I want to introduce you to one of my favorite illustration projects of late. It comes to us from Israeli artist, Geffen Refaeli. The concept is incredibly simple, and the result, flawless.

What started as a personal experiment to practice drawing and doodling has turned into a daily art project with over 20,000 followers (in under a year). Every day, Geffen uploads an illustration that was inspired by a mashup of her friends photographs. She takes bits and pieces from their pictures and creates one-color, surreal drawings. She then posts the drawings on Instagram (@dailydoodlegram) with links to the photo feeds that prompted it all to begin with.

I'm a fan, and I'd gamble to say so will you be. Prints are available at her recently launched shop.

I stare at the flashing cursor, tongue-tied and stupefied-- outwitted by the subject. How to write about a project which is at once worthy and fundamental, and arrestingly, profoundly beautiful? The Reconstructionists features a different trailblazing woman every Monday who has "reconstructed ... our understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place in it." It's a hefty feat, but if anyone could pull it off it's surely the talented team of illustrator Lisa Congdon and writer Maria Popova.

The project begins with a cartoonist, the original soul sister, a timeless diarist, an inventor/actress, an author/art collector, and an abstract-expressionist painter -- iconic and provocative women who played, performed, and permeated meaning, better known as Lynda Barry, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Anais Nin, Hedy Lamarr, Gertrude Stein, and Agnes Martin, respectively.

The illustrated portraits, hand-lettered quotes, and accompanying micro-essays are as vibrant and compelling as the women they honor. Hats off ladies.

We've just got word that our lovely friend Sara Barnes (of Brown Paper Bag) and cohort Lisa Perrin teamed up on a new venture, named Píccolo, a collaborative illustration project dedicated to the small things.

To get it off the ground, they've launched a Kickstarter campaign that could use your support to reach its goal, and in return, you get one print (or all four) commissioned for their first project, by the illustrated talents of Yelena Bryksenkova, Michael C. Hsiung, Philipp Dornbierer and Paige Vickers.

In fact, I'll let them tell you all about it, watch the cute, stop-motion video below and then click on over to Kickstarter to help make this project a reality.

Thirteen artists tackle the illustration challenge of defining happiness. Every day for a year, a new definition will be drawn and uploaded to Felicidário. We're only on the eigth day of 2013 and I'm already in love with the submissions. Let me know what happiness means to you in the comments.

Drawn above: "Happiness is reading a classic" by akacorleone



Found via swissmiss

I remember seeing Anika's work back in 2010 when she participated in a giveaway we were doing here on the site. It's been a long time since then, but now she's captured my attention again with her pattern a day series on flickr.

The quick and simple doodles loosely repeat themselves in bright colors on the pages of her sketchbook. She claims there's no theme, but look how complementary and developed they appear when presented in the context of a set. Join me in encouraging her to keep it going over the coming months. YAY Anika!

First, we appreciate everyone's patience. The team at Doodlers Anonymous all have full-time jobs (and families) and February proved to be a busy time for us.

That being said, holy crap, the quality and creativity of the submissions we received are beyond anything we expected. We got about 365 drawings and narrowing them down to roughly 50 will be the most fun we've had in a long time. I put together a quick little teaser video (watch above), so you get an idea of some of the amazing submissions.

Next steps: We'll email the artists whose artwork has been selected for volume two by March 31st. If you do not receive an email by that date, then unfortunately we just didn't have enough pages to print yours in this upcoming volume.

I love you all, thanks for making projects like this one come to life with such beautiful art. We are proud to be putting this together. Now go on, press play and enjoy the next 58 seconds.

Akira Horikawa has been drawing quirky images from his mind, dreams and emotions since 2007. He's filled quite a few pocket-sized sketchbooks and is now posting them on tumblr for your viewing pleasure. There are no gimmicks here and hardly any color to be found, just simple, unsteady lines that form re-interpreted and oddly fascinating compositions.