Tag: illustration

Gabriel Pacheco

Illustrations by Gabriel Pacheco

The work of the Mexican illustrator Gabriel Pacheco cannot be mistaken for anything else. The artist has developed an individual, memorable style. His works are often combined with quotations and excerpts of literary works. Combining text with his story illustrations seems to stem from his first published illustration which he created for the story written by his sister.

Pacheco has created a great portfolio, consisting of illustrations of children’s books, booklets of poetry and fantastic literature. His illustrations bring us to a  foggy world of subtle colors, sometimes full of strange creatures. His work Is inspired by the art of Hieronymus Bosch and Marc Chagal:, but he has definitely made a style of his own.

Michael Manomivibul

Book Illustrations by Michael Manomivibul

Michael Manomivibul is a freelance illustrator whose work thrives on mystery and atmosphere.  Born in Boston, raised in Bangkok, he has a BFA in Illustration from the California College of The Arts. He currently resides in Oakland California.

His inky illustrations are reminiscent of an updated Grimm’s fairy tale. In addition to having a mastery of sumi ink, he’s a fantastic storyteller. The moments he chooses to capture are at the height of suspense. He highlights natural movements with unusual, and sometimes unexpected, lighting solutions.

Cristina Penescu

Cristina Penescu, Scratchboard Illustrations

Cristina Penescu was born in Bucharest, Romania, 1988. Her family relocated to California when Cristina was a year old. Cristina has experimented with a variety of mediums and styles and recently has made the transition to realistic wildlife art, which she feels has always been her true calling in life.  Cristina is has had no formal training and is a self-educated artist. She has experience working in a variety of mediums, however she prefers acrylic and scratchboard. Her artwork is very detail oriented and she aims to bring the viewer an up close, intimate look at nature. She recently was accepted as a Signature Member of the world-renowned Society of Animal Artists. Cristina is also a member of Artists for Conservation and the Marwell International Wildlife Art Society.

Scratchboard is a little known medium made up of a 1/8″ masonite panel that is covered with smooth white clay and coated with a fine layer of india ink. The artist uses a sharp knife to scratch every single detail and hair by hand. A single scratchboard piece can be made up of tens of thousands of tiny scratches layered atop one another.

Christophe Blain, “King Kong”

King Kong, Illustrated by Christophe Blain

This re-telling of Merian C Cooper and Edgar Wallace’s famed tale is a 44 page children’s book printed in 2004 by Albin Michel.

The comic pages illustrated by Christophe Blain are more in line with the style that’s become synonymous with him: bubbly, clear-lined, cartoony, although it is more subdued here and weighted down with shadowy pencils, and are a well done use of narrative; really layering in further story considering the text is a very condensed version. At the same time he’s aware of his intended audience, so does keep them simple, in terms of composition or multiple elements in frame.

The single and double page images give Blain more room to fles and are much more impressionistic: smokier, smudged pastel-like textures that cleverly -by never really giving solid outline or shape to Kong’s gargantuan mass- have the effect of making him seem even bigger, mythic and uncontainable. They add to the ominous atmosphere, set up ambiance, and feed the tragic tone of the story.

James R Eads

James R Eads, “Gathering for the Healing Vibes”

James R. Eads was born in 1989 in Los Angeles, California. He attended college at Skidmore in upstate New York. After living in Brooklynn, New York for a few years, he relocated back to his hometown Los Angeles. He lives and works at the Brewery Arts in Los Angeles. His studio is open to the public during the bi-annual artwalks.

Thornton Willis

Thornton Willis, “Omaha Flash”, 1985, Lithograph on Rives BFK, 22 x 30 Inches, Edition of 30

Often grouped in the 1980s with abstract painters Sean Scully and Elizabeth Murray, Willis used a zigzag shape to explore figure ground relationships in a series of oil stick drawings on paper and paintings consisting of layers of rolled acrylic paint that created multi-colored strata within each stripe or resulted in a multicolored background topped by a solid colored zigzag.

Of the resulting pictorial tension, critic David Carrier observed in 1984, “Even from a distance, we glimpse Rothko’s soft edges; even close up, we known that Stella’s lines are straight edges. By contrast, when approached, Willis’ hard-edged zigzags dissolve into a sequence of painterly layers whose gestural structure has no direct relation to that larger form which it defines.”

Wrigley’s Gum

In 1892, Wrigley Jr. began packaging chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The chewing gum eventually became more popular than the baking powder and Wrigley’s reoriented the company to produce the gum.

Wrigley began using twins to market the classic Spearmint chewing gum in 1939, playing off the idea that you should “Double your pleasure, double your fun, with Doublemint Gum.” Since 1960, the commercials have featured twins (even some famous ones) chewing along to the upbeat Doublemint tune.