A New Global Agenda: Book Launch

Here is my wife, Diana Ayton-Shenker at the book launch event for "A New Global Agenda" at the New School in NYC on March 1st, 2018.

Portrait Revolution Art Book

Thanks to Martin Beek in the UK who just sent me a scan of the page in "Portrait Revolution" that has my ink portrait of Mariah O'Neill on it. This is from Julia Kay's Portrait Party, an international art project that I was part of — I did a number of portrait pieces for the project a few years ago via Flickr. Click the links for the UK & US versions via Amazon.

From Portrait Revolution, Julia Kay's Portrait Party

Bruegel

I was in Saugerties today (nearby town across the Hudson River from here) in a used bookstore...there is a very nice one there called "Our Bookshop", where I found this large Bruegel book. The book is from 1987, so the printing quality is a little dated, but it seems to be filled with wonderful images. I've always liked Breugel, with his drawings & paintings packed full of interesting, beautiful & grotesque detail, so I'm preparing to feast on this. And it was only $12. Bargain.

Monsters

Monsters, A Bestiary of the Bizarre, by Christopher Dell / Thames & Hudson

I seem to be accumulating books at a rapid pace these days. Case in point: "Monsters; A Bestiary of the Bizarre" which has just come my way. My daughter was recently in the UK & picked this up at the National Gallery in London, I believe, as a gift for me. Very thoughtful of her. It is a gorgeous book, filled with many color reproductions of monsters & the like, some of them familiar & others completely new to me. I shall spend many hours looking & reading through it. And, who knows where it will lead...

Monsters, 2016, brush & ink/wash on paper, 28.5" x 22.5"

The Manual

This arrived yesterday, to add fuel to the fire. Highly recommended. A tasty selection of drawings, some of them obvious (Leonardo, Rembrandt, Raphael, etc), & some less so (you should buy a copy & find out). A great resource, in any case.

Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters by Robert Beverly Hale

Rico Lebrun

Thanks to friends Scott & Betsy for the gift of this book, In the Meridian of the Heart (selected letters of Rico Lebrun). It's been on my nightstand for a while now, & I have actually read it (as opposed to just looking at the images). Lebrun is an artist who has been mentioned to me before, in the sense of someone who is not all that far away from what I do. It's true...I can see the parallels: he uses a lot of monochrome, his instinctual, emotional repsonse to the human figure resonates with me, & his influences of Picasso, Goya & Michelangelo are also not that far from mine. He is an artist well worth checking out, not as well-known as he probably should be. He died in 1964, so his work is from that post-war period (especially in the case of this book which concentrates on his later years (1950-68) & his stays in Mexico, New Haven CT, Capri, Rome & Los Angeles. His letters illuminate his struggles with abstraction & the human form, & the development of the mural of Genesis in Pomona CA, among other subjects. A very thoughtful & well-made book.

In the Meridian of the Heart, selected letters of Rico Lebrun

Poppy update

(above, an illustration from Poppy)

A year or two back, I did some illustrations for a children's/young adult book called Poppy. The project came to me out of the blue, as it were, & I hadn't illustrated a book of this kind before. The publication is currently only available as an e-book, I believe, but continues to be translated into other languages. Here is an email I recently received from the publisher, which may be of interest to readers of this blog:

We are Penny-A-Page Marketing and we have produced books which are on Amazon (Kindle Edition), Barnes & Nobel (Kook Edition) and Google (Kobo Editions) (among others).

The purpose of this e-mail is one particular book we would like to market; perhaps with your on-line site. 

The book is a coming of age book for younger audiences called Poppy written in both English and Irish Gaelic. 

We recently translated it into Irish Gaelic, actually on St.Patrick's Day here in the U.S. and would like to reach the Irish Gaelic folks in Ireland.

I've enclosed the two covers, the Irish Gaelic and English with a samples of excerpts of the book descriptions.

If you are interested, please e-mail me your requirements. 

You may also review these on the Amazon.com.uk sites with these urls and we would like to stay within the same price parameters.

Poipín:    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poip%C3%ADn-Irish-Edition-William-Ayton-ebook/dp/B00J1V94QA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395188237&sr=8-1&keywords=Poip%C3%And

Poppy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Poppy%20by%20Pennel%20Irwin

Regards,

Sharlene D Irwin, CEO Penny-A-Page Marketing

                                        www.penny-a-page.com

                                        penny-a-page@northerntel.net

below: Amazon.co.uk preview of the e-book:

Shadow Bay Final Cover

Here is a JPG of the final cover (front, back & spine) of Shadow Bay, the noir visual crime novel collaboration with Donald J. Rothschild. The book is basically done & the files are being sent to the printer. We should have a proof version of the book in our hands in a couple of weeks. After that, another couple of weeks or so should see it widely available. Thanks especially to Georgia Dent for her work on the layout of the cover.

More details to follow. Please check back.

Promotional Video for Book of Small Drawings

I just put together this short (2 mins 20 secs) video slideshow containing the cover & all of the images in my "Small Drawings" book:



The book is available on Amazon here.

The Lexikon Surreal

Apparently, I'm featured (with many other similarly-inspired artists from around the world) in Gerhard Habarta's new book, "Lexikon der Phantastischen Künstler" (hope I got that right), an overview of artists both living & dead (some very dead; Bosch, Goya et al) working in a somewhat surrealist, fantastic, symbolist, visionary vein. I think I overlap several of those categories.

I haven't seen the actual book yet, but it looks very interesting. You can find out more here. The book is in German & English, it seems, as you can see for yourself if you click on the preview page images.

The book appears to be available currently (there is an email address on the home page whereby it can be ordered), though not in general distribution from Amazon, etc. I'll post more details when I have them.

Link: www.lexikon-surreal.com

Love, War, Fire, Wind: really almost very nearly there...

The book collaboration with Eliot Katz (poetry) & myself, entitled "Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull" is very near to being released. After looking over the most recent version, I noticed that the back cover, while having the ISBN & bar code firmly in place, lacked 2 things: descriptive text for the category of book ("poetry/art") & the actual price in human writing (as opposed to bar code talk), $18:00 USA. These items are apparently quite important. So, I've put them in:



Eliot doesn't have his version of the book yet, though I ordered them minutes apart (but just before the weekend, so go figure). If he OKs it, I shall order the final version, have a quick look, then release it into the world to let it fight with the other little books out there. Should be around a week to 10 days & it will be out there...

Katz/Ayton book getting closer...

Just a note to say that the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been ordered for "Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull" by Eliot Katz & William T. Ayton (aka me). It will take several days to arrive, then a test copy will be ordered up & printed. If all is well, the book will go live & into the distribution channel, & should be available most places where good (or very good) books are sold. Stay tuned -- more info will be posted when known.

BTW -- here's that book preview page again.

Preview page for the Katz/Ayton book

I've just put up a new page on my ayton.net web site for the forthcoming book collaboration with poet Eliot Katz -- showing the cover & 11 of the full-page drawings -- please click here.


"Farewell", brush & ink drawing, 2008, 9" x 6". The above drawing is a tribute to both Gregory Corso & Allen Ginsberg.

Human Column

New brush & ink drawing from the book now workingly titled "Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull" by Eliot Katz & William T. Ayton. This drawing currently sits alongside the poem, "In Praise of the Seattle Coalition", though as this is a work in progress, it all could change.


Brush & ink on paper, 2008, 9" x 6". Click for larger.