Cloudy Collection: Repeat Repeat

I have long been a fan of the beautiful Illustration blog Drawn, which is on my daily-visit list. It was through them that I was introduced to the work of David Huyck, which is funny and beautiful and feels as though it comes straight from the imagination of an eight year old boy. I was especially entranced by his tiny little derby cars, one of which depicted a frozen ice man. I also really love his paper airplane series, and I am certain that I can hear a small boy making airplane sound effects when I look at them.

David is also responsible for the very exciting Cloudy Collection, an ongoing project that issues a group of limited edition letterpress images quarterly. David contacts artists whose work he likes and gives them a theme, plus two colors. The colors are important because all of the artists works are grouped together and printed (on a big old traditional letterpress) simultaneously, then cut apart.The end result is six images, all related, all by different artists. David then offers them for sale, as a collection, for a very good price! As you can imagine, Cloudy Collection has become quite popular, with past editions often selling out before new ones emerge.

A few weeks ago David contacted me about being a contributor for his latest Cloudy Collection. The theme was to be "repeat repeat" (he had us pattern designers in mind, and also included the incomparable Julia Rothman in this series) and the colors were blue and green. As any third grader worth her box of 64 crayons knows, those are the colors of water and sky. I was tempted to draw seagulls (because white would be a color, too, right?) but then I remembered the postcard of some lady waterskiers I had sent during a trip to Florida last year, and decided that their time had come. Pardon the tangent here, but who here thinks that a kids book about jobs that look really really fun (to kids) like being a lady acrobat waterskier or a lion tamer complete with ample warning about dangers (water up nose, getting eaten) would be pretty great? Ok, tangent over.

The newest Cloudy Collection (including my ladies) in its entirety is revealed today, and will be on sale until it's gone. I think I'm going to get a set for my dear friend Stephen The Bachelor (who never reads my blog, so I'm free to talk about him and give him titles) to artsy up his little mannish apartment.... oh, and a portion of proceeds go to the Nature Conservancy!