Lee John Phillips, an illustrator from Pembrokeshire, West Wales, is no stranger to Lost Art Press. A while back, Chris Schwarz commissioned Lee for the “Family Tree of Chairs” that was on the end sheets of “The Stick Chair Book” and a poster. As much as we love Lee’s work for “The Stick Chair Book,” this post isn’t about that — for years Lee has been illustrating all the items, more than 8,500 to be exact, from his late grandfather’s tool shed, which his grandmother has kept in pristine condition.
“The Shed Project,” as Lee calls it, has been in the works for more than 10 years. Lee guesses there are more than 100,000 items in his grandfather’s shed and he’s visually recording every one of them. In the “Toolshed Coloring Book,” Lee shares just a fraction of the meticulously drawn visual studies from this project. (The book was published in 2016 – I don’t know how we only recently found out about it!). You can read more about “The Shed Project” on Lee’s website, from the humble beginnings of the project in 2014 to the rules he’s set for himself along this journey, to where he is now.
“Toolshed” is technically a coloring book – however, I’m so enthralled by Lee’s line work I’m afraid I’d do a disservice to his illustrations with my feral coloring. Each page is deliberately designed to stand alone for one’s viewing pleasure or to keep intact as a sort of coloring sketchbook. We’ve long been a fan of Lee’s work and love supporting artists of all sorts, and hope you do too. Color a page (or don’t) and pin it up in your workshop for wall decor, give the book and a pack of crayons to your grandchildren for them to explore and ask “what’s this?” a million times, or keep it on your coffee table as a conversation piece to share the story of Lee’s project.
