Art Hound

Sophie Leblanc is a French illustrator with a unique and playful point of view. A collection of her personal work (below) of children is currently on display at Expo Blou in Paris through the end of December. (I hadn’t heard of this show but it looks great!)

Sophie works as an illustrator, which certainly comes through in her punchy, spirited personal work. In fact, my favorite thing about her work is the mix of artsy and graphic. The first piece is a great example of this- a beautifully rendered line drawing with a big pop of color in the glasses. It works because there’s both tension and balance.

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Marion Wesson is a fifth-generation Californian whose grandmother, Marion Pike, painted portraits of Pope John Paul II, Coco Chanel, Frank Lloyd Wright and many others.

I love Wesson’s “Oblik” series (see below) which began quite by accident. While struggling with a painting, Marion attempted to remove some of the acrylic paint with her brush. To her surprise she discovered that the ‘erasing’ produced a wonderful, ghostly impression, and a new series was born.

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Another totally inspiring story is how Marion developed her animal collage series (below) which are perfect for kids’ rooms.

“I have been working for 17 years as an artist and in that time I have made a lot of work, not all of it successful. So, I decided one day to transform some of my older, less resolved work into something else rather than throw it away.”  – Wesson

Wesson decided to re-purpose older, unsold work by layering cut-out animal forms and turn it into fun, artistic kids’ art. So smart!

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