Lisa Congdon writes:

“Hi Lilla! I’m so excited to write and let you know that The Dictionary of Ordinary Extraordinary Animals is now in print! As I’m sure you’ll remember, I worked on this book for 9 months last year and into early this year. The book includes 150 of my full color paintings of animals. It was written by Leslie Jonath and Lisa McGuinness and art directed by Sara Gillingham. It was a labor of love for me and I’m so happy to see it in book form! If people are interested, they can purchase the book on Amazon here. I’ve attached a few of my favorite spreads for you to see!”

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Lisa writes:

“Hi Lilla!

Mati and I are so excited to announce that we are launching a brand new follow up e-course to the wildly popular Get Your Paint On (GYPO)! The new course is called Get Your Paint On: Beyond the Basics and will begin October 24. GYPO: Beyond the Basics features more instruction of technical painting skills like layering and creating dimension in your work. Lisa and Mati will share with you how they each approach painting through video demos, written reading on important topics, visual inspiration and support & guidance to participants. Each week will include a new video demonstration for more in depth instruction — from finding inspiration to color mixing to layering to creating depth and dimension. The course is open to artists of all levels. You can learn more about the course and register here! (Registration closes Oct. 20th)”

Mati writes:

“Hi, Lilla!

I am so excited to share that I have teamed up with fellow artist Lisa Congdon to create an online painting course called, Get Your Paint On! We’ll be teaching this five week course (from January 31 to March 4, 2011). We will share what we have learned painting professionally along with our unique and colorful approach towards making art.

This class is designed to support both beginning painters and more experienced artists. We’ll cover materials, style, color, and composition. And what’s really fantastic, since the course is online, anyone around the world can take it, so you don’t need to be in San Francisco where we both live! It’s only $99 per person.

For more info and registration please visit: getyourpainton.typepad.com

{Lisa + Mati at their joint art show in 2009}

{Collaborative Painting by Lisa + Mati}

Monday: Suzy Ultman’s Birdies and Banjos gift wrap

Lisa Congdon writes:

“Hi Ladies!
Just wanted to share…
You can see an image of my upcoming book cover here:
I am in the February issue of Martha Stewart Living which is in stores now!”

You can pre-order Lisa’s A Collection a Day book here.

The book comes packaged in a special collector’s tin!

Front Cover


Wednesday:Suzy Ultman’s road to “Happy Trails”

Wow! Look what Lisa Congdon is up to! How cool: she did this exciting blog idea and got a book deal out of it.

A Collection a Day (book from Uppercase by Lisa Congdon)

“Ever since she was a young girl, artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon has been obsessed with collecting. Having amassed a curious collection of objects, on January 1, 2010, she embarked on a year-long project: a daily documentation of arrangements of these items, posted online. ‘Most of the collections are real and exist in my home or studio; those I will photograph. Some are imagined; those I will draw or (occasionally) paint.’”

Pre-order it here.

Wednesday: Trina Dalziel’s Otter Drawing

Sarajo writes:

“Hi all,
The Exquisite Book—100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game by Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and Matt Lamothe with a foreword by Dave Eggers is now available. There will be an exhibit of prints of the work in New York/Brooklyn on October 22, as well as a one month online sale. There are several LRS artists featured in the book: Lisa Congdon, Mike Lowery, Matte Stephens and myself.

From The Exquisite Book website: ‘there are ten groups of ten artists who participated in the process. Each artist contributed one page to the book. The first artist was given a few words to inspire their drawing. Each of the following artists only saw the page that immediately preceded their own. Each artist used images (and optionally, words) to create the continuation to the story, and the inspiration for the next artist in line.’

Click here to see a fun video by Also (designers of the Lilla Rogers Studio website!).”

My contribution:

Lisa Congdon’s piece:

The Exquisite Book cover:


Friday: The latest and greatest patterns by Helen Dardik

Lisa Congdon writes:

“Hi Lilla,
Here’s a new repeat I made. I draw flowers pretty regularly in my sketch book and realized that I’d accumulated a whole slew of them, so I decided to scan them and use them to create a new repeat pattern! I took a risk and combined flowers in the repeat that were drawn in different styles (some are very detailed and more realistic looking and some are very flat and graphic). I wasn’t sure how it would come out, but I was happy with the result. I hope you like it too!
Lisa”

Monday: Wall Decals by Suzy Ultman

Lisa Congdon writes us:

“hi ladies,
i wanted to show you a book that I am part of that is up for pre-order on Amazon. it’s a book of projects for the home; i did some collaged plates.

my kitchen plate wall is what is on the cover, along with one of my collaged plates (the green plate).”

Click here to pre-order the book on Amazon.

Wednesday: Lilla’s Arlington Children’s Center sign

Read an article about Lisa’s “A Collection a Day, 2010” (collectionaday2010.blogspot.com)
here.

See more of Lisa’s work here.

Wednesday: Jillian’s new Paperchase products

Lisa writes us:

“hi ladies,
you should pick up a copy to see it for real, but I thought you’d like to see the May issue of MSL — there’s a little mention of my 2010 collections project. Attached is a photo!
enjoy!
L.”

Monday: New images from Hsinping