Inspirational Illustrators

To help me with my sketching and designing stage for my album cover - as I have decided to do an illustration - I thought I'd do some research on some inspirational illustrators to discover their techniques. 

Charles Keeping 

When I drew my first idea out for the album cover my lecturer noticed that it was similar to the style of Charles Keeping, this piece in particular. His main focus seems to be on the line drawing because he has used so many different techniques to ensure different effects. The tree branches were possibly done in ink, where he started off drawing quite firmly to the paper before letting his hand lighten so that the line would grow thinner. This reminds me of hair floating on water or seaweed, and it produces a somewhat calming effect because of the gentle curves.

Behind the trees is the moon, and this has been painted quite sharply because the white is extremely bright and the edge extremely clear. There is then another circle around that is much softer, and then another that’s even softer. From this I think that the white moon is in fact the colour of the paper so when he fills in other white areas it looks extremely bright.

I quite like the soft texture of the outside glow of the moon, because the texture of the paper is shown clearly. He probably used something soft like graphite to achieve this rather than pencil. The graphite is then smudged to the rest of the background.

The thin blades of grass are quite sharp in comparison to the branches and the moon, and extremely thin so that there isn’t too much texture going on in the piece. Our main attention is at the bright moon peeking between the branches so not a lot of detail was needed elsewhere. This might be the reason why Keeping didn’t fill up the foreground with blades of grass; this creates the effect of mist curling around the path.

Conclusion:

By using different media he is able to produce many textures: the ink leaves a fine, precise and flowing line; the graphite a very soft and calm smudge; and the pencil blades of grade very thin and sharp. I would like to experiment with different medias as well for my piece as it is really interesting to see all kinds of media combined in one piece.

Here are some of his other pieces:

Overall conclusion:

What I’ve also noticed is that his line drawings are normally very sketchy, like what you get when you haven’t lifted your hand off the page while drawing. This is a really interesting technique and makes the picture look dark and gloomy, which is something that I’m aiming to have in my illustration. 



Angela Rizza - http://angelarizza.com/
Angela Rizza is one of the first illustrators (that I know of) to do all of her lines by hand before scanning it in and painting on Photoshop. This is what made her so much more inspirational to me because I've had many issues when it comes to drawing straight onto Photoshop, and so it's nice to see another illustrator who draws everything by hand.

This was the other reason why I was immediately attracted to her work; her lines were so intricate that you could almost feel the texture she is trying to produce. Everything was drawn in a deliberate way, such as the varying weights in the lines to create depth.

When zooming right up to this illustration I can see the tiny circles she had drawn onto the toad’s skin as well as the little creases in it’s mouth. This shows that she perhaps researched extensively so that she knew every mark and fold in a toad’s skin so that she could achieve a realistic illustration. The owl toys around her have a certain texture as well, although it seems she may have used Photoshop for those.

It isn’t only the toads that have tiny little details, but even the girl does. Rizza has drawn her hair in thin strands so that each is a slightly different colour to the next depending how close it was to the light source. 

The whole illustration is filled with detail, and there’s always something new to look at. For example I didn’t notice that eye right next to the girl on the right. All of the space within this is filled with either an object or a texture background. 

It looks as if she had drawn in tiny circles that gently grew into the background colour, and this reminds me of the roughness of thick watercolour paper when you colour on top of it with crayon. It just makes the piece more interesting because this subtle detail completes it in the sense that it's not just a background that she has just plonked her drawing onto. 

It is not only the way she draws but also the way she paints that’s admirable. Soft brushes seem to be a no-no apart from the soft glow behind the toads, and instead of smudging the rough edges she uses texture to blend them in.

Conclusion:

I’m in love with her style, and the fact that she clearly pays a lot of attention to detail, which must’ve taken her ages to complete. I too want to experiment with creating textures within a piece, and maybe discover ways to thicken lines neatly.

Here are her other pieces:

               

Overall conclusion:

Angela Rizza’s illustrations seem to come to life by using a wide amount of different textures. I would love to do a drawing with as much detail as she had put in her work, as it would bring the illustration to life. My only problem would be that this project is a typographic one and I don't want the illustration to draw any attention away from the type. 

Tove Jansson - http://www.moomin.com/tove/

Tove Jansson is a Swedish illustrator, whose most well known work is the Moomins. I used to watch the Moomin’s as a child so it was nice to flick through her work and bring back childhood memories.

Most of her drawings are in black and white, although her lines and texture differentiates each object even if it’s mostly made up of dark colours. The texture in the leaves is so much different to that of the hairy creature, as is the texture different to that of the house. I find it quite interesting how she has also added some texture to the Moomin’s shadow as well because in art the shadow would be a solid colour, never textured. The use of texturing is reflected in all of her pieces.

The Moomin themselves don’t have any texture so they are the main focal point as their “bright whiteness” pops out from the page. There isn’t a hint of shading on them as well so they are basically a line drawing. This (like I said before) contrasts with the surrounding textures.

The line is very clean and precise, and I can’t see anywhere where the pen may have blotted or any jagged edges. Because of the Moomin’s simple form they appear cute and it emphasises their “cartoon” features. Speaking of their form, I don’t actually know what animal the Moomin is supposed to be based on but I have a feeling it’s a hippo?

Conclusion:

The contrast between detail and no detail is immense; there are only a few areas where she hasn’t drawn any texture, and these seem to be the most important objects in her illustration, as she wants to bring them off the page.  If she had allowed more objects to be free of texture I think it would’ve been overpowering, so she kept it at a perfect amount. 

Here are some of her other pieces:

(The colour illustration I think is one inspired by Jansson's work or is a screenshot from the anime)

Overall conclusion:
I really like her clean and simple lines, and like Angela Rizza I also admire the way she adds texture to the piece by drawing lines a different way. I would love to experiment with texture and perhaps giving objects simple forms so that it doesn't detract too much attention from the type in my design.


Fursy Teyssier - http://www.lesdiscrets.com/
I have already mentioned one of Fursy Teyssier's work here on the Les Discrets album, but because I found it so interesting - and creepy - I went and looked at more of his work for them.

“Creepy” isn’t a good enough word to describe his artwork; it’s horrifying (to me) as it plays on my childhood nightmares of the Plague when we had to know about it in Primary school.  If I had known about him a bit earlier I would’ve said that he was the perfect inspiration for my Avicide piece, as his work touches a lot on the subject of Death.

I think it’s more of how he paints his characters rather than draw them, because as you can see in this piece you can’t see much of their faces. The main part that gives away a person’s characteristics is masked by shadow, and this can throw the viewer off slightly as we can’t tell if the character is good or evil. Because of this we are more curious about the message in the painting.

The connotations that arise from their arched backs is that they are perhaps witches or wizards, being so old that they are hunched over their crooked walking sticks. The hoods are slightly pointy to support this connotation, and I can see a thin spidery hand poking out of a sleeve of the middle character. A raven is hovering over their shoulders – and the raven is most commonly known to symbolise death and evil – and it could be their pet or “daemon”. They are entering a dark and gloomy forest where the trees are so tightly packed that no light seeps through the gaps… all of these factors point towards the characters being “evil”.

Looking closer I can see that he has used differently media in this piece: watercolour paint for the raven as its feathers are very soft but well-defined as well as for the characters because of it’s “layers” of paint; graphite or smudged charcoal judging by the texture of the sky; and I’m not quite sure what he used for the little “specks” but I would say something like salt perhaps. By using different media he has brought texture to the piece overall as well as depth.

The colours he’s used are very dark and gloomy, consisting of many shades of black and brown. Because of the way he has successfully used shadows and lighting it doesn’t seem too “boring” as each shade is different from the other. For example, the lighting on the character’s backs has been painted differently so we could differentiate between each one.

Now onto the type. I haven't really talked about the type for the other ones (mainly because there is no type) but I feel that the typeface really "completes" the illustration. By using Roman numerals it creates an "old" feel to it, as it reminds me of numerals engraved into stone or ones displayed on a grandfather clock. It's very traditional, and the serifs on the typeface makes it appear strong but slightly gothic because of it's sharp edges on some of the letters. The x-height is rather large - the lowercase letters being almost the same height as the uppercase ones - and it reminds me of Optimus Princeps, a typeface I used for my Avicide piece.
I love his mixture of the "handwritten" typeface as well because it brings up the connotation of a monk scribbling onto a scroll - but in obviously very neat handwriting - or a poet writing his lines. It actually reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe for some strange reason and I don't know why. 

Conclusion: His dark colours really bring that gloomy feel to the piece as well as the contrast between shadows and lighting. I like the soft watercolour as well as the strong blacks. 

Here's some of his other pieces:

Overall conclusion: I find his work… Really creepy! This is mostly due to what I can’t see in the piece that would’ve been important in art (the facial features) so I’m left wondering what kind of person the character is. I also like how he used just two colours but in many shades. I would love to do an illustration consisting of only a few colours, as it does seem to be very powerful as it detracts all connotations that a colour would bring and leaves the viewer to come up with their own.


Conclusion of all inspirational artists:
I've made sure to have a look at illustrators that have different styles, but overall I do like the whole black&white feature as well as very detailed lines. I shall experiment with both watercolour and biro and see what happens!