Monthly Archives: September 2012

Artist Watch: Dan McCarthy

Reminiscent of Eyvind Earle, Dan McCarthy creates stark graphic landscapes with bright colors and bold color.  The stunning gradients in his prints give atmosphere and mood to each on of his pieces.  His use of bright colors set against stark black really pulls in the observer.  Sometimes his color usage is subtle; other times he’s full-on rainbow! Check out more of Dan McCarthy’s work here.

Star Wars Reads!

On October 6th, 2012, fans will come together to celebrate reading and Star Wars!  Matthew will be appearing at the NYC event along with several other Star Wars authors  – so come joint the fun!  Click here for more details about other Star Wars Reads events all over the galaxy.

Pop-Up Showcase: Flanimals

We like to celebrate and showcase all kinds of movable books by authors and paper engineers from all around the world!  This hilarious book by comedian Ricky Gervais features fantastic pop-ups by veteran paper engineer Richard Ferguson with illustrations by Rob Steen. Flanimals is published by Candlewick in 2009.

Gervais introduces us to Mernimbler, Grob, Bletchling and many other “pointless ugly creatures” from the Flanimal kingdom. Ferguson matches Gervais’ humor with clever “poppy-upness.”

Artist Watch: Theo Jansen

The Jansen

One of the reasons I decided to become an engineer was because I realized that engineering and art are not exactly opposites, as the course load for each would suggest, but rather one can greatly influence the other.

One artist that I found that walks the line between the two is Theo Jansen with his Strandbeests. The Strandbeests are mechanical animals that live on the beach and are self-propelled by the wind. Theo Jansen is able to take the engineering principals that would make a machine like this move, and apply his artistic vision to make it move and look like a real animal. Since discovering Theo Jansen, pop-ups have only reinforced this notion of combining paper-engineering with art to create a movable masterpiece! You can find out more about Theo Jansen and his work here.