Ideal Bookshelf: FAVORITE

FAVORITE

23 August 2010

Ideal Bookshelf 82: EM

Ideal Bookshelf 82: EM
2010 / 8"x10" / gouache & ink on paper

EM lives in Torino, Italy and these are her favorites. I like that the color scheme and design of the spines feels very different even at a glance, before you realize most of them are in Italian. And I loved painting Barbapapa again, in a second language (the first was in German). He's a pink blob creature and family created in Paris but exported via TV and books all over 1970's Europe.

Aug 23, 2010 8:55:05 AM | cooking, FAVORITE, fiction, food, italian language, kids

06 August 2010

Ideal Bookshelf 77: LMN

Ideal Bookshelf 77: LMN
2010 / 8"x10" / gouache & ink on paper

NN commissioned this set of books, his wife's favorites, as a gift to her. The blank black book on the end "represents the many [Moleskine notebooks] she's filled as she works on a novel of her own." Which is definitely the sweetest thing I've ever painted.

Aug 6, 2010 11:47:01 AM | FAVORITE, fiction

Ideal Bookshelf 66 & 67: AS

Ideal Bookshelf 66: AS

Ideal Bookshelf 67: AS
2010 / 9"x12" / gouache & ink on paper

JB commissioned several paintings for her boyfriend, AS. These two were challenging, in the best possible way.

One of the reasons I originally started painting book spines was as an exercise to get better at hand lettering, especially at spacing out stylized type so that it fits in its designated (limited) space. I'm notoriously bad at it. I often have to re-paint books because I end up with 3 more letters to fit into half a centimeter.

So, painting books about typography for someone who obviously loves it raises the stakes. But I think it worked out nicely.

Aug 6, 2010 11:33:51 AM | architecture, art, cities, design, FAVORITE, graphic novels, photography

20 July 2010

Ideal Bookshelf 63: JMM

Ideal Bookshelf 63: JMM
2010 / 8"x10" / gouache & ink on paper

KM commissioned this painting of her husband JMM's favorite books as an anniversary present. The jumbled numbers on the spine of The Man Who Only Loved Numbers (far left) are brilliant, especially when you realize how "undesigned" most spines are compared to the covers. Also, Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine is also one of my favorite books of all time.

Jul 20, 2010 12:32:21 PM | FAVORITE, mathematics, non-fiction, science