Bernini

I chose this image this week by Bob Kessel because I like his abstraction of a statue done by one of my favorite sculpters- Bernini. The original statue is very life-like, instead of the typical Roman statues which were supossed to make men look more like gods immortalized in stone. Bernini made the couple look very fleshy and curved. Here Bob Kessel has reversed that and made them simple and sharp. Abstracted into almost all lines and 3 colors.

Snow

I chose this image mainly because it was funny to me, and its starting to get snowy here. The perspective and simplified forms make the idea immediately apparent. Had this artist tried to add more detail I think it would take a little longer to get it.

Forest

I have seen this artists work in a few places such as communication arts, but I found this one on illustrationweb.com. I really like the realistic portrait of Forest Whitaker. He has a unique face that would be hard to render as well as this artist has done. The brush strokes are bold and the use of the background is a subtle hint of this celebrity's name. If I had to guess at the medium I would say it was digitally oil painted with a program such as Corel. Definately some good inspiration for my current biographical illustration project.

Letter

This illustration is by Paul Combs and its a poster for veterans day. I like the extreme texture on everything which helps convey the message. I also like the color choices and exagerated features.

Tyler Jacobson

I found this image by Tyler Jacobson while searching for an illustrator to do a presentation on. It looks like it might be another Moby Dick illustration. He tends to do a lot of fantasy stuff but he has a handful of nice illustrations like this one. What I like about this image is the simplified manner in which the story is told. The focus is on the man harpooning a whale while on top of it. The only details are in the man, his harpoon and the eye of the whale. The crashing waves, blood and clouds take up the majority of the image and make this guys feat of slaying the whale seem all the more heroic also due in part to the size of everything compared to the man.

Halloween

Heres an image I found online that I thought was particularly well done. I like the colors that overlap with varied opacities. I also like how the artist chose not to show a witch or a jackolantern but instead depicted images that are associated with both. I dont know who the illustrator is.

davinci

These are some of Leonardo Davinci's sketches. He may or may not be considered an illustrator himself but he did many detailed sketches of various ideas and natural things he was studying and Im sure he has been ripped off by many actual illustrators for many many different applications.