I've always loved the way a shelf full of books looks on a wall, but I'd never dreamt it could look this cool:
 

 
Los Angeles artist Mike Stilkey has been hitting the books... on the spine... with a combination of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer. SO cool! He describes his work as "melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales." It seems fitting that such fantastical inspiration should come to life on top of stacks of old books filled with stories of their own.
 

 

 
I love the third dimenson of this one!
 



In a press release for a recent exhibit at the Rice Gallery, Stilkey explained what drew him to the old books, and how they sparked this creative idea:
 
"... sometimes by the title, or more the look of it, the antiqueness of it, or the wear and tear of it. Sometimes there’s a weird illustration. I’ve got these books and I’ll never read them, but I want them for some reason and I’ve never known why. And then I started drawing on them."
 
Couldn't have said it better myself.