european picture books - welterusten iedereen

While my husband and I were traveling around Europe I made a point of spending time in book stores in every country that we visited. I wanted to see the kinds of images that were being created for picture books in different countries. I was really inspired by what I saw; European illustrators make beautiful, imaginative and experimental imagery. I collected books throughout our journey and posted about some of them here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Welterusten iedereen by Edward van de Vendel and Sebastiaan Van Doninck (check out his incredible work here) is a picture book that I picked up in Brussels, Belgium, last winter. It's a beautiful and colorful book filled with imaginative images about the dreams of the sleeping people in a town. I was really taken with the characters and the narrative quality of the illustrations. Of all the books I purchased on our trip, this is one of my favorites.

presentation this morning - book launch tonight

The presentation that I mentioned preparing for the other day took place this morning and I think it went well. As usual, I was over thinking it, and obsessing over my content, and worrying that I hadn't included enough visual interest. But the student's seemed interested and as soon as I got there the relaxed atmosphere of the class put me at ease. Thank you to Mike Kerr and Charles Bell for inviting me to speak and for the coffee and conversation that followed :)

Check out this blog which features some of the student's work as well as the work of ACAD Visual Communications alumni.

During my presentation I mentioned a Belgian illustrator that my husband and I stayed with during our trip to Brussels. His name is Pieter Fannes and he's a really talented illustrator and cartoonist with a unique visual voice. Here's a link to his flicker page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bos_aap_bos/

I love this sketch he did of my husband sleeping on their couch:

© Pieter Fannes

And this cartoon he sent us about Canadians (click on it to see it bigger):

© Pieter Fannes

Tonight is the book launch and reception for the Work/Life 2 book. You can read the write up for the event on the Uppercase blog here.

one of my favorite travel quotes:

I've been finishing up some loose ends in my 3rd and final travel journal, things like coloring in letters that I had drawn but hadn't had time to finish, gluing in some bits of paper, filling in a map with all the places that we visited... I've already posted some pages from my first 2 journals (here, here and here; and here, here and here), but because it wasn't finished I haven't posted anything from this one.

I'm also trying to scan my travel journals so that I can have a section just for them on my website. I'll let you know when I get it done.

we're back

©2009 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

This is just a quick post to say that we have returned from Poland and had a fantastic time. I'll post some photos and such later.

upcoming trip

My husband is going to have several days off in a row in a couple of weeks so we wanted to take advantage of that to visit another country. We found ridiculously cheap flights to Gdansk, Poland, so that's where we'll be going. I'm so excited. This type of getaway, where we get to experience other parts of the world, is exactly why we moved to the UK in the first place. I can't wait :)

trip to Glasgow & Inverness

Last week my hubby and I did some touring around Scotland. We went West to Glasgow and then north to Inverness and the highlands. I had heard a lot of negative things about Glasgow so my expectations were quite low, but it really was a nice city. We both liked it.





A good friend of mine is getting his masters at the Glasgow School of Art so we visited that fabulous building. I must admit that I'm really envious that he's going there.







In the lobby inside main entrance there are really cool mosaics of famous artists:






We took the train from Glasgow to Inverness. Gorgeous landscape. Because of the mountains and the lush green, a lot of it reminded me of British Columbia, Canada, but not as rocky.

A train station along the way:




Loch Ness:




Urquart Castle:




Inverness:














We had a great time. It was really nice to get out of the city to see some of the Scottish countryside.