Before I tell you about today’s book I just wanted to share something I found via The Post Family. It’s a sketchbook made of photos of blank walls. Now you can graffiti all you want! Check it out here- such a genius idea! Also another quick mention, a new travel journal with my design came out from Ten Speed Press recently which you can get here. It’s also an ad on the sidebar so you may have already noticed.

Brain Trust is a collection of drawing and painting collaborations by artists Peter Thompson and James Kirkpatrick. The bulk of the drawings are black and white craziness with tons of weird funny abstracted characters appearing everywhere. Lots of little tiny lines provide shading and depth and tiny patterns of stripes, bricks and scallops flatten other areas. They are the type of drawings your druggie friend will go nuts over pointing out all the different hidden faces. But they are really nice when you are not high too. ha. There are also collaborations with other artists as well in some drawings including Marc Bell, Jason McLean, Beau Labute and more. The back quarter of the book is color painting work where suddenly amazing texture of all kinds is added: thick paint smeared, rubber away, and scratched creates the fill color. Speaking of graffiti, some of these give the impression of an old paint chipping wall with drawings all over them. These colors pieces are quite amazing and wish the book had even more. Pick up a copy right here.

© Julia Rothman 2007