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And the winner is: Patrick Visser! Congrats, Patrick!

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The Giveaway winner is CAROL! Thank you for all your comments. Congrats, Carol!

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Same, Same But Different is the new book out by children’s author/illustrator Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw (you can read her 2008 IF interview here!). The story is about Elliot who lives in America and Kailash who lives in India. They are penpals and by exchanging letters and pictures, they learn they both love to climb trees, have pets, and go to school. Their worlds might look different, but they are quite similar. Same, same. But different! The story is really fun and the artwork will really amaze you (and your kids!)… there’s so much to look at!

And, because I always like to see artists at work… you should definitely check out this blog post by Jenny Sue about her process!

You can order the book at your local independent bookstore, check it out from the library, or pick it up from Amazon.

A tiny tad more about the author: Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw is the author and illustrator of My Travelin’ Eye. She is a freelance illustrator who studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and The Illustration Academy. When she isn’t traveling around the world, Jenny plays and paints on a homestead in the mountains of Northern New Mexico with her family.

Now for the giveaway part!:

 Jenny Sue has graciously donated a signed copy of Same, Same But Different to one lucky IF reader! Keep it for yourself, share it with your kids, or give it away as a holiday gift! Please leave a comment below to enter.

 Winner will be announced Tuesday November 29!

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Focus Features is offering a copy of the book Drawings From the Film Beginners By Mike Mills plus a copy of the soundtrack from the film for one lucky Illustration Friday reader!

Leave a comment on this post to enter your name in the drawing. We’ll pick a random number on Friday, June 24th to choose the winning comment!

Mike Mills’ films and design work have dominated the visual landscape of the past two decades, through record covers and music videos for bands like Air, Blonde Redhead and Sonic Youth, movies such as The Architecture of Reassurance (2000) and Paperboys (2001) and his first feature-length film, Thumbsucker (2004), starring Keanu Reeves and Tilda Swinton.

2011 sees the release of Mills’ new feature film, Beginners, starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer. McGregor plays a character who, as Mills describes, “shares some things with me: we both do graphic design, we both often figure out what we’re thinking by drawing, we both have dogs and we both did record covers for a very real band named The Sads.

This book contains all the drawings which Mike Mills drew, and that Oliver (played by Ewan) works with in the film. Oliver has the unfortunate idea of creating an illustrated ‘History of Sadness’ as a record cover for the The Sads, including such episodes as: Neanderthal man realizes he’s outclassed by homo sapiens man, the pilgrims, industrialization, birth of the novel, pets in general and many more.” This volume also features a new series of drawings: an illustrated History Of Love which includes such chapters as: the first butt to attract, great lovers in film, flappers, free love’s not so easy, internal V.S. external problems and many more.

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Pomfolio is a new blog service tailored to the needs of artists and creators, using WordPress MU software. We offer easy to customize themes (also formatted for mobile browsers) and plugins to complement the social networking features we’ve all come to rely on (like easy Facebook, Twitter and Flickr connections).

To play, simply leave a comment below. We’ll randomly choose one winner today*, and two winners for the next two weeks until we’ve given them all away!

*YAY, we’ve done the drawing using Random.org’s random number generator and winner is…Ira, from Sketch for the Day!

Congratulations Ira! I’ll be contacting you with an invite code at the email address you provided in your comment. We’ll have our next giveaway for TWO more Pomfolio accounts next Friday!

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For complete voting instructions and larger previews head on over to her blog.

Like Michele’s caricatures? See more illustrations on her portfolio site, MicheleMelcher.com. Prints including Amy Winehouse, Johnny Cash and Kat Von D are available on Etsy.

Michele is a Philadelphia-based artist/illustrator who kept me in stitches during three years of illustration class at UArts. Honor diversity.

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How cool is this? MOO is now offering business cards, and in grand MOO style! Everything that makes MOO mini-cards awesome (and stickers, and postcards, and…) is now available in full sized business cards. As Penny says – oh my MOO-ness!

Each one can uniquely showcase a different illustration, comes with a very snazzy case, and you don’t have to order hundreds at a time – MOO gives you the option to order as few as 50 business cards at once.

“MOO Business Cards are anything but ordinary combining high-quality design and one-of-a kind printing options, meaning that every one of your business cards can be unique. Choose your best photos/design to create truly unique Business Cards that will not only serve as a networking tool but also as a mini-portfolio of your work.”

So, individually designed cards, an ecological paper option (love it!), spiff card case – can it get any better? Of course! MOO is offering 10 free packs to IF artists, and a 15% discount on 50 more packs – so click here fast to grab ‘em before they’re gone!

Just ask our previous MOO giveaway winners – MOO cards are somethin’ special. And if you’re one of the lucky ones who get a free or discounted pack, send us some pics at editors@illustrationfriday.com and we’ll showcase them here!

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I can read your mind. You’re thinking “Making art is so great! But who cares? I want to make a difference in the world!” Well…

Art With Heart, an organization devoted to “healing youth through creativity,” is offering free training in their Art Buddy program on Saturday, March 29th, from 9:30am �?? 1pm. (RSVP is required and donations are welcome.)

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Ok friends and neighbors, we’ve closed comments on the MOO Haiku Giveaway and chosen this week’s random winner!

Congratulations to Radha who says:

Thinking and scribbling,
trying to write haiku.
I�??d sure like some MOO.

There was some pretty beautiful poetry blossoming in that thread. Nice work, artists!

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This week for MOO cards,
leave a poetic comment
in haiku form

Three lines, and no more
than seventeen syllables
or something like that.

(we’re not picky with words here at IF)

It’s that time again! This week’s MOO giveaway for IF artists has a poetic twist – we’re giving away a free (FREE!) promotional pack of MOO cards, stickers and postcards with your illustrations, and all you gotta do is leave a comment in haiku form.

(For sake of the game, a haiku is a short poem of seventeen syllables or less, three lines total. That’s as strict as we’ll get about form – have fun with it!)

So leave a comment on this here blog entry (make sure you fill out the email box). Then we’ll pick we’ll pick one person at random to receive the MOO love…

MOO is looking for artists for their line of designer products. Each artist gets 10% of the sales of products with their work on ‘em – a great way to get your name out there. You can find out more at MOO.

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For those of us who like to beautify our computers and mobile contraptions, Fantagraphics has a selection of fancy wallpaper hidden in the attic of their gussied-up new website. Check’m out!

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