage collages check out her etsy shop by the same name.

What’s not to love? A dress, typography, multi-coloured rainbow-ish stripes… and a funnel.

I wrote about Tracciamenti a few months ago and just got an email from her this morning with a link to her new website. Lots of great work including this piece from a very cool show called “Could Be  Me”.

No use crying over spilled paint… just make a cool art piece out of it! Ana Ventura makes beautiful work out of what others probably consider neighbourhood eyesores. You can officially call yourself a ‘mixed media artist’ when you’re working with cracks in concrete walls, paint spills on the sides of buildings and even shadows cast by old trees.

Ana has all kinds of different and amazing stuff on her site, but if you want to see more work like the two pieces posted here, click here. That project is called (iN)VISIBLE.

There’s something about an artist’s sketchbook that I find very appealing. It feels a bit voyeuristic (hence the chosen image)… getting a little sneak peak into the artist’s thought process, the imperfect lines, and the unpolished ideas.

Tina Berning‘s sketchbook/diary is amazing. On her web site, this section has 335 pieces alone. That doesn’t even begin to include her actual portfolio work,  just her sketches! Sigh. And to make matters worse, all of them are lovely and therefore somewhat soul-crushing.

This lovely drawing is for all of my design friends out there {you know who you are}… brought to you by Kerry Lemon, an illustrator from the UK.

Oh, and also, I love that chair. I want it too.

Ah, nothing like a little vintage, photographic, scribbly mixed media collage to start off a Thursday morning. Michelle Thompson is an illustrator from the UK who is represented by Montreal’s Anna Goodson Management.

{If you like this you should also check out Julien Pacaud. His work is very vintage/photographic/mixed media… no scribbles though.}

I couldn’t decide which one was my favourite. I may need to flip a coin. Heads, for the headless rainbow-striped girl with a gun… tails, for the piece of tail grocery shopping in her underwear.

I found Tracciamenti’s work on Pikaland, a fantastic illustration blog, (by way of a printmaker/illustrator friend of mine, Lori Dean Dyment) but I can’t find any other info on this artist except for her flickr stream. It’s totally worth checking out though because she has so much great work up there. Get your coin ready, you’ll need it.

{Aug 18, 2009: I just got an email from Tracciamenti and she gave me her new website, so go check it out!}

I’m extra jealous today.

I’m jealous of Sidney Pink and his lovely/weird watercolour illustrations of Japanese school girls, but I’m also pretty frickin’ jealous of the art + design blog that I found him on… Design for Mankind. Hm. That’s a bit too much jealousy for one person to handle on a Tuesday afternoon. Don’t worry though, I should be fine by tomorrow.

{If you like Sidney Pink’s work you might also like the posts I made about Alyson Fox and Nicole Kita.}