Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Carson Ellis -- Eye Candy Breakfast



Good morning! So I've loved Carson Ellis's illustration for a long time, but last Saturday we took Clementine to a kid's concert by local musician Laura Veirs (awesome) and scored the above poster, which happened to fit a large unoccupied square shadowbox frame from IKEA perfectly and is now sitting looking beautiful on my writing room floor. So I have Carson Ellis on the brain. 

I love rickshaws. And I love badgers. So I love Carson Ellis for creating rickshaw badger!




(I want a rickshaw in my living room.)

(No, a rickshaw would not fit in my living room.)


So here's some quick random Carson Ellis stuff. She lives in Portland like us, with her husband Colin Meloy of the Decembrists, for whom she has created gorgeous album and poster art, like this:



Gorgeous or what?

They also wrote/illustrated this children's novel together, Wildwood, and it is beautiful! (It is also cool that the real "wildwood" is our wilderness park, Forest Park, in Portland, at the fringes of which my parents live, along with many owls and flying squirrels and coyotes and tree nymphs and wandering chihuahuas*.






Even if you didn't know you knew her, you must recognize her style from oodles of book covers.

Here's a picture book she illustrated that I love, it's an awesome Gorey-esque revenge tale, 
as you will glean from the cover and title!




Random, don't know what it's from:




And found this on her blog, a proclamation on picture books:





Love. Good day!


*chihuahuas: my parents were beset by a marauding feral chihuahua in a pink collar just before the last cold snap ... okay, really it was very timid and desperate and not feral at all; they couldn't imagine what it was doing in the woods and they took her in and eventually located the owner -- who had been in a head-on collision on the nearest road, during which the dog (and another who was recovered on scene) was thrown from the car! Poor pooch. She's back with her people now and her name was Chica.



11 comments:

Connie Onnie said...

I love the eye candy posts they always awaken my soul! I have seen others post about Wildwood it looks lovely!

BURIED IN BOOKS said...

I have Wildwood on my wishlist and TBR list whichever comes first. It's nice to know a little more about the illustrator. Beautiful work! And I love my picture books. I have a collection that I kept from when my children were little. I'm saving them for grandchildren waaaaaay off in the future. But for now, I read them. There are some I still have memorized.

Heather

Alysa Stewart said...

Aaah! :D :D

I saw the post title and gasped, "I LOVE Carson Ellis!" and by way of explanation to my husband, "He did The first Mysterious Benedict Society." (The best illustrated of them all) Then I pulled it up and it was _Tumblebee_ of all things! Which I had NOT realized was Carson Ellis.

Jacob over my shoulder says "Laini Taylor and Laura Veirs in the same post. Now you just need Colin Meloy of the Decemberists. I think he lives near there, right?"

scroll scroll brain explosion!

Carson Ellis is a woman and is married to Colin Meloy! Aaaah! This is amazing!

Thanks for telling me more about some of my favorite artists. Love that manifesto.

Laurence King said...

Great post! And gorgeous too. I didn't know of Carson Ellis but I am very glad to do now. Her work is amazing.

June G said...

You're such an artistic girl! These illustrations remind me so much of folk art. Enjoyed this!

Alysa Stewart said...

p.s. I'm jealous you got to go to a Tumblebee concert and I had seen Wildwood here and there but will definitely be picking it up now. :)

SarahWT said...

This post makes me smile, smile, smile (especially the proclamation at the end)!

Kate said...

Oh my goodness! Gorgeous! I'm in awe right now! :)

tone almhjell said...

I love The Decemberists and I love these illustration. But most of all I love the proclamation. Unruly! Yes!

anne said...

lovely post! happy for chica-pup!

persnickety_jen said...

Haha, love the badger with a rickshaw! Carson Ellis & Colin Meloy were at Anderson's the week before your signing, and it was part of their presentation. Definitely one of my favorite illustrations ever.

I also adore Carson's covers for the Benedict Society series.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...