22.4.10

A Daily Practice

Google: 'a drawing a day' and you'll come to the site of Lauren Nassef. Beautiful drawings, the kind that people look at and decide they want to be able to draw too. Like watching Whitney back in the day and deciding you'll be a singer. That kind of amazingness of technique and pizz-azz.


So what else comes up online under daily sketching? Well, not as as many swirly notes (but let me know what you find). The exhaustive A Drawing a Day has been going like clockwork since 2004 and is mind boggling for its tenacity. A professional illustrator's blog, with countless faces drawn on the subway, is impressive for its doggedness. Photographer Thomas Hawk is aiming to take a million photos. The image below is from his $2 Portraits project.
Where does daily discipline end and OCD begin?

Stephen Gardner – Niagara Falls


Tripping across the site Urban Sketchers, I spotted a beautiful pair of sketches of that legendary Canadian destination by Brooklyn illustrator Stephen Gardner (who has a serious habit of sketching). Niagara: So many stories! So many visits! I always imagine kids screaming in the back seat on the long drive flinging ice-cream at each other. The documented memory is more often held onto while the grisly reality forgotten.

10.4.10

A Ransacked Country House - Co. Tipperary









A distant relative had lived here for 86 years before reluctantly giving into the nursing home. Sure enough the property has been continuously raided by burglars (my parents use a different word). It's so sad to see a grand house crumble; a life plundered. Check out David Creedon's shots of similar houses around Ireland.

Baedeker – the first travel guides?



Victorian era guides by Karl Baedeker were characterised by their famous red covers. Exquisite maps and intense details for the discerning tourist.
Prior to World War I, Baedeker's guides were famous enough that baedekering became an English-language term for the process of travelling a country for the purpose of writing a travel guide or travelogue about it (Wiki)


9.4.10

Map Envelope

Remember that great idea for a google maps envelope from Beste Miray? Well I'm delighted to see a site built around that very idea – you can now generate your own map envelope by simply inputting any location that google maps generates, and a template is generated for you to make your own li'l envelope. Now isn't that very neat?! Check out mapenvelope.com, built by tweevio.