This month, the team at The Public Domain Review launched a new project aimed at artists, illustrators, designers, and creatives of all stripes. Containing 10,000+ items, the Public Domain Image Archive is a vast trove of illustrations, prints, scans, and more, all downloadable and free for use.

The database offers a functional search that allows users to sort by artist, time period, style, and theme. For those seeking maximum visual stimulus, there’s also an “Infinite View” option that collates images of all types into a navigatable grid.

Included in the collections are 19th-century drawings that turn maps into farcical figures, vivid fish renderings by Louis Renard, and satirical black-and-white cartoons from the censorship-laden Prohibition era.

Curators plan to add more entries to the database each week, so be sure to check back for updates. And, if you’d like more deep dives into copyright-free works, check out the public domain archive on Colossal.

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Glasgow-based artist Laura K. Sayers creates tiny paper worlds that sit within the compact margins of a stamp. Illustrating children’s books and whipping up projects for magazines leaves the artist with plenty of small scraps given another life through a series of layered postage.

Sayers begins by choosing a color palette, carefully selecting harmonious shades of paper and oftentimes painting over sheets to achieve the perfect tone. Referencing her own photographs, the artist then creates quick thumbnails to loosely guide her process. Using sharp scissors and a scalpel, layers of meticulously cut paper begin to take the shape of familiar landscapes, finished with perforated edges and sometimes nestled within a painted frame.

“Even though these stamps are very small and detailed, they have a lot of satisfying limitations to them: cropping a scene, using a limited color palette, and the amount of detail you can actually fit in when you’re cutting shapes on that scale,” Sayers explains. “As someone who regularly overcomplicates things, I find these restrictions quite helpful and a good challenge.”

Sayers is working on a few book projects and planning her future stamp collections. Next month, a few of her pieces will be exhibited in Portland at Nucleus Gallery, so be sure to follow the artist on Instagram and see her website for more updates.

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Swathed in patterned coats, overlooking expansive vistas, or reveling the joys of solitude, the characters in Rosanna Tasker’s illustrations (previously) delight in simple pleasures. Emphasizing the potential of color and contrast to create a sense of warmth and depth, figures bask in glowing interiors, and landscapes fade into the blue of distance.

Tasker’s figures are often camouflaged or miniaturized by their towering surroundings, whether wandering among stacks of textiles or strolling through a grove of trees. “Recently, I’ve been enjoying playing with pattern, light and depth,” she tells Colossal. “I’m always aiming for the balance of challenging my comfort zone while also staying true to my natural style.”

While she can’t yet divulge some of the exciting projects in the works for the coming year, Tasker is currently working on another illustration for Singing Holidays, which plans music-focused tours around Europe and elsewhere.

She enjoys working with clients that provide open briefs and lend their full trust. For example, Singing Holidays gives her “the space to really experiment with my work and create images that are mostly self initiated, while still having some parameters or starting points to work within—which is my favourite type of commission and when I feel most creative,” she says.

Prints and calendars are available in Tasker’s online shop, and you can explore more work on both her website and Instagram.

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“In a way, I was always an illustrator at heart, at least since I was old enough to hold a pencil,” says Myriam Wares. “Drawing has always been a part of me since childhood; I simply continued along that path into adulthood.”

The Montréal-based artist layers themes like the natural sciences, technology, mythology, and contemporary social issues through a surrealist lens. Her rich illustrations, commissioned by the likes of The New York Times, Barron’s, Quanta, and more, invite viewers into enigmatic, introspective worlds of wonder.

Wares emphasizes dramatic lighting, complementary colors, and the power of scale in dynamic scenes that emanate warmth. She draws on her background in visual art and an interest in art history to create narrative scenes featuring classical sculptures, emotional figures, and inviting landscapes.

“The language of symbols and visual metaphors feels the most natural to me when comes the time to express myself,” the artist tells Colossal. “I love playing with meanings and thinking of different ways to visually represent an idea.”

Wares enjoys the constant challenge of balancing numerous projects along with personal creative work, which evolves over time and informs how she approaches commissions for clients. “Every new assignment comes with its own set of demands and aesthetic particularities,” she says. “I never really have time to get bored before a new project comes along.”

See more work on Wares’s website, Behance, and Instagram.

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Dubbed “rats of the skies,” urban pigeons are often viewed as a nuisance today, but these wily birds are in fact feral descendants of esteemed domesticated ancestors. Documented in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform, pigeons have been historically valued as food, holy symbols, pets, and—thanks to a remarkable homing ability—messengers.

Avian enthusiast Emil Schachtzabel (1850-1941) was particularly fascinated by the wide variety of hybrid types that breeders, known as fanciers, created over time. He drew upon the 18th-century European interest in fancy pigeons, which were—and continue to be—bred for unique traits like size, behavior, feather displays, or color.

In his seminal work, Illustriertes Prachtwerk sämtlicher Taubenrassen (1906), often referred to simply as Prachtwerk—a “masterpiece” of pigeon breeds—Schachtzabel chronicled diverse and chimerical varieties. He introduces the “fantail,” the “nun,” the “frillback,” and the “cropper,” the latter of which can balloon its chest to the size of a grapefruit.

The lithographs included in Prachtwerk were based on watercolor templates by Anton Schöner, and the fanciful illustrations merge Schachtzabel’s interest in both the artistry and evolution of the feathered beings.

“Schachtzabel combined two knowledge traditions that had not always overlapped: the practical wisdom of pigeon fanciers and the taxonomical theories of naturalists,” says The Public Domain Review, continuing:

As described in the Prachtwerk’s preface, Schöner positioned his lithographic pigeons at carefully chosen angles to give the fancier a better sense of golden proportions, toward which his or her own breeds could strive.

Prachtwerk is held in the collection of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, which has digitized the original book.

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In the 16th century, Italian Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo spurred an idiosyncratic trend in portraiture, elaborating on the symbolism of fruits, animals, and objects by arranging them compositionally into human faces.

Arcimboldo’s work inspired some European illustrators to portray tradespeople as physical embodiments of their work, such as Nicolas de Larmessin in the 17th century and Martin Engelbrecht in the 18th. The instruments of the subjects’ professions literally became them.

Around 1800, London-based published Samuel William Fores continued the playful—if occasionally unsettling—tradition of composite portraiture in a series of aquatints depicting a florist, a baker, an armorer, a tailor, and several others, made from the sum of their tools and wares. A blacksmith, for example, is composed of an anvil, bellows, and hammer, while a fruiterer—a greengrocer—is made of produce and baskets.

The Public Domain Review notes the significance of the title of the series, Hieroglyphics: “If, indeed, the print dates from around 1800, then it would place the image soon after the discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon’s troops during their invasion of [Egypt]—and so at a time when the idea of hieroglyphs would have been very much in the air.”

We currently understand the word “hieroglyphs” to denote an ancient system of writing in which pictures were substituted for text, so the title may take some license with that interpretation. But that may also be beside the point. As The Public Domain Review continues, “…it as though the act of replacement itself is enough, be it a word or a swathe of face, it does not matter—the whole world seen as renderable in a landscape of objects.”

Prints of Hieroglyphics are currently held in the Wellcome Collection in London, where you can explore the library and exhibitions free of charge.

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Cosmic phenomena, spiritual symbolism, and the stuff of dreams embellish Lou Benesch’s mystical watercolor paintings. From a trio of blackbirds hovering over a giant bed on a ragged coastline or a many-faced ram bearing bells and birds, the Paris-based artist (previously) draws on the iconography of folklore, fairytales, Greek myths, and symbols of spirituality.

A Comforting Invisible, opening soon at Hashimoto Contemporary, marks the artist’s first solo show with the gallery and brings together a collection of otherworldly illustrations that begin with reality but morph into unearthly, imaginary beings.

In often semi-symmetric compositions, hybrid animals and unique interactions nod to metamorphosis and metaphysical experiences in surreal landscapes. The edges of each piece of paper have also darkened or faded with age, emphasizing the element of time or—as in dreams—timelessness.

Benesch explores what the gallery describes as the “existence of a second, invisible realm accessed only through the portal of dreams.” Stage-like settings, archways, and niches reveal emblems like eyes, a miniature labyrinth, the sun and moon, eggs, and a range of geometric shapes.

Eggs, for example, represent hope, fertility, and rebirth. People have revered the sun and moon since time immemorial, symbolizing duality, balance, and transition. Benesch adds that the addition of a maze provides a way to “access this universe of contemplation… with an invisible hand guiding us along the paths that we forget to see.” 

A Comforting Invisible runs from November 9 to 30 in Los Angeles. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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Dreamily jotting down notes from the comfort of a closet or enjoying an afternoon read in a rowboat are some of the ways Karlotta Freier’s characters spend their time. The Brooklyn-based illustrator (previously) taps into human emotions and moods, illuminating atmospheric and sometimes surreal narratives.

Freier often plays with the nature of concealment and intrigue, like a half-hidden figure behind a door, the shadow of a bird cast onto a woman’s face, or a screen of trees framing some activity. Reflections, shadows, and repetition draw our attention to clue-like details.

The artist often uses scale to elaborate on the sense of mystery, like a tiny person riding on the back of a giant primate or an enormous, white cat asleep among colorful blooms.

Many of the illustrations shown here were commissioned for The New Yorker and The New York Times, and Freier has recently collaborated on projects with global brands like Dior and Hermès. The artist is also currently working on her first children’s book, and you can follow updates via her website and Instagram.

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This holiday season, immerse yourself in the dynamic, theatrical world of Maurice Sendak at the Denver Art Museum in Wild Things. Organized in cooperation with the Columbus Art Museum, where a sibling exhibition was presented two years ago, Wild Things celebrates the characters that have accompanied millions during story time since the mid-20th century.

The author and illustrator of perennial classics like In the Night Kitchen (1970), Outside Over There (1981), and, of course, Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Sendak was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and began illustrating children’s titles in 1947. He was largely self-taught and illustrated hundreds of books throughout his six-decade career.

Sendak produced an astounding array of drawings, paintings, mockups, and set designs and costumes for his books, along with their adaptations to stage and screen. He was also an avid collector of other renowned illustrators’ works, and viewers can see pieces from Sendak’s personal collection by the likes of William Blake, Beatrix Potter, Walt Disney, and more.

Wild Things continues through February 17. Plan your visit on the Denver Art Museum’s website.

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Ever intrigued by the possibilities of shadow and scale, Owen Gent renders narratives of psychological struggle and moral dilemmas. The Bristol-based illustrator works between analog and digital mediums to create scenes characterized by grainy textures and bold colors.

Gent (previously) often collaborates with editorial clients, and many of the works shown here were commissioned by publications like The New York Times, Psychologie Heute, and Middlebury Magazine. The illustrations encapsulate various modern anxieties and quandaries visualized through ominous beasts or a winding row of enormous dominoes on the verge of collapse.

Prints are available in Gent’s shop, and you can follow his latest projects on Behance and Instagram.

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