Katie Rice

To be honest, I haven’t been paying too much attention to illustration around me, so once again, here’s an artist that I recently discovered through a friend. Her name is Katie Rice and her site is http://funnycute.blogspot.com/

Most of the work that she posts is rather sketchy, sometimes taken directly from her sketchbook or even from the post-it notes that she occasionally uses. Part of her distinctive style comes from the unfinished quality of her drawings. Her ability to capture the likeness of a person is really impressive. Katie also works with animation, so the people that she draws are incredibly gestural and expressive. Some of my favorite pieces that she’s done are quick caricatures of characters from movies like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, to name a couple.

I’m especially drawn to Katie’s work because of the detailed layers that she applies to even the most basic sketches. Most of them look like they’re begun in pencil or pen with colored pencil and marker additions to create depth and personality. Her drawings are reminiscent of Tim Burton’s rough sketches, so that’s definitely a draw for me, at least. I’m not sure what I would classify her as: an illustrator, animator, storyboard artist, comic artist, character designer… Maybe just a generic label of “artist” would work because she falls under a lot of categories found in the design world.