Zebras

Gorillas

YOU GUYS!! Gorillas are so fun to draw. I had no idea... could it be that I've never drawn one before? They have this top-heavy proportion that is very malleable and interesting. Their lines are very pleasing. Maybe my new thing will be to substitute gorillas for humans in all my illustrations. 2008 is the Year of the Gorilla.

Tanuki Sketches

But what is a Tanuki?

Monkey

Outsider Art

An "Outsider Art Fair"? "Outsider Art Dealers"? My goodness. Such a crazy strange world we live in.

Here is a NYTimes slideshow of some of that Outsider Art. For more, I suggest the American Folk Museum in Midtown.

Above, an image by Henry Darger, who seems to be a very common reference point for many in the illustration world these days.

The Emergence of Baby Boomer Retirement-Income Products

Plansponsor, AD SooJin Buzelli.

Josephine

Britney Spears

Visionary

Sam Weber, inventor of the "Weird Stuff Coming Out of Peoples' Mouths" Style.

[Sam's musical pick: "The Assassination of Jesse James" Soundtrack]

NC-17

Since I'm posting rude drawings today, might as well share this one too... click here for the full version, which I contributed to Rabid Rabbit's pornogrpahy comics mini-anthology. Unfortunately when they ran it, they cropped out "Picasso's Erotic Etchings", which I thought was the funniest part of the drawing.

Leg Alphabet

White on Black

Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte

Looking for MoCCA Table

I'm looking to buy a 1/2 table for the MoCCA festival in June. If you're selling your spot, let me know. You can contact me at:
jill (AT) jilliantamaki (DOT) com.

Thank-you!

Maps

I really love maps. I think they're such an engaging way of conveying information. I occasionally do illustrated maps, though I'm by no means a virtuoso mapmaker. I'm currently working on one for National Geographic Adventure magazine and stumbled upon this amazing site called Strange Maps, which catalogues maps of all different kinds including:

The Illustrated


The Satirical ("How Japan Sees America" map)


and The Fantastic ("The Land of Oz"... shaped like Kansas)


Below are a few of my illustrated maps.

Persepolis

Hi guys, sorry I haven't been posting a lot of sketchbook stuff lately... I have been very busy with editorial stuff, but hopefully that'll mean lots of cool new portfolio pieces (right?!).

Anyhow, here's a NYTimes Slideshow about the movie Persepolis narrated by Marjane Satrapi and Vincet Paronnaud. Sam and I saw the movie a few weeks ago and thought it quite a good adaptation; the slideshow shows quite a bit of the beautiful artwork. I love how they translated and embellished upon the original drawings. I read some reviews of the graphic novels that felt that the art was too crude or simplified, but I thought they were effective. They were almost pictograms, and the rawness reflected the content.

(P.S. If you're going to be at the ALA conference in Philadelphia this weekend, stop by and see me at the Groundwood/House of Anansi table!)

Artists Against the War

Slideshow from the Society of Illustrators.

Man

... or Rasputin?

W.B. Yeats

This piece was awarded a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators this year, which pleases me immensely. The sketches aren't too horrific so I thought I'd share them.

The article, for Esquire, was explained to be me as "about how poetry can get you girls". If you're interested in that theory, you can read the article here.

Art direction by Darhil Crooks.

Italian Vogue

Sometimes you just see something that touches your Aesthetic Soul. Full photoshoot by Steven Meisel here.