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doug cowan
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Doug Cowan can draw

Doug Cowan is an artist’s artist in the purist sense: an illustrator who truly loves his sketchbook. That said, his work is clearly permeated by an overarching sketchbook aesthetic. Cowan doesn’t so much sketch in his book than thoroughly loses himself in it. The result being the most hauntingly beautiful drawings of nature, forlorn figures and everyday ephemera.
doug cowan
doug cowan

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Nice doodle. That's a photorealistic line drawing of a cat riding a bicycle, right? You should sign up for our free weekly newsletter.
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Daniel J Diggle

UK-based designer Daniel J Diggle has some beautifully obsessive illustrative work on his site, with nice photos of the beginning sketches and process. Read more

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Tin Salamunic’s sketchbook

People tend to think we illustrators carry around our sketchbooks everywhere. A confession: I don’t. That is one of the reason why I love looking at other illustrator’s sketchbooks. Virginia-based Tin Salamunic’s sketchbook tells me a bit about an everyday life in Richmond. And his obsession for cars. Read more

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Wacso

I like the sense of escapism in the offbeat work of illustrator, Wacso. By his own admission, his illustrations are ‘all about getting out there and finding cool stuff — a hot dog stand, a cool old building, an old bar, a county fair, a rusted out truck, old people, dogs. Whatever it is you groove on’. Read more

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Sixth Pommery Exhibition Sons & Lumieres

How much better can it get than little dollops of contemporary art interspersed throughout the breathtaking setting of Champagne Pommery’s Domaine in Reims, France. The most interesting part here is that this is an ongoing tradition at Champagne Pommery, going all the way back to the 19th century ‘when Madame Pommery commissioned sculptor Gustav Navlet to carve four bas reliefs for the estate and later had the famous cabinet maker and glass artist Emile Gallé create a solid oak Pommery barrel that holds up to 19,816 gallons (100,000 bottles). This barrel was displayed at the 1904 Worlds’ Fair in St. Louis’. The upcoming Sixth Pommery Exhibition, Sons & Lumieres, will be curated by French artist Bertrand Lavier and will include ‘everyday objects often set in difficult spaces’. Read more

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Ben O’Brien

Color heaven! Perusing UK illustrator Ben O’Brien’s portfolio feels a lot like wandering the aisles of a giant candy store. I could buy one of everything in sight. Read more

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Art Decks

I love it! With the CD now being eclipsed by the MP3, I find myself feeling even more nostalgic for the simple charm of the cassette. Australian artists Andrew Smart and Jared Schmidt create ‘large scale hand-made wooden cassette tapes, routed, sanded, bogged, primed, and painted with a high quality paint finish’. Aha! The perfect way to memorialize my old mix tapes. Read more

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I love the strong lines and bold color interplay in Jay Taylor’s illustration work, which succintly captures ‘life’s little imperfections’. Most of Jay’s work is created by hand, with only simple composition and color changes being altered in the latter stages by computer. Read more


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On the roof of Bangkok’s Banyan Tree Hotel is a dining experience like no other. The Vertigo Bar sits sixty one floors up, and serves delicious gourmet meals and cocktails. These are expensive by Thai standards, but cheap enough for shoestring travellers to indulge in now and then (a cocktail costs around AUD$12). I’ve spent hour after hour in the bar, drinking and smoking and taking in the amazing view. Most nights at Vertigo end the same, with fast-moving storm clouds rolling in without fail at about eleven pm. While wait staff scurry to move tables, and drunken diners navigate the steep stairs down to the safety of the hotel, the more hardy can sit and watch the clouds race closer and closer towards the building, soaking in both the atmosphere and the rainwater until the lightning gets too close for comfort.

Ok, so that’s me up there on the right. Yup, rocking out in the 55DSL tee and feeling a little pleased with how it’s all going down. Well, actually, a disclaimer: it’s not … quite … me. I mean, I’m wearing the same shirt right now as he is, and I’m kinda the same height. But he isn’t the same person. We aren’t one. But I love this 55DSL shirt in the same way that he … ummm … loves himself. So I guess that we’re both damn happy. Read more


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Oh man, the work of New York based artist Inka Essenhigh is so good it makes my eyes water. Read more

As someone who thinks more about traveling than actually gets to do it [damn, it should really be the other way around], it was good to come across the latest batch of Wallpaper* city guides the other day. Living vicariously through the pages of the Berlin edition at least made my next choice of holiday destination that much easier. Read more

Oh boy, this is fun. Omaha’s Tilly and the Wall are kitsch-cool-camp-vauderville meets pop-folk-flamenco, with a tap dancer for a drummer and some serious, serious charisma for a calling card.

Skeletonbreath pound out some pretty raging post-punk anthems with a violin taking the lead rather than a vocalist. The trio can get surprisingly loud, despite frontman Robert Pycior’s classically trained virtuosity.

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Man-Tsun’s painterly images

Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more

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Paolo Ventura

Italian-born, New York City-based photographer Paolo Ventura creates fairy-tale like pictures out of amazingly constructed, miniature dioramas that almost trick the eye into thinking he’s a tilt-shift photographer. Read more

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Mike Stimpson

Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more

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Magic Dots

Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.

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Karen Caldicott’s clay head models

British born, New York-based model maker Karen Caldicott has been making clay heads for all major US publications over the last decade. Read more


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Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more

Printed on premium 100 percent combed cotton 150 gsm shirt, this Three Wise Robots graphic t shirt out of New Zealand label is damn soft and comfy. We have it for sale in the Lost At E Minor online store. Read more

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