Hi, my name is Stuart Kolakovic and I just about manage to draw pictures for a living here in the U.K. I graduated from Kingston University with a First Class honors in Illustration (2007), where I won a D&AD New Blood award for "Milorad", an 80 page comic book about my Serbian Grandad, and recently came runner up in The Observer Graphic short Story competition. So far my clients have included Reaktion publishing, KU Press, The Natural History Museum, Caughtinthecrossfire, NYU Physician Magazine and Plan B magazine. I'm currently working towards my first solo show in Manchester, entitled "Never Been", and a new book and look forward to sleeping sometime in the future.
I was given practically free reign to design a whole wrap around book jacket for a novel that documents the author’s travels around Romania and the gypsies that he meets. If you dream of never seeing cars and wish you could live without this thar internet thing, this book is for you!
So I finally just met The Jon Keegan via this modern whizzy-do technology, which reminded me I’ve been neglecting said Invisible Man blog of late… So here’s an image for Tiny Showcase which was just released last night as a twee high quality 5″ x 5.45″ print on their website for only $20.00. It’s a limited edition of 100, and they’ve already sold 60 of them, so if you want one, better head over there quick-like. For those unfamiliar with Tiny Showcase, they’re super, and $250 from the sale of this artwork will be donated to the UK National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society. See? Super.
An image for the next issue of the Color Ink Book. And when I finished it, I just had to colour it in! That’s what it’s for… (to U.S. readers, “color” is spelt differently in the U.K.)
The screen prints, especially made for the Joyful Bewilderment Show down at Rough Trade, London, are now for sale at my etsy shop. I’m so stoked how they came out; they look almost exactly as the original artwork (one of the few times in my life where I’m happy with the quality of the print!)- so big ups to Lovenskate Stu at Error Solutions for the amazing print job!
30cm x 40cm, high quality four colour, hand pulled screenprint on 300gsm Canford paper. A limited edition of 40 prints, signed and numbered.
Re: Joyful Bewilderment- It’s going to be the most rippingest exhibition, with some of the best illustrators and artists (a total of 120!) from around the world getting involved. Can’t wait to see it!!!
I’ve been pretty busy on Illustration side the past few days, but I made time last night to make this thar rug. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages, so I forced myself to put my pencil down and tried it out. It’s available to buy from my etsy shop, but I plan to make a few more in the near future for an exhibition near the end of the year.
(A Rug?! What am I doing with my life…)
If I was cool I’d wear pair of these hoot cufflinks available from my etsy shop for only $30. There’s seven different designs available and they’re dapper as ‘owt.
Week of the zines:
An image for the folks at crayonlegs.com who are doing a ‘zine about “Facial Hair”.
An image for a zine put together by some Kingston students called “This is it”. This is for the “Fun” themed issue. I can’t think of anything more fun than flying a kite whilst wearing a bear skin.
I’m also featured in issue five of Document’s +1 magazine. You can pick it up for free at hip and with it boutiques or download it as a PDF zine from plus1mag.com .
