Ever on the lookout for artists to feature on Friday Favorites, I decided to walk down the path of the Endicott Studio blog, hoping to find artists in the Once Upon a Time II Challenge vein. It was a fruitful journey, yielding many a worthy artist. Given that the first Friday Favorite of the challenge period was Brian Froud and the fact that he was not actually featured on a Friday, it seemed only fitting to use today’s Friday Favorite to feature an artist whose work reflects the same nature spirit as the books and artists we have been discussing here over the past week or so.
Thus it is my great pleasure to introduce you to the works of artist Rachael Direnna.
Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never saw before.
Say “please” before you open the latch,
go through,
walk down the path.
(from “Instructions” ~Neil Gaiman)
Once Upon a Time (II) is about journeys…yours… mine…ours. I frequently find myself aware of the serendipitous occurrences, the coincidental connections, that unveil themselves when the seasons synch up with my reading. My awareness is heightened when we are traveling on these seasonal reading journeys together.
For today’s Friday Favorite I am showcasing the soft and sensual brush strokes of artist Audrey Kawasaki. Apart from having one of the most kick-ass names in the artistic community, Ms. Kawasaki creates some of the most uniquely moody art I have ever seen.
Amazing isn’t it? There is such life in the detail….such depth.
I had no intention for Friday Favorites to veer off the science fiction path any time soon. But that is the way of art. I am more controlled by a passing whim with my choices for Friday Favorites posts than I am with anything else I discuss on this blog, and when I saw the above image I was lost. I have always been a sucker for redheads, whether on film, in fiction, or in art and this painting just drew me in.
And once I am drawn in I get excited. I literally get a sort of ‘out of body’ experience when I am excited about an artist that I am going to share with you and I feel the electricity tingling through me as I sit here to type this.
The artist is Esao Andrews. And it is his work that I share with you today.
—Spectrum 14 ~edited by Cathy and Arnie Fenner
–published by Underwood Books, 2007
–245 pages
–5/5 stars
Each year as All Hallow’s Eve gives way to the glorious hues of November leaves, editors Cathy and Arnie Fenner and the folks at Underwood Books release a cornucopia of color of their own: Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. This past year saw the release of Spectrum 14, arguably the best volume thus far. Each year this amazing volume of fantastic art outdoes itself in quality. There is simply no better annual book of fantastic art on the market and at less than $30 for the hardback (even less for the softcover), this book is a steal for anyone who enjoys a wide variety of fantasy and science fiction art.
By way of review and to tie in with The Sci Fi Experience, I thought I’d share just a few of the hundreds of gorgeous images in this collection. If you click on the following images, they will expand to larger versions to show better detail. You can also click on the highlighted names of the artist to go to their website.
