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  • ✇Colossal
  • Laura K. Sayers’ Vibrant Postage Stamps Celebrate the Beauty of Everyday Moments Kate Mothes
    From recognizable scenes around her home in Scotland to delicately rendered snapshots of places she visits, Laura K. Sayers’ meticulously crafted postage stamps nod to connections from afar. The artist, who also illustrates children’s books and is commissioned for special projects like greeting cards, incorporates itty-bitty cuts of colorful paper into tiny tableaux that can fit in the palm of a hand. Much of the work seen here is currently on view solo in Sayers’ solo exhibition of miniat
     

Laura K. Sayers’ Vibrant Postage Stamps Celebrate the Beauty of Everyday Moments

30 April 2026 at 12:42
Laura K. Sayers’ Vibrant Postage Stamps Celebrate the Beauty of Everyday Moments

From recognizable scenes around her home in Scotland to delicately rendered snapshots of places she visits, Laura K. Sayers’ meticulously crafted postage stamps nod to connections from afar. The artist, who also illustrates children’s books and is commissioned for special projects like greeting cards, incorporates itty-bitty cuts of colorful paper into tiny tableaux that can fit in the palm of a hand.

Much of the work seen here is currently on view solo in Sayers’ solo exhibition of miniatures titled The Wee Small Hours at N. atelier. An array of everyday scenes is chronicled in a format we typically associate with significant events and remembrance, documenting fleeting moments like little treasures. Some of her recent pieces are inspired by the Finnish landscape that emerged during the artist’s stay at the Fiskars Artist-in-Residence program, organized by Onoma.

A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a Finnish landscape with water and trees

The Wee Small Hours continues through this weekend in Glasgow. And keep an eye out for a joint update from Tiny Art Show. Find more on Sayers’ Instagram.

A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a window with a baker and his goods inside
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring people swimming in a swimming pool with stained glass windows
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring two figures on the shore of a loch
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a tall clock tower and a splashing river
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a city scene
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring two figures at the base of tall trees
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a small barn at night amid some trees
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a window with a person working inside
A hand holds a small paper artwork resembling a postage stamp, featuring a window on a red building with a woman inside

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Laura K. Sayers’ Vibrant Postage Stamps Celebrate the Beauty of Everyday Moments appeared first on Colossal.

  • ✇Openclipart
  • Two sleek ladies Cyanocorax
    Two sleek ladies in Art Déco style rescued from the cover of a <i>Design</i> magazine from 1934. This was a magazine for potters and decorators edited by Keramic Studio Publishing Co. I modified the original illustration to make it look less elongated and irregular than it was originally.
     

Two sleek ladies

10 June 2026 at 02:01
Two sleek ladies in Art Déco style rescued from the cover of a <i>Design</i> magazine from 1934. This was a magazine for potters and decorators edited by Keramic Studio Publishing Co. I modified the original illustration to make it look less elongated and irregular than it was originally.

Yuko Shimizu depicts intimate narrative scenes from myth, science fiction, and pop iconography, creating a visual genre all her own.

18 November 2025 at 17:44

Yuko Shimizu is a New York-based illustrator, whose bold manga lines depict intimate narrative scenes from myth, science fiction, and pop iconography, creating a visual genre all her own. Read the full article by Harrison Cook clicking above!

The post Yuko Shimizu depicts intimate narrative scenes from myth, science fiction, and pop iconography, creating a visual genre all her own. first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

  • ✇Lucy Bellwood
  • Maximum Melville Lucy Bellwood
    A number of fantastic ducks lined up in the month of June and I want to talk about all of them, but there isn’t time to do it in one giant post. One duck, however, took the form of appearing at the 14th International Melville Society Conference to speak about my time aboard the Charles W. Morgan eleven years ago. (You can read the comic about that trip here.) I read Moby-Dick for the first time a handful of years ago and loved it, but I wouldn’t call myself a Melville scholar. However, at
     

Maximum Melville

29 June 2025 at 22:10

A number of fantastic ducks lined up in the month of June and I want to talk about all of them, but there isn’t time to do it in one giant post. One duck, however, took the form of appearing at the 14th International Melville Society Conference to speak about my time aboard the Charles W. Morgan eleven years ago. (You can read the comic about that trip here.)

A spread from Lucy's comic, Down to the Seas Again.

I read Moby-Dick for the first time a handful of years ago and loved it, but I wouldn’t call myself a Melville scholar. However, attending this conference felt like a great chance to scratch the academic itch without, say, going to grad school.

I ended up spending the whole week taking visual notes, which allowed me to drop into a type of weightless, fixated attention that I’ve really missed in my caregiving life. It also helped give me something to do during panels where I felt a little, uh, out of my depth.

A sample of illustrated speakers from the Melville Society Conference.

When I’m drawing, words just wash over me. I can pluck the ones that resonate in the moment, then step back at the end of the hour and get a picture of what I took away from the talk. I particularly loved the freedom to just wander into panels where I had no idea what the speakers were talking about, only to come away newly-enthused about some niche avenue into Melville’s work.

A photo of an auditorium full of Melville scholars.

Time and time again the attendees emphasized how unique this conference is in its warmth and intellectual diversity. I met scientists and art historians and medievalists and printmakers and disability scholars and tall ship sailors and filmmakers and many, many professors. It was a dreamy, albeit intense, four days.

Here are the notes from every talk I attended, all drawn straight to ink during the speakers’ presentations (usually about 20 minutes per person).

The biggest takeaway was that we need embedded cartoonists at all sorts of academic conferences—and the demand is there! People were so thrilled to see this kind of work coming out of the event, and there are lots of journals hungry to publish unusual creative content alongside academic papers.

Something to pursue…eventually. Got a couple things* to wrap up first.

*unfathomably vast creative projects

  • ✇Lines and Colors
  • Angela Hao cparker
    Angela Hao lives and works in the U.S., but makes virtual visits to Japan via Google Street view, capturing the charm of small, quirky storefronts in digital ink and watercolor style illustrations she creates in Procreate. These are delightlfully whimsical and take note of the small details that give each little store its own personality. She has prints available on inPrint. Via My Modern Met
     

Angela Hao

7 April 2026 at 00:44
Angela Hao
Angela Hao

Angela Hao lives and works in the U.S., but makes virtual visits to Japan via Google Street view, capturing the charm of small, quirky storefronts in digital ink and watercolor style illustrations she creates in Procreate.

These are delightlfully whimsical and take note of the small details that give each little store its own personality.

She has prints available on inPrint.

Via My Modern Met

  • ✇Hi-Fructose Magazine
  • Violently Happy: Hattie Stewart’s Saccharine-Fueled World Is In Your Face & Over The Top. Clayton Schuster
    The realities that Hattie Stewart manifests have a carnival quality—gleaming, trashy fun with a slightly sinister undertone like golden midway tokens that rust and then jingle in your hand like they are laughing at you for believing the gold was real anyway. “Nothing brings me more joy,” Stewart says, “than taking a clean blank page and filling every inch of it with colors and imagined worlds.” Read Clayton Schuster's full article on the artist by clicking above. The post Violently Happy: Hattie
     

Violently Happy: Hattie Stewart’s Saccharine-Fueled World Is In Your Face & Over The Top.

22 August 2025 at 20:00

The realities that Hattie Stewart manifests have a carnival quality—gleaming, trashy fun with a slightly sinister undertone like golden midway tokens that rust and then jingle in your hand like they are laughing at you for believing the gold was real anyway. “Nothing brings me more joy,” Stewart says, “than taking a clean blank page and filling every inch of it with colors and imagined worlds.” Read Clayton Schuster's full article on the artist by clicking above.

The post Violently Happy: Hattie Stewart’s Saccharine-Fueled World Is In Your Face & Over The Top. first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

  • ✇The Daily Cartoonist
  • Cartoonists On (A Sunday) Parade D. D. Degg
    Mustered cartoonists: Peter Kuper, Justin Eisinger, Michael Maslin, Art Sloggatt, Nicole Hollander, Ham Fisher. Ohio Book Awards A couple of graphic novels are finalists in the non-fiction category of the Ohio Book Awards. Insectopolis is by Peter Kuper who lived in Ohio during his school years, and It Rhymes With Takei is by George Takei, […]
     

Cartoonists On (A Sunday) Parade

7 June 2026 at 10:57
Mustered cartoonists: Peter Kuper, Justin Eisinger, Michael Maslin, Art Sloggatt, Nicole Hollander, Ham Fisher. Ohio Book Awards A couple of graphic novels are finalists in the non-fiction category of the Ohio Book Awards. Insectopolis is by Peter Kuper who lived in Ohio during his school years, and It Rhymes With Takei is by George Takei, […]

  • ✇Colossal
  • Divination, the Renaissance, and Surrealism Commingle in ‘Tarot!’ Kate Mothes
    When we think of tarot cards, there’s a standout that probably pops to mind right away: the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. It was illustrated by British occultist and artist Pamela Coleman Smith, and more than 100 years after its publication, it remains the most widely used deck by readers. But the cards are far from being the first. Later this month, The Morgan Library & Museum presents Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, which delves into this centuries-old tradition of divination.
     

Divination, the Renaissance, and Surrealism Commingle in ‘Tarot!’

10 June 2026 at 17:38
Divination, the Renaissance, and Surrealism Commingle in ‘Tarot!’

When we think of tarot cards, there’s a standout that probably pops to mind right away: the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. It was illustrated by British occultist and artist Pamela Coleman Smith, and more than 100 years after its publication, it remains the most widely used deck by readers. But the cards are far from being the first. Later this month, The Morgan Library & Museum presents Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, which delves into this centuries-old tradition of divination.

The exhibition celebrates some of the earliest examples alongside modern artists’ versions. Three surviving decks from the 15th century, commissioned by the Dukes of Milan, tap into the lively Italian court culture that produced the cards, plus how the imagery evolved and laid the groundwork for fortune-telling practices.

a surreal tarot card by Remedios Varo for "The Other Clock" featuring a fantastical figure in a cosmic setting
Remedios Varo, “The Other Clock (El otro reloj)” (1957), © 2026 Remedios Varo, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid. Courtesy of Wendy Norris Gallery

A complementary display emphasizes how artists throughout the 20th century reimagined the imagery, including Smith’s iconic deck from 1909, plus iterations by Surrealists André Breton, Victor Brauner, and Remedios Varo. The connection isn’t coincidental; Leonora Carrington devised a gilded deck in the 1950s, and Salvador Dalí also contributed his own version.

Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions highlights how artists have turned to the practice to explore what the museum describes as “an alternative to the strictures of modernist aesthetics, allowing them to explore other universes and imaginative possibilities.” The show is accompanied by a catalog, which you can order from The Morgan’s shop. See the exhibition from June 26 through October 4 in New York.

a classic tarot card design by Pamela Smith Coleman for "The Chariot" card
Pamela Colman Smith, “The Chariot” from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (Deck “C”), London: William Rider & Son (c. 1921–31, first published in 1909), chromolithograph, 4 3/4 × 2 3/4 inches
a Renaissance-era tarot card for "Death" featuring a slender skeleton
Bonifacio Bembo, “Death” from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards (c. 1456-58), Milan or Cremona, Italy
a drawing for a tarot card featuring inverted, abstracted female figures with blue and white faces and yellow hair
Victor Brauner, “Hélène Smith. Siren of Knowledge – Lock (Sirène de Connaissance – Serrure)” (1941), graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper, 10 13/16 × 7 1/8 inches. Courtesy of Musée Cantini, © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Image © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo by Jean Bernard
a tarot card designed by Roberto Matta for "The Chariot"
Roberto Matta, “The Chariot (Le Chariot)” from ‘Arcane 17’ (1944), lithographic proofs, approximately 7 1/2 × 3 inches chea. Courtesy of Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
a Renaissance-era tarot card for "The Juggler" featuring a man at a table with a collection of objects
Bonifacio Bembo, “The Juggler” from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards (c. 1456-58), Milan or Cremona, Italy
a tarot card sketch for the "glass" card featuring a figure facing a huge sun
Pamela Colman Smith, “Sketch for Glass” (1908), watercolor and ink on paper, 14 1/4 × 9 inches. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
a Renaissance-era tarot card for "Time" featuring and aged man in a blue robe with a walking stick
Bonifacio Bembo, “Time” from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards (c. 1456-58), Milan or Cremona, Italy

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Divination, the Renaissance, and Surrealism Commingle in ‘Tarot!’ appeared first on Colossal.

  • ✇The Daily Cartoonist
  • Roz Chast, Doctor and Donor D. D. Degg
    Roz Chast, Rhode Island School of Design ’77 PT, is honored with an honorary doctorate from her alma mater. From Roz: Very excited to have received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from RISD, my alma mater, today. I had a complicated feeling about art school but absolutely no regrets about going there. I met […]
     

Roz Chast, Doctor and Donor

5 June 2026 at 16:34
Roz Chast, Rhode Island School of Design ’77 PT, is honored with an honorary doctorate from her alma mater. From Roz: Very excited to have received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from RISD, my alma mater, today. I had a complicated feeling about art school but absolutely no regrets about going there. I met […]

  • ✇Colossal
  • Vibrant Victorian-Era Transparencies Illuminate a Host of Microscopic Creatures Kate Mothes
    During the Victorian era, innovators made huge leaps with optical technologies. It was the period of the stereoscope and an early projector known as the magic lantern, not to mention that eyeglasses became more affordable and entered the mainstream. These advances also influenced scientific inquiry, making microscopes more powerful, and the pursuit of microscopy enabled researchers and enthusiasts to discover creatures invisible to the naked eye. One of these enthusiasts was London-based e
     

Vibrant Victorian-Era Transparencies Illuminate a Host of Microscopic Creatures

4 May 2026 at 14:28
Vibrant Victorian-Era Transparencies Illuminate a Host of Microscopic Creatures

During the Victorian era, innovators made huge leaps with optical technologies. It was the period of the stereoscope and an early projector known as the magic lantern, not to mention that eyeglasses became more affordable and entered the mainstream. These advances also influenced scientific inquiry, making microscopes more powerful, and the pursuit of microscopy enabled researchers and enthusiasts to discover creatures invisible to the naked eye.

One of these enthusiasts was London-based educator and amateur scientist Charles Thomas Hudson. Along with other scholars and aficionados, he participated in interest groups. “As President of the Royal Microscopical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Hudson was a leading figure in this growing scientific community,” says a statement from Osh Gallery, which is currently exhibiting a collection of unique illustrations in The Hudson Transparencies.

A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
Sea slugs

Curated by Luke Powell and Jody Hudson-Powell of design firm Pentagram, which runs Osh Gallery, the exhibition literally brings to light a number of colorful transparencies that Hudson used during his lectures. While they appear dark and even unfinished in a typical setting, “when lit from behind these intricate works transform into magical visions of life previously only glimpsed when viewed under a microscope,” the gallery says.

The Hudson Transparencies includes 58 original transparencies that measure a surprisingly large 37.8 by 29.5 inches. Each of the graphics’ proportions are “the equivalent of drawing ants the size of elephants,” says a statement. The animals and botanicals emerge through a combination of painted paper and perforations, which are made with lines and clusters of pinholes.

Hudson was particularly fascinated by rotifers, a phylum of zooplankton named for their so-called “wheel-bearing” characteristics. He also catalogued algae, protozoa, and larvae—such as that of the mayfly with its feather-like tail. Microscopic marine organisms were a particular favorite, though, and these back-lit images highlight the convergence of science and spectacular visuals that not only brought these creatures to life in a unique way for 19th-century viewers but continue to awe us today.

The Hudson Transparencies continues through June 11 in London. You might also enjoy Martin Kunz’s turn-of-the-century tactile graphics and Lorenz Oken’s seminal natural history work, Allgemaine Naturgeschichte Für Alle Stände.

A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
Opercularia nutans
A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of a larval mayfly
A larva of a mayfly
A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
A collection of rotifer species
A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
Testudinella patina
A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
Sponges, Porifera
A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
Proales werneckii
A Victorian-era illustrated transparency of tiny marine creatures
Cupelopagis vorax

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Vibrant Victorian-Era Transparencies Illuminate a Host of Microscopic Creatures appeared first on Colossal.

  • ✇Colossal
  • Masha Foya’s Airy Illustrations Embrace the Universality of Emotions Kate Mothes
    Where the blue sky breaks through the tree canopy or light reflects onto the surface of a pond, illustrator Masha Foya summons moments of joy and surprise. The Kyiv-based artist’s dreamlike illustrations often portray spaces and individuals in emotional or experiential states, as if the entire environment morphs into a single living being. Hands clasp over the arc of a foliage tunnel, for example, and a plane sails through an aperture shaped like a bird in flight. Seemingly enclosed spaces of
     

Masha Foya’s Airy Illustrations Embrace the Universality of Emotions

15 April 2026 at 14:01
Masha Foya’s Airy Illustrations Embrace the Universality of Emotions

Where the blue sky breaks through the tree canopy or light reflects onto the surface of a pond, illustrator Masha Foya summons moments of joy and surprise. The Kyiv-based artist’s dreamlike illustrations often portray spaces and individuals in emotional or experiential states, as if the entire environment morphs into a single living being. Hands clasp over the arc of a foliage tunnel, for example, and a plane sails through an aperture shaped like a bird in flight. Seemingly enclosed spaces often converge with the sky or the cosmos, alluding to the boundlessness of imagination and feeling.

The work shown here comprises both personal and commissioned projects. Foya is currently working on developing a number of book covers for Ukrainian publishing houses, and she is also collaborating with Scientific American and the German newspaper DIE ZEIT. Her work is also included in two exhibitions, Illustroteka and Everything Is Translation, organized by Pictoric. See more on Foya’s Behance and Instagram.

an illustration by Masha Foya of a woman looking up at a dreamlike interior scene that is also full of birds and planets
“One Summer Morning”
an illustration by Masha Foya of a green tunnel of foliage with the outlines of hands intertwining
“Tunnel of Love”
an illustration by Masha Foya of a house set amid some trees under a blue sky, which glows red and a large hand reaches out as if going after the house's inhabitants
An illustration for ‘Business Insider’
an illustration by Masha Foya of wind turbines in a field with a woman in the foreground chasing after her hat that's blowing in the wind
Postcard design for Global Wind Day
an illustration by Masha Foya of an ocean scene with the ghostly overlay of a woman's head, wearing a scarf over her hair
A piece representing the letter “X” for ‘Illustroteka’
an illustration by Masha Foya of two people swimming in a clear turquoise sea near some cliffs
“Whispering of the Ionian Sea”
an illustration by Masha Foya of a watery surface with a reflection in the shape of a woman running
“Reflection”
an illustration by Masha Foya of a row of trees over a narrow lane, with a slice of blue sky and a cloud above in the shape of an ice cream cone
“Dreaming in Blue and Green Colors”
an illustration by Masha Foya of storks flying against a pink background
“The Stork”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Masha Foya’s Airy Illustrations Embrace the Universality of Emotions appeared first on Colossal.

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