Illustration Intro: Lecture

So this week i came up with a pretty awesome illlustration of some well known actors, including: Will Arnett, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Chikitis. I was flipping through a GQ magazine and surprisingly this publication works with many illustrators, as there were drawings almost on every couple pages which i had no idea about. The illustration work inside consisted mostly of journalistic / editorial illustration along with a lot of pop culture drawings on famous people and what not. One thing i did find really interesting was the publications interest towards caricatures. Almost every famous person illustration inside GQ and a lot of other major magazines seems to lean towards caricature or exaggerated illustration for most their style illustration. Why this is, I'm not completely sure, for some reason i would think their interest would be towards something more accurate or realistic. On the other hand my personal taste goes in the opposite direction, as i believe caricatures have a way more dynamic look and feel to them were expression is captured on a greater level than a more accurate representation. Perhaps the caricature aesthetic just seems more appropriate to these publications to embody the essence or real mood of that person or thing the magazine is trying to illustrate or convey about them. The artist in this case is Andy Freidman, and upon doing a little research on the artist, this style seems to be his specialty. You can find more of Freidman's work throughout other major magazines such as GQ and Men's Health, along with many others, He also does a lot of collaborative illustration with John Cuneo which is another popular cartoonist. For a little about this illustration in particular, i think it would fall under caricature as style, but he has a unique trick and twist to his drawings that make them stand out from the classic caricature we are all familiar with. Freidman stands out as an illustrator in my opinion for his unique ability to draw these caricatures in an exaggerated, yet very accurate manner, in which expression and persona is captured masterfully through his delicate and controlled use of lines. HE seems to only work in black and white compositions, but you can see he is very familiar with design techniques as he treats his negative spaces confidently with black shapes. He seems to be playing with the whole composition of the image to make it more visually appealing and stimulating moving your eye from one corner to another. Great stuff, enjoy.