COOOOEEeeee?

It is indeed a good month for awards! My series of covers for Affirm Press' Long Story Shorts has been accepted into the 2011 Communication Arts Illustration Annual. The latest cover in the series is pictured above. Just love doing this series, only one more to go and I'll miss it dearly.

The series also garnered a silver in the Illustrators Australia Awards (published in this months Australian Creative magazine) along with a silver for The Kinglake Cookbook, silver for Smarten Up (Boss Magazine), also pictured, and Bronze for Street Drugs (AFP)

And in not so new news, the belated arrival in the post of the as always lovely 3x3 Annual reminds me to mention I was lucky enough to have 3 series entries accepted: The Kinglake Cookbook, Smarten Up and My Dad's a Wrestler.

Congratulations to all the picturepig stablemates who scored, its a good month for the pigpen!

WOOHOOOOOO!

I'm having a good month with the awards in Feb! I was lucky enough to bag 7 medals in the Illustrators Australia Awards which you can checkout in Australian Creative on the newsstands now as well as getting the Waterhouse illos into the Advertising Series category in Communication Arts. Congrats to all the other Piggies who got stuff in as well, I'm honoured to be amongst some amazing illustrators here. WooHoooo!

Christopher Nielsen/ T-Shirt Design

I've been playing about with some new techniques and thought I'd design a t-shirt. This is what happens if you listen to too much Phil Collins. Lookout ladies it's...Easy Lover-Lite Sleeper. I've submitted him to Threadless and if I get enough votes than lover boy here might actually get printed. MAKE IT HAPPEN HERE!!!

Lew Keilar/ FIRST DATA Whiteboard animation

Made popular by RSA Animate (check them on You tube) white board animating relies on the illustrator to draw without prep sketches or tracing.
This commission for First Data came through Ben Goss of PP and the yello agency in Sydney on very short notice. I felt up to the task based on my own experimentation in filming illustration (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NzrbblRIWw) and gave it a whirl.
The shoot took a day; the camera was on an overhead jib and the whiteboard was laid out flat underneath it. Weird drawing position combined with an audience of the DoP; 3 creatives; a grip; the clients rep; the studio owner and also a junior who just wanted a look, it was, at times, intense!
This is a slightly shortened version. The unedited film was used at a major First Data sales conference and turned dry statistics into something entertaining.

Lew Keilar/ Society of Illustrators

I don't know what is more exciting. Having a piece selected for publication in the Society Of Illustrators ILLUSTRATORS 52 or deciding to go to New York to see it hanging in the Museum Of Illustration on East 63rd St in January.
It's titled 'The Bridge'.
It's an uncommissioned piece I'm using in another animatic-style short film slated for production in 2011.

Sonia Kretschmar - Opera in the Market

"Opera in the Market" is a yearly charity event run in conjunction with the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. I provided the main and spot illustrations used in the press ad, website and supporting brochure - I'm tempted to go along myself!

Sonia Kretschmar takes on Carlton

Last night saw the launch of the latest "cook book" endeavour by Melbourne design studio Wolfgang, Shlomo & Max. It was great to have the opportunity to carve a lino print for this project, my first in years. The majority of the book was printed at the Melbourne Museum of Printing, and every illustration printed used the actual lino each artist cut as a printing plate.

From the W,S&M site: "COOKBOOK north/south is a not-for-profit publication, letterpress printed by hand, with a limited edition of 500. Each of COOKBOOK north/south’s ten suburb-inspired chapters feature a lino-cut artwork, short story and three recipes. A unique collection of letterpress forms, typography and colour create the visual identity for each suburb chapter. An unbound publication, COOKBOOK north/south comprises of hand printed individual cards, first offset and then letterpress printed at the Melbourne Museum of Printing".

All profits go to the food charity Second Bite, which redistributes unwanted food to the needy in Victoria & Tasmania, and the book can be purchased here :)

Christopher Nielsen/ 'Tis The Season

Thought it was appropriate to post some Christ-opher-mas stuff done recently. It being the season for it and all. This one was for the Sydney Morning Herald Christmas Food Guide

...and this one for Spinach Advertising's CSR "Bake A Difference" campaign.

Dean Gorissen/Heart Failure

The November issue of Australian Family Physician focusses on Chronic Heart Failure. Dean dealt with the concept deftly and came up with an ace solution.

(Sorry)

Dean Gorissen Long Story Shorts

The latest collection in the Affirm Press series is Gretchen Shirm's Having Cried Wolf. The stories revolve around childhood friends from the fictional coastal town of Kinsale, who have grown into women with vastly divergent lives, and their partners, families and friends. Dean's cover design aims to show how their stories create a rich tapestry of interconnected lives and shared experience.

Christopher Nielsen/ Design Federation Annual

Told you I was gonna blog more. The very first ever Design Federation Annual has hit the streets and I'm pleased to say I'm in it alongside a host of great illustrators, photographers and designers. They asked contributors to come up with something based around the theme of "1". I went with an image of Vincent. With "1" ear. Goghing, goghing, gone.

Christopher Nielsen/ Home Is Where The Art Is

Great big shout out to all those peeps in the Melbourne area. I've donated another piece this year to the Lighthouse Foundation Auction being held on Thursday night, the 2nd of December at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). Get along and start a biddin' war. I sent them "Moroccan Dentist". Let's hope it brings a smile to someone's wall.

Christopher Nielsen/ Recent Stuff

Haven't blogged on the Piggy site in like...AGES. Promise to do it more often. Here are a few things I've been working on since my last post.

Article on Bundy Rum for The Good Weekend.

Issue on "Rashes" for Check Medical Journal.

A betting guide for bookmaker Tom Waterhouse. More of the series at http://chrisillo.blogspot.com/

Something about "Roadblocks" for PlanAdvisor (US)

Nigel Buchanan / Men's Style

Australia's year of Indecision... from federal elections to Australia's Top Model and the AFL rematch we couldn't make up our minds... choices too difficult perhaps?
Art Director Barry Goodwin

Escape Velocity -Lew Keilar

My second animation, Escape Velocity, premiered at a short film festival on the Gold Coast this week.
As with A New Day In Old Japan (see a previous post) my starting point for the narrative was an existing illustration with an unexplained scenario.
Click on the image to go to You Tube for full screen.

Nigel Buchanan / teams galore

Two commissions recently needed illustrations for 'Team building' stories. These bees were used on the cover of Associations Now magazine based in Washington and the image below was for SooJin Buzeli at Plan Advisor magazine in New York. The story was about putting together the ideal team; these guys have a particular advantage.

Nigel Buchanan EFII podcast

I met the hard working Thomas James of Escape from Illustration Island at the ICON6 conference in L.A. in July. He interviewed me on skype last week and you can listen to the podcast here:
efii-podcast-episode-51-nigel-buchanan/

By the way...

Dean's got a new blog up. http://deangorissen.blogspot.com/ So far it's jam packed with practically no insight into the working process whatsoever, but does have the odd robot plus a few new items of interest. Drop in and drop us a line!

Long Story Shorts

The 3rd collection in the Affirm Press series designed and illustrated by Dean has been released. Emmett Stinson's Known Unknowns is a chronicle of post September 11 Washington DC and the disconnected souls within.

AFP: Street Drugs

Dean illustrated the street drugs feature theme for this months Australian Family Physician. (And welcomed the opportunity to do something with a bit of grit)

CLEMENGER EXHIBITION/ Christopher Nielsen

Chris Badger, Head of Art at Clemenger BBDO advertising recently invited me to exhibit my work in Clemenger's Sydney offices in a new space devoted entirely to showcasing interesting art to their art directors and clients. In an environment designed to showcase new and exciting artists as great campaign options, Clemenger are asking illustrators and photographers to participate on a monthly basis.

Chris said "this way we get some great work to look at and the artist gets the chance to get their work seen and sold".

I'm really excited to have my canvases up in front of such a great potential art buying audience who can not only purchase original work but also commission illustration for campaigns.

Ben on your Desktop

Bens' illustration adorns the cover of the August Issue of Desktop Magazine, and inside is a nice little story about his career, and some general good hearted banter. You can read the first couple of paragraphs on the Desktop website, or you can enjoy the experience of having a real magazine in your hands and read the whole interview, by popping into your local newsagent.

Nigel Buchanan/ Plansponsor

The excellent art Director SooJin Buzelli asked me to illustrate an article in Plansponsor magazine about executive's pay packets being scrutinized more closely. It was thought the zebra in the original sketch may be checking out more than the flip-top lion's pay packet!

SECOND GO ROUND'S THE CHARM/ Christopher Nielsen

This was a recent job for SooJin Buzelli for the online mag ai5000. It all started out as a completely different job for PlanSponsor magazine which SooJin also art directs. I submitted 5 ideas including the one below for an article on healthcare reforms but we ended up going for a different concept. However she really liked the skull and said she would keep it in mind for something else if it was appropriate.

Normally when an AD says this I don't get my hopes up too high and never hear about the rough again. To SooJin's credit she came back a couple of weeks later and said she had an article on Equity which would be a perfect fit for the concept but there was one hitch...The format was different and I had to reshape the layout. I said no probs. I've always found coming up with concepts to be the hard bit of the job. Resizing an existing concept was a breeze.

Here's the final layout


And here's the finished piece.

Shanghai Expo / Nigel Buchanan

Another booklet cover for Screen Australia, this time for a China / Australia co-production event at the Shanghai Expo. I was very mindful that this was pushing the boundaries of cuteness, but it went down well in China.