The wittily entitled exhibition Break a Lead, features the work of recent Illustration graduates from the University of the West of England.

We're excited about the show, because amongst the exhibitors are two of our talented contributors: Jacob Stead and Katie Harnett. 

Photo: Jacob Stead's entry for the 2011 Art of Nuture competition

Photo: Katie Harnett's Valentine's Day illustration

So pop along, dodge the dodgy weather and check out some of the burgeoning talent on the illustration scene. Also, keep a look out for Jacob and Katies' work in the forthcoming issue seven of oh comely. 

Break a Lead takes place at The Gallery in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch in East London and opens tonight at 7pm. 

It's no secret we rather love Clare Owen's work. We've posted some of her illustrations previously, and you can see her work in issue six of oh comely.

One reason I admire Clare's illustrations, is that she's always on an adventure with her artistic mediums. It's easy to follow the old mantra of "If it ain't broke don't fix it", particularly when you find one medium or style which works for you. But flicking through the pages of her blog, you'll find images created in pencil, watercolour, collage, brush and ink. Yet each retains her distinctive style and tone. Her illustrations have an air of heady femininity, which references antique stuffed boudoirs, wistful beauties and old French films.

She has recently joined the gang at Snap, a Print Collective based in Bristol. I'm excited to see the outcome of her foray into screenprinting. In the meantime you can find her illustrative prints in her etsy store.

'The Tiger's Face' is an exhibition of paintings, sketchbook pages and prints by Cambridge based illustrator Nicholas Stevenson. It's at the Worcester Arts Workshop from July 3rd to the 29th, with an opening night featuring live music.

"My recent paintings are visited frequently by an elongated tiger-like beast", says Nicholas. "This beast is just as frequently obscured by the dream-like landscapes that it inhabits."

"In these works I'm attempting to recreate one of my most favourite sensations. The unnamed feeling you get from spotting a distant object on a beach, looking more bewildering and terrifying as you stroll towards it. Is it an old boat? Driftwood? Giant Squid? A body? Or maybe the sensation of looking in to an empty cage at the zoo. There's a sign with the Latin name of the animal, so something must be in the cage, but where?"

Keep an eye out for more of Nicolas's work in the forthcoming issue seven of oh comely. 

Not too long ago I moved to Cambridge and one of the things I miss about living in London is The Tea House in Covent Garden. It's a great shop to visit, largely because they have walls of different tea flavours to explore.

Recently, however, I found an inspiring flavour of tea in the most surprising of places: ASDA supermarket in Cambridge. The tea in question comes from an even more unexpected source, namely the DJ and illustrator, Mr. Scruff.

His album Keep it Unreal got me through Art class in school and now his brand of tea Make Us A Brew is getting me through my university degree. You'll recognise the boxes by the whimsical cartoons that he has drawn on the back. 

His 'Organic lemongrass, yerba mate and mint' brew is particularly effective for those early mornings before work. 

If you're into autobiographical comics about music-loving, photograph-taking, twenty-something London ladies, then chances are Anika Mottershaw's new book Anika In London is right up your alley. The book promises "a peek into the adventures of her life, her musical loves (and occasionally hates) and the ups and downs of living in the Capital". Apart from her autobiographical comic-style drawings, Anika has done illustrations for various places, including a particularly cute Folk Map Of Glastonbury for the British Underground, and her music photography can be seen in a variety of publications (The Wall Street Journal ain't too shabby). She also helps run the wonderful Bandstand Busking. Anika In London will be out on the 3rd of May, and it's the first book to be published by UK record label Something In Construction. Accompanying each book will be a 13 track 'mix' CD curated by Anika, with bands including Wood Pigeon and Wildbirds & Peacedrums.

If you're in London tonight, Something In Construction are throwing a party to celebrate (and it also means you'll be able to pick up a copy of the book before it goes on sale anywhere else). It's all happening at The Strongrooms from 7pm. There'll be live sets from Peggy Sue, Laura Hocking and The Head and the Heart, and DJ sets from The Line Of Best Fit and Wears The Trousers. And if that's not enough, there's free cake and shots to boot. See the Something In Construction site to get yourself on the guestlist. In the meantime, have a peek at Anika's work online: AnikaInLondon.com.

Any illustrator who can combine exquisitely beautiful paintings with a dark undertone gets my vote. Riikka Sormunen is one such artist.

Originally hailing from Finland, Riikka steps away from the conventional and creates a fantasy world of her own. She pairs languid figures and rich patterns with a surreal feeling about them. 

Take a look at Riikka's website for more work, or her blog for a peek at her sketchbooks.

I’ve fallen head over heels for Clare Owen’s dreamy illustrations. She's based in Cornwall and her subject matter, colours and textures are reminiscent of a chic, begone era. I’m particularly liking the collections of objects which crop up in several of Clare’s pieces. Take a look at her website for more information, or her Flickr.

I first bumped into Julianna Swaney's ethereal illustrations on Tumblr. She draws under the name Oh My Cavalier and is preoccupied with woodland creatures, bears, foxes, lost women and strict governesses. Julianna has got two blogs on the go (here and here), and a website full of prints, cards, and even illustrated rubbers. She trained at Maine College of Art doing a BFA and has worked as a freelance illustrator since her graduation in 2005.

Your illustrations have a strong fairytale aspect to them, with characters you often find in traditional stories. What appeals to you about this fantasy language and context?

I suppose it's because I grew up listening to these stories it's a
language I'm comfortable with. They always brought up strange feelings in me, sort of a mixture of fear and comfort. I think I understood the world in a very different way when I was little, the strangeness of the stories and things like talking animals and endless forests totally made sense to me. I'm trying to capture that feeling I got back then in my drawings, even if the world looks very different to me now.

Which artists and what creative work inspires you?

I'm a huge fan Maurice Sendak, as a child his books and illustrations
terrified and fascinated me. I try to have that same darkness and
humour in my drawings. I'm also a fan of Kiki Smith, her works about women in fairy and folktales had a huge i mpact on me when I first saw them.

Describe your ideal work space.

Hmm, I currently work out of my bedroom so this is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. It would have lots of windows and sunlight light of course, also high ceilings and plenty of wall space
to put up images I'm getting inspiration from at the moment and
sketches I'm working from. I'd love to have a big table to spread out
on and a completely different desk for my computer!

Okay, so I know it's a bit late for New Years resolution questions, but what do you want to achieve in 2011?

This year I would really like to collaborate with other artists who
work in different mediums and can do things I cannot, such as metal or woodworking. Happily I'm actually on my way to achieving
this goal!

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion Illustration is the latest book to be published by Amelia Gregory - she of the equally loved magazine and blog - which this time makes a happy coupling of style and substance by showcasing the work of 30 emerging illustrators alongside profiles of 50 ethical fashion labels.

With pages of bright and inspiring work alongside designer profiles and a bigger message about ethical fashion, the book feels like an extension of what Amelia's Magazine stands for, being lovely to look at but having its heart in the right place too.

To celebrate its launch, the ground floor of 123 Bethnal Green Road was full of happy faces eating tiny delicious jam scones by Lilly Vanilli and drinking tea out of floral cups. As well as copies of the book to admire (and avoid getting jam on) several of the featured illustrators were also on hand to capture party-goers in glorious technicolour, and I spent ten minutes sitting for lovely Jenny Robins who managed to capture my unruly fringe with charming (or alarming...) accuracy.

The invite promised dancing and dj's late into the night but as I sadly had to be somewhere else, I said a fleeting farewell and ducked out into the night to head home with jam on my coat - the mark of a good party.

My Dance The Skull is a publishing house printing intricate, beautiful, dark, probing and toughful zines. Run by artists Marco Cazzella and Bethania Dick, My Dance The Skull also issue cassette tapes by musicians such as Tom White. Their aim is to 'promote contemporary artists whose work is inspired by the dangerous and convulsive beauty of the everyday life.' This heady description reminded me of the darker side of Surrealist work (pieces by Hans Bellmar, for example). Anyway, I was curious about their work and asked them a couple of questions.

What was the founding ethic/idea of MDTS? 

Experiencing and showing the 'unwanted'.

Why do you publish both zines and cassette tapes?

Marco: We collect zines and short run books, so it was quite spontaneous for us decide to use a format we are familiar with. Bethania experimented with mail art and DIY zines when she was a teenager.

She also has a nice collection of tapes with songs recorded off a radio station in Brazil, many years ago. Listening to those tapes is really nice; you can hear interruptions, sounds, voices, background noise, etc. Plus, re-recording new songs on the top of old songs many times has made all those sounds overlap. It is almost like listening to a naïve version of some of the Burroughs experiments with tape-recordings.

Nowadays, I think it's fair to say that quite a lot of people are paying attention to the return of the cassette culture. The vogue is not the reason why we are doing this, though.

Who are the people behind MDTS and what's your background in the art/music world?

Bethania: Marco and I, two people, but it feels like we are only one sometimes. Life has brought us together and we are now in a sort of a mission to express the frustrations of our corrupted souls and to create awareness and confusion. We have very different backgrounds, but generally share the same views, same tastes, same delirium!

Marco studied Music and Performing Arts in the Literature and Philosophy Faculty at the University of Bologna and I can say that I am self-taught; I have no formal education in arts or music, even though art and music have been a huge part of my life and upbringing.

We listen to all types of music, but currently we are completely in love with traditional African and Asian sounds. Marco is an artist himself, one of his first drawings as a little boy was a picture of Jesus Christ making a phone call, which caused quite a stir in his Catholic Primary School in Italy.

Why did you decide to start MDTS?

Marco and Bethania: Since we first met, we always talked about starting a publishing project. The idea for MDTS mainly comes from our love of poetry and storytelling. And it is a process that starts from our guts. Well, basically we can say that our stomachs are responsible for the whole thing most of the time. A while back, Bethania came across the amazing work of Polish painter Aleksandra Waliszewska and we thought that it would be a good idea to start from there; her work is very ‘My Dance The Skull'.

Photo: My Dance The Skull at the Little Big Press Exhibition.

In issue four, we featured a fabulous illustrated ‘conversation' between Benjamin Phillips and Soju Tanaka from Frinton Press. Soju also participated in the Elephant Family project (which we've previously featured on the blog).

He gave this elephant the title of 'Two Rooms - Sea and Desert' and it's a wonderfully cute and colorful rendition. A couple of his other designs are still for sale from Elephant Parade.

You can see more of Soju's work on his website here.

If you've read our third issue, you would have seen our ‘Something Found' illustration feature, where five excellent illustrators drew their childhood memories, mistakes and discoveries. There was one more that we couldn't quite fit in; the very talented Lora Bananca, who came up with a colourful piece called ‘Hugs'. In her words: "did you ever want such a hug from octopus? I'm sure you didn't!" We agree.

Lora's work is well worth a look. Her style is highly imaginative, with a superb use of watercolour and a drawing style that recalls a dreamier Jamie Hewlett. Visit her website and Deviantart for more.