Martin Lacko
Posted by Amy on Tuesday August 17, 2010
Martin Lacko’s sketchbooks first caught my eye but after looking a little closer, his strange creatures and dark humor has me hooked. The Slovakian illustrator’s bold lines and unapologetic strokes bring life to his characters; while his sketchbooks are a lot more detailed – I wish there were more to see!
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Rebecca Volynsky
Posted by Amy on Wednesday April 28, 2010
The fulfillment after creating something with my own two hands is what fuels me to make artwork. The process is more about taking advantage of a variety of media (everything from screen prints to image transfers of passages from novels and poems) without even knowing what I want the final piece to exactly look like. This dissolves the pressure of creating something that solely aesthetically pleases the viewer, but eventually results in a balance of weight, energy, and personal meaning.
~ Rebecca Volynsky
Creating without knowing: do you practice it when you’re making art? Or do you consciously seek to recreate something that you see in your mind?
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Artist Interview: Christiane Engel
Posted by Amy on Friday March 12, 2010
The weekend is here (for me anyway ;) And there’s nothing better than to kick off a possible breakfast-and-reading-in-bed day with an interview with Christiane Engel, an accomplished illustrator who has done amazing work for editorials, ad campaigns and children’s books!
Name: Christiane Engel
Location: London, UK
Website/Shop: www.desertfriends.com www.etsy.com/shop/chengel
Blog: www.christianeengel.blogspot.com/
Illustration media: digital collage / pencil+acrylic / pen+ink / paint on wood
Tell us a little more about yourself!
Hello! My name is Christiane. I’m an illustrator of children’s books and other things and I like to design fabrics. I’m originally from Germany and I hope to live in a semi-desert climate one day.
Where do you live? What stands out about living where you are, and what is your daily schedule like?
I’ve been living in London for a while now, but in a less urban area with lots of parks, sports grounds and leafy roads.
Sometimes I forget it’s London and when I get off the underground at Piccadilly Circus it hits me that I’ve been living in my own bubble surrounded by children’s books, animal wall-charts and maps of National Parks, and I really need to adjust to get into that fast-paced city mode again. What I like about this place though is that you can find all kinds of things here and that it doesn’t even surprise people when you’re not from here because rarely anyone is!
And when it gets too much I can always escape into my dream world through my illustrations.
My daily schedule is mostly a variation of this: checking e-mails / revising color artwork digitally / sketching on own projects / working on roughs for commissions / going to the library or food shopping / more e-mailing or uploading artwork/ googling pictures of Namibia / work out at the gym plus Yoga or Pilates / re-hydrate / eat in or out / watch TV whilst still sketching or noting down ideas…I have to learn how to switch off.
How did you get your start in illustration?
I studied mainly Animation at a German art school but when I moved to England I ended up making little story books and finally, for my MA, I wrote and illustrated a children’s book series called Louis + Bobo. After I graduated I sent my work out to a few agents and the response was quite positive, that really surprised me cause all I heard were warnings about how difficult it would be to break into children’s publishing. Soon after that I had my first commissions which were in advertising and my first book, ‘Louis+Bobo – We Are Moving’, was published by Chrysalis in 2005.
I still had various day jobs by then and mainly worked on my illustrations at night.
CLICK HERE to read the rest of Christiane’s interview!
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Brendan Wenzel
Posted by Amy on Wednesday March 10, 2010
How adorable are these animals? Love the work of Brendan Wenzel — his sketches are amazing, and his lines are fabulously fluid.
{via Sam Caldwell}
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Christine Pym
Posted by Amy on Wednesday March 3, 2010
Beautiful watercolour illustrations from Christine Pym who studied Illustration for Children’s Publishing at the North East Wales Institute in the UK. She’s illustrated one book entitled The Tail of the Whale which will be out soon! I love how she talks about achieving a balance between your own vision and what the market wants in this blog post of hers on her experience after she graduated from university.
Comments [4]
Frédéric Noël
Posted by Amy on Wednesday February 10, 2010
Frédéric Noël is a self-professed newbie at illustration who LOVES drawing (he does it all the time!) Look at the detail on these paper plates. Amazing.
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