I Wish Id Done That!

This is the work of my favorite illustrator at the moment, Jill Calder, i think her work is amazing and it constantly inspires me in my work, Jill Calder is an illustrator from Scotland, ahe is also a calligrapher, digital artist and lecture! Her work is a combination of traditional and digital image making methods. I love the playful style of her work and the vast amount of colour and different textures in her work, i particularly like her ink drawings, the life and character she captures in them is something i really admire about her work.

She's said in interviews she likes to people watch and draw everywhere, i think this is something i want to get out and do more of, i sometimes struggle with ideas and i think just getting out and drawing anything i see would help not only to get me out of my ideas block but also improve my drawing!

I love the use of colour in her illustrations and it inspires me to get over my fear of using colour in my own work and move away from my limited colour palettes!

Click here to see more of her work!!

I Wish I'd Done This

 
I recently went to the Pick Me Up exhibition in London, held at Somerset House, and came across the work of Ping Zhu, she is an LA born Illustrator based in London. Her work focuses on people and animals which feature an amazing use of colour and texture. Her style of working features playful proportions and perspectives, sweeping and expressive brush strokes and lots of texture created using a dry brush technique, bringing so much life to every one of her images.

In a way her work reminds me of the work of Charley Harper, well her animal illustrations anyway, particularly in her ability to capture the spirit of the animal she is drawing without the use of un-necessary visual elements. The image above of the Chimpanzee used for an article in the New York Times is a perfect example of this.

I think using more texture in my work is something I really want to experiment with and definatly do more of i think this is one of the things my work is missing and something that would improve it. 

See more amazing illustrations from Ping Zhu here !!!!