Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb is an illustrator who is also a musician. He does a lot of comic book art and satire art. He was inducted in the Will Eisner's Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1991. Crumb was the founder of the Underground Comix and in 1970, one of his most famous comic books was called, " Keepin' on Truckin" along with helping with the illustrations for the comic book called "American Splendor" for Harvey Pekar.

His work is very sketchy, his style is messy and depressing. He draws pop culture and he also illustrates real life. He knows how to capture the essence of life in his work. His art is very interesting to look at because he has a very distinctive style. Some of his art is in just pen and ink but sometimes he adds color. The color he uses is bold and flat. He uses a lot of hatch marks to shade in his subjects which contributes to his messy and crazy style.

Floyd O.L.J. Butler here. Today were looking at a cover of Batman The artist is the well known comic book extraordinaire, Jim Lee. He is well know for his X-Men comic books in the early nineties but this cover of Batman, that is done in August of 2003. This is part of the "Hush" Batman series. What I like about this picture is the anatomically correct Batman figure with good proportion. Also look at the detail of his battle torn Bat outfit. His cape is cut, and above his biceps by his his shoulder is torn. Batman nose is even bleeding! Batman is engulfed by flames so he cant retreat, then all you can see is the is the hand of someone else (Ra's al Ghul's) that he is fighting. Also look at Batman's face, his small pupils, the grit grin at his teeth, he looks determine to win. If you want to see more of Jim Lee works, you can check out X-Men, Batman Hush series and All Star Batman.

Graeme Base

Everything on the page below starts with U. Like every page in Animalia, whatever page you are on will have everything starting with that letter.

Graeme is an Australian author and artist. He is best known for his book Animalia, which is now a children’s program on PBS. He likes to draw more then write. But, he found illustrating other people’s books frustrating. Mainly because he didn’t have the freedom to change the text to better fit the illustration. So he decided to write his own books and illustrate them. My favorite book by Graeme is “The Eleventh Hour.” In this book you get to see how much fun he has illustrating. You see the initial illustration, but when you look closer you start to see all the “hidden” stuff he’s added. Since the story is a mystery, he has hidden clues to who done it all through out the story. If you take the time you can figure out who done it without opening the clues in the sealed packed in the back of the book. Graeme Base is an intense illustrator and if you’d like to see more of his work go to http://www.graemebase.com/

Chris Sanders

Chris Sanders has been with Disney for 20 years and is mostly known for his character designs for Lilo & Stitch. He also did the voice of the Stitch. Since then he's moved on to Dreamworks where he continues art directing, as well as some illustration, writing, artist work on the side.

Given his history with Disney and I was surprised to run into his more mature illustrations such as the ones shown. The second image are three separate ones I pieced together (with a little humor). I must say I like this side of his work better. It's playful and not too raunchy. His style is easy to recognize. While his illustrations of children look a lot like Lilo, he tends to model his older female characters after island girls. They have the same slanted eyes, small waist, pouting lips, are busty and have big hips. He also makes a lot of cute, yet mischievous, animal characters. Sanders uses thick lines and solid, almost flat, color. No matter what the content is I can't help, but think of Lilo and Stitch when I look at Sanders' work. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Either way I really enjoy his style and his work.

There's more to see on his official site. He also has a weekly web-comic that looks pretty interesting.

Week 4 Blog Post

When I think of illustration, I usually don’t think of cave paintings for some reason. But I was looking up vintage illustrations and I started to wonder about even older art, so this is what I came across. These paintings are from the Ice Age and are in a cave in Southwest France. The materials used to make it are natural pigments and charcoal.

When I’m in Art History we talk a lot about wealthy patrons paying famous painters money to create these beautiful paintings so they can hang them in their homes. And while I respect that practice, it seems interesting to consider that cave paintings (while we can’t know exactly what their purpose was, when they often lack a written word to explain them) could have easily had great significance in documenting what animals were around to hunt, paying homage to who killed what animal, keeping a historical record to remember a person’s life with, telling legends, and in general expanding upon what the human imagination could do.

I’ve read somewhere before, that ancient hunter gatherer societies actually had a lot of free time. It seems interesting to imagine that as soon as people were fed and had shelter, they thought; “Hey, let’s crush up this flower and make lines with it on the wall!” And thus, art was born.

Pirates are cool! But I like Ninja's even more

Howard Pyle....when I first heard of that name in my Illustration classes I was clueless about who he was. When I learned about him and started to see his work, I really enjoyed it in all its detail and fabulous color.

When I look at his work look mainly at the subject first. Pirates, the sea, etc. Then I noticed the strokes in the image, the use of oil paint that gives it that glossy shine. Notice the little strokes in the body of water that seem to lead to the boats sail strokes and so on. It's just something about the design on the characters, the detail the their gestures as well as other objects (i.e. boats). The oil paint captures the look and life of the pirate out on sea, with the warm sun, clouds and expansive sea. I think again, what I notice the most in his work, is the level of intensity and realism of the characters and whatever else happens to be in the work.

Week 4 - Jo Chen

Jo Chen is an Illustrator who became the cover artist for the comic version of Vampire Slayer", a popular late-90s TV show about a high school girl and her friends who are set with the task of taking down vampires, demons, and supernatural baddies in their hometown. Ending after it's 7th season, the show was then brought back by creator Joss Whedon and comic artist Georges Jeanty. The comic series starts as "Season 8", continuing the tale of Buffy and her friends without small screen limitations. The comic itself is filled with incredible angles, great character designs, and quirky humor that make it work perfectly as a graphic novel. But the cover art is a masterpiece all on its own, and Jo Chen is a very talented illustrator.

This particular image is digitally colored, and different from the usual type of art I am attracted to. The coloring is very soft, with gradual shading and really nice highlights and low lights on the girl's form. There is an obvious light source, and the way it reflects on her cheeks, body, and hair makes for a very dynamic image. A shadow is reflected behind her, grounding her in the scene. I feel a lot of illustrations with figures focus so much on the figure that the background is treated as secondary, and less important. While a beautiful figure may be rendered, a fully realized background really adds to the image as a whole. Also, Chen is very good at rendering expression and likenesses, because this is not only a beautiful figure but it really *looks* like Eliza Dushku, the actress who portrays Faith in the TV series. Lastly, there was not a lot of line art in this piece. Usually I am attracted to line art, but I find Chen's work a refreshing change and really enjoy it.