Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Ian Falconer

This is an illustration by Ian Falconer. I originally ran into his work via the cover of the New Yorker and then later realized that he was the same illustrator for the children's book character "Olivia". I am particularly interested in children's books so that made me appreciate his work all the more. I think that its important to develope a niche for yourself as an illustrator, but also not to get stuck in that niche and I think he has done a good job of being versatile. I really like this illustration because of all the incredible attention to detail. I love the birds flying around and I really like the architectural details in all of the buildings. I think that setting the character in a famous landmark is a good idea too because it introduces children to ideas like international landmarks at a young age and this is rendered so carefully it would be easily recognizable in real life. I also appreciate the expression on the pig's face. I think it can be hard sometimes to make an animal have a very clear sense of feeling. The emotion comes across very clearly here.

1 comment:

  1. It's hard to tell if the background is painted, or a photograph. If it's painted, it's done really well. If it's a photograph, then I'd like to say I really like the technique of overlaying hand drawn images into a photo, it lends to the surreal aspect of the illustration.

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