soupablog

I'm in the Book of the Month!

"An Illustrated Life" has been picked by Amazon as one of the seven best books of the month! Yay!

An Illustrated Life

 

Well, it arrived. My very own fat copy of An Illustrated Life, a luscious, full-color-throughout, 272-page behemoth featuring a "sneak peak into the wildly creative imaginations of top illustrators, designers and artists from around the world through the pages of their personal visual journals."

This book is exactly the kind of visual horn-a-plenty I always looked for, but never found in stores. Page after page of kindred spirits — folks from around the world who keep private sketchbook journals. 

Some of my images are right there on page 234-237. Hooray! Hooray!

Please support local booksellers and buy this from Viva Books.

In other good art news, I sold another painting today to a new friend from the west coast. You may remember EX VOTO from the Eucharist Series. I'm getting ready to crate it up and get it safely to San Francisco. There are still paintings and prints of mine at Viva Books all during December for all your Christmas presents. Prices range from $10 (giclée mini prints, matted) to $1200. And everything in between.

Preview of Sunday's show [updated]

^ Peace: SOLD  11/23 ^

 

^ Credo: SOLD  11/20 ^

____________

 

^ Chrysostom: SOLD  11/23 ^

^ Arbor Vitae: SOLD  11/23 ^

^ A Benediction of Sorts: SOLD  11/21 ^

____________

[plus, a lot of the giclée prints of earlier work sold as well. but there's still more available at Viva between now and January]

"An Illustrated Life" officially released

Some GREAT early morning news from the book's F+W editor, Amy, via Danny Gregory:

"The book just hit our warehouse on 11/11, so it should be on bookstore shelves in about two weeks. But it has now been officially "released" and Amazon pre-orders should begin moving very soon."

• We had to add more books to the initial print run because of all the pre-orders
• Also, on Amazon, we are #1 in Graphic Design and #1 in  Drawing. (#1,308 in Books overall!)
• You can still hear the An Illustrated Life podcast interviews (including mine) here.
• Please consider pre-ordering your copy today at Amazon - you save $6.40 -- 32%!

Paul Soupiset Sketches in "An Illustrated Life"

"An Illustrated Life" is shipping advance copies. With any luck, mine will arrive downtown at my studio tomorrow. see how many of my sketchbook pages you can find in this promo video artfully compiled and narrated by Danny Gregory:

Paul Soupiset featured in An Illustrated Life podcast episode

or, A Tale of Two "Dannys" and Two "Everydays"

When I knew I was traveling to NYC recently, there were three people I wanted to sit down with and have conversations. The first was a former design intern named Danny Adrain, who is now a senior designer at Razorfish. The second was Thomas Turner, the young editor of Everyday Liturgy. And the third was Danny Gregory, a fellow creative director / author / sketchbook artist / podcaster, and creative force behind the Everyday Matters movement / craze / meme.

I ended up getting to hang with all three. I digress.

Danny Gregory, his wife Patti, and their son Jack welcomed me into their world for an hour or so — they live in a beautiful eighth floor apartment in the Village. Every inch of their apartment was either window glazing, book shelves, or space for hung artwork.

After talking a while [and letting the dogs smell me], we sat down and recorded this audio podcast about my moleskine journal sketching, about my faith and art and intersections therein. It's one of those things where afterwards, listening to it, I felt strange and self-conscious about all of the things I would've said differently (did I represent my art well enough? did I represent my faith well enough? my upbringing, parents and education? did I come off like a total dweeb? important questions like that).

Nonetheless, I invite you to listen. And commentezvous, por favor.

photos by oscar williams

bricolage :: manhattan, brooklyn, west cornwall, and back again

i waited to blog about my recent new york trip, hoping some unifying thread would be found running through the whole of the tapestry — some way to serve up the sights and sounds and smells of the last week that would remain engaging. some way to let you experience some of the energy of the city, some of the joys and loneliness of being a solo guy traipsing around manhattan, of being a fish out of water in a consultancy full of anglican vibe, some of the small pleasures in meeting new friends, in logging a few precious hours with some heretofore online friends, in spending a few quiet evenings with friends danny and kristen trying restaurants in their park slope neighborhood of brooklyn.

no magical thread has been found, other than a celebration of the beautiful, threadless remnants that would not be sewn together, and a new label for that tendency of mine towards assemblage, appropriation, pastiche, and montage: yes, the word of the week was bricolage.

bri•co•lage (n)  Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available

robert wuthnow's book after the baby boomers: how twenty and thirty-somethings are shaping the future of american religion was the preparatory text for the consultancy hosted by trinity church wall street; one of the main pulls from the text was the idea of spiritual tinkering:

Like the farmer rummaging through the junk pile for makeshift parts the spiritual tinkerer is able to sift through a veritable scrap heap of ideas and practices from childhood, from religious organizations, classes, conversations with friends, books, magazines, television programs and web sites. The tinkerer is free to engage in this kind of rummaging...

maybe i'll post some of my new york sketches soon. but for now, i'll post a few of the photos i shot (haven't been color corrected yet or anything).

m is for: manhattan. moma. mosaics.

then after brooklyn, guggenheim, apple store,
i headed out to west cornwall, connecticut:

An Illustrated Life: the podast

In conjunction with the upcoming book, An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers, Danny Gregory has launched  a new audio podcast to introduce you to the fifty artists who will appear in its pages.

"Each episode features a lengthy interview with a different contributor as well as examples of their work. Until the book itself appears on Amazon (October, '08), we will have to make do with these interesting conversations. Please listen to the first episode and subscribe via RSS  or iTunes."

When I'm in New York later this month, I hope to catch up with Danny over a shared meal and capture a podcast conversation in person. I'll keep you informed.

Pre-order "An Illustrated Life" today

Remember that "sketchbookbook" I told you about a few months ago? ¿No?

Last year I was asked to be a small part of a new book compiled by Everyday Matters author Danny Gregory. Honored, I gathered together some of my favorite 2007 Lentenblog sketches and a few other Moleskine goodies, and packaged them up and sent them off to NYC.

Over the next few months, as the sketches started pouring in from around the world, Danny gave contributors little sneak peeks, so we could catch a glimpse of the other artists' work. Trust me: this is going to be a cool book. One I'm honored to be part of. Anyway, it'll be 272 pages, full color, and chock-full of a wide array of illustrated journals, inky sketchbooks, watercolored Moleskines, with essays and interviews with the artists as well.

It's finished now, and being printed and readied for distribution in December:

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration
From The Private Sketchbooks Of
Artists, Illustrators And Designers.

You can now pre-order it through Amazon and knock a third off the price!

I can't wait! Get the word out, bloggers, ye!

— paul