I’ve been a fan of Shaun Tan’s beautiful illustrations ever since seeing his works up-close in person at the Welcome To Nowhere art exhibition held in Tokyo in 2019. The art book/catalog for the exhibition included quite a number of concept sketches, studies and drawings that the artist made in preparation when creating his art pieces, and I’ve always thought how cool it would be if there was an art book that collected all of those ideas – The Bird King IS that book.

First published in 2010, and then expanded in 2019, The Bird King is a collection of various sketches: random jottings, preliminary designs for book, film and theatre projects, sketchbook pages and drawings from life. Each of these represent some aspect of a working process, whereby stories generally evolve from visual research and free-wheeling doodles. They are also ‘unfinished’ pieces created in a single sitting, not originally intended for publication, and for that reason perhaps more revealing of a personal style (and particular obsessions) than other more polished artwork.

Running at 128 pages long, the book is published in a format that emulates Shaun Tan’s actual sketchbooks, and includes some written thoughts on the practice of drawing and explanatory notes for each image.

Originally intended as a small self-published collection for convention audiences, The Bird King has since become a popular reference, especially for new illustrators, and translated into Japanese, French, Spanish and other languages. In the US it is published as The Bird King: An Artist’s Notebook (Scholastic)

(above) Sketch studies for The Arrival.

I think many of my readers will agree that sketch studies and works of art that are in development are sometimes even more fascinating that the completed pieces, because they malleable and filled with boundless creative possibilities. The Bird King collects a fantastic collection of these sketches from many of Shaun Tan’s titles like The Journey, Tales From The Inner City, Lost & Found and more. Highly recommended.

The Bird King : An Artist’s Sketchbook ( Shaun Tan ) details :

– Dimensions – ‎ 6.3 x 0.87 x 8.5 inches
– hardcover, 176 pages
– Full color, in English

Buy From Amazon CA | Amazon JP | Amazon UK | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Amazon DE | Amazon ES

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