Artsy Thursday-Christiane Engel

'Roadside Friends', June 2011 desktop calendar. Christiane Engel.

Nature prints and illustrations really appeal to me, so naturally I'm drawn to the work of Christiane Engel. I learned about her work through Poppytalk in a post mentioning monthly desktop calendars. Christiane is a children's illustrator and author with a knack for capturing snapshots of wilderness, especially the western US. Coyotes, deer, pine trees... it makes me long for an escape to the woods. Ironically, Engel grew up in Germany and now resides in London, yet her patterns and prints capture America's great outdoors so well that I imagined that she lived in a cabin somewhere Southwest or along the California coast.

Christiane's work is available in several forms (prints, stretched canvases, even iPhone covers and pillow cases). Her art has appeared in parenting and children's magazines and advertising, as well as several books she has written or created covers for.

For more on Christiane Engel and her art, visit her main site at DesertFriends.com. You'll find her portfolio and storefront (which links to the wonderful ETSY and Society6 sites, among others). And check out her blog at http://christianeengel.blogspot.com/ for sketches and updates.