California-based artist Cheeming Boey makes super-wowza drawings on styrofoam coffee cups. He also keeps a web comic documenting his daily life that is at times hilarious at others rather touching. He reminds me of my friend Jon from high school.

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Anyone following my progress lately will notice that I am increasingly obsessed with masks, faces, textures, patterns, and repetition. Ryan Bubnis inspires some new ideas in me with his charming, richly-textured images.

Lisa Hanawalt’s drawings, with their humanoid animals showing off their flashy clothes and getting into crazy but distinctly human situations, seem to reflect the hyper-self-aware and petty culture of LA (and by extension the modern world), where she is based. The contrast she draws out is between the inherent nobility of animals and the absurd ugliness of humanity. Without the cartoonish humor of her drawings, Hanawalt’s paintings drive this point home more directly, indicting human behavior with sad, haunting images painted with muted colors.

It’s windy, cold, and raining out. On days like this, looking at the intricate work of artists like Kristopher Ho feels like re-reading an old book that you loved as a kid but forgot about in your more cynical adulthood.

Jon MacNair’s illustrations are to-the-point and communicative, summing up big ideas in beautifully clear and whimsical imagery. His fine art pieces are mysterious and dreamlike, often encapsulating entire narratives within one image.

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I just picked up some old editions of The Territorial Imperative and The Hunting Hypothesis mainly because I found the covers to these two books to be strikingly beautiful. From the inside of the jackets I found that they had been designed by the late Joseph Low, who was a prolific children’s book illustrator whose work was regularly featured in the New Yorker for four decades. His “primitive” style is really striking and suits the topic of the aforementioned books by science writer Robert Ardrey, who’s an interesting read despite the outdated science in his books.

A perfect blend of chaos and order, Tokyo-based Italian designer Roberto Calbucci’s drawings stem from esoteric and abstract trains of thought he has. They look rather like schematics for imaginary machines of the distant future.

Comic book artist Rafael Grampa’s style reminds me of Taiyo Motsumoto’s but with an art-nouveau and even tattoo-inspired sense of layout informing each panel. His unique renderings of classic comic book characters has certainly rekindled my interest in superheroes. His comic, FURRY WATER and the Sons of Insurrection, co-written with Daniel Pellizzari, is due out from Dark Horse next year.

Dutch animator Sjors Vervoort’s amazing short CARDBOARD was made with painted cardboard placed on the street. The character designs are pretty cute, too.

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Brooklyn-based artist Sam Weber recently collaborated with the Folio Society and the William Golding estate to create an illustrated edition of Golding’s classic novel, Lord of the Flies. Copies are currently available to Folio Society members only, but they’re still sure to sell quick.

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.

Norway-based American illustrator Taylor White has been posting pages from her sketchbook on her blog for a couple of years now, documenting her artistic development. Her linework is among the best I’ve ever seen.

If you stop by Athens, Geogia’s Daily Co-op, you just might find David Mack at the register working on some drawings or comics. But chances are that he’ll be doing some other task, like placing fruit orders or maintaining the merchandise shelves. He always stays busy and has a new website to prove it.

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I’m producing a children’s book workshop led by Selina Alko and Sean Qualls [above] at the Society of Illustrators of New York on Wednesday, October 28. Their clients include Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Henry Holt, Scholastic, Lee and Low Books and Knopf. It’s perfect for illustrators who want to break into the picture book industry and need that extra push and solid pointers.

The perfect example of art at it’s most raw and honest, The Art of Wooing: An Email Tale of Modern Courtship by Kaz Brecher is an intense distillation of the twisted eighteen month romantic saga between herself and her poet/kick-boxing instructor. The book is entirely comprised of emails between herself and friends, detailing the dalliance as it unfolded, as well as some pretty personal collages throughout. What could possibly be more enticing than such a raw, thoroughly up close, un-edited view at someone else’s love and loss? As Brecher puts it, ‘it’s a Griffin and Sabine for the Sex in the City crowd’. Perfect.

I love the finely rendered, graphic (yes, rendered and graphic) work of illustrator John Malloy. His charmingly quirky sensibility is the crowning element of his work.

Those amazing illustration seniors from The Ringling School have outdone themselves with their beautifully designed book, Illest of Ill. The book was created with the intention of selling it to raise funds for their senior show. They contacted various illustrators and asked them to contribute an illustration based on the classic Gibson Girl or Arrow Shirt Man (myself included). The book includes some fantastic work from illustrators Sam Weber, Nathan Fox, George Pratt and Sterling Hundley, among so, so many others.

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Lisbon-based illustrator Ana Ventura has been using chipped, flaking, and cracked walls as inspirations for her most recent work, printing and stenciling directly onto surfaces she comes across on the street. I love how subtly they are — if you weren’t paying attention they’d be really easy to miss.

German illustrator Roman Klonek sucks you right into his topsy-turvy world of smiling cartoons and graphic woodcuts. I particularly enjoy his use of type to create images reminiscent of vintage eastern European ads.

I really love the dense and contrasting textures Iain MacArthur renders in his crazed-yet-controlled images. I’m not as much a fan of the realist elements he incorporates, impressive as they are — his cartoon images just seem more cohesive and focused style wise.