Friday Five

Here are this week's Friday five from this week include three artists, one magazine, and a great resource. I should begin with a quote I found this week from Hunter Thompson.  
One life is too short for doing everything. 
Amen and Hallelujah.

1

I am enticed by Natalie Ratovski's sketches, drawings, travel journals, projects and other extensive work. I first found her through a Paris journal page that was posted, I suspect, on Pinterest.  Lovely journal.  The Pinterest post led me to her Flickr page where I see that she is a prolific artist! I will take my time perusing and appreciating her artwork.

One of her several projects is called An Endless Book....

a section of An Endless Book
Artwork by Natalie Ratkovski

This and the following two are pages from the Paris journal.


She and I share a similar love of extending photos with sketches and travel ephemera.

Artwork by Natalie Ratkovski

And a hand-drawn map is always quite fine. 

Artwork by Natalie Ratkovski

2

Lee.  Defining Me. Pretty darn fun.

She has a collection of women with personality and sputz.

This is Angel Eyes. Check her out.  

This is Angel Eyes. Artist: Lee


You'll like Ivy, too....as described by Lee, "she was known as a perpetual bridesmaid, 
and had the butt ugly dresses to prove it."

Love the art, love the humor.
I found her  on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Linky List Feb. 20. 

3

 Teil Duncan. I love the soft, almost abstract paintings from this artist, especially the beaches series. Hardly affordable art for the likes of moi, but lovely to behold anyway, yes?

Artwork by Teil Duncan

4

Lucky Peach Magazine.  What's not to love about its name, for one thing?  As self-described, Lucky Peach is a quarterly journal of food and writing. Each issue focuses on a single theme, and explores that theme through essays, art, photography, and recipes.

guilty pleasure confession:
I love visual collections of things. Sometimes I buy
Cook's magazine just for the back cover. This ploy obviously hooked me.

Obsession is this issue's theme. Seems relevant. I was specifically drawn to "The Lucky Peach Atlas," little watercolor sketches of food places in Paris. The issue has short stories done textually and graphically, interviews, some chocolate history, and a tale of McDonald's and the Monopoly promotion  I found quite enlightening.   Unlike Sweet Paul and Kinfolk, other food and lifestyle favorites, there is a lot more text, fewer photos, and is truly more like a journal. It's not the visual treat of the other two, relying instead on a variety of topics and approaches.

Read about my other favorite magazines here and here.

5

A black carbon fountain pen and Adam from Goulet Pens did this. From Goulet Pen blog. 

Folks who have been enrolled in Sketchbook Skool talk among themselves a lot about the tools of sketching and drawing. (Speaking of obsession, most artists love talking about their tools.) Lots of questions and suggestions about fountain pens. I have always loved using fountain pens, so why haven't I, I wonder?  I discovered a great series of You Tube videos from Goulet Pen Company, which specializes in pens, papers, and inks. Everything from beginning fountain pen users to fancy stuff, a 101 on using fountain pens, and regular Q & A videos. I have already learned so much from viewing just a few. 

A sample Q & A video.