I’ve now attended a program called “Art of Illustration” at my library 3 times. I’ve shared some of the things I’ve created at that program here on LC, and I thought it might be useful to list the artists we took inspiration from.
Just as a quick review, Art of Illustration is a program where the leader pulls picture books in a certain style of art, and then the participants take inspiration from those artists to create something using the same medium.
Here is the list of artists, as shared by the library programmer for the last round:
Media: Oil Pastels
Artists:
- Ed Young - born in China, now lives in the US (New York State)
- Mies Van Hout - Netherlands
This was the first week, and I unfortunately had to miss it.
Media: Permanent and Watercolour Inks
- Edward Gibbs - born in England, grew up in Indonesia. Went to art school in New Zealand, and now lives in London, England
- Jeremy Tankard - born in South Africa, spent item in the US, now lives in Alberta, Canada
- Eric Rohmann - U.S. (Illinois)
This was the second week, and yet again I had to miss it. I was really disappointed at having to miss this one, as working with inks is definitely something I want to do more of, and it’s one of the supplies I happen to not have at home.
Papercutting
- Nikki McClure - US (Washington State)
- Christopher Wormell - England
- Thomas Hilley U.S. (Illinois)
*This was the third week, and it’s when I made the owl and sailboat.
Watercolour Pencil Crayons
Note: a lot of people in Canada call “color pencils” “pencil crayons.” The reason for this (at least I believe) is that as Canada is a bilingual country, all packages come with labels in both English and French. Crayons is the French word for pencils, but people ended up reading it alongside the English “pencils,” and “pencil crayons” was born. It just means coloured pencils.
- Emily Gravett - England
- Julia Denos - US (Massachussets)
- Freya Blackwood - Australia
- Catherine Rayner - born in England, now lives in Scotland
This is when I made the whale and the church as a tribute to my grandpa
Mixed Media Collage
- Petr Horácek - born in the Czech Republic, now lives in England and Czech Republic
- Ekua Holmes - U.S. (Massachusetts) Note: there’s supposed to be an accent above the letter c in his name, but I don’t know how to make it
) - Rachel Isadora - US (living in both NYC and France)
This is when I made the mixed media whale and started working on a phoenix that I’m still putting the final touches on. I’ll share it soon.
People! (Various media)
Patrice Barton - US (Texas)
Vanessa Brantley-Newton - US (born in New Jersey, now lives in North Carolina).
This is when I made the picture of Vanessa in mixed media (mostly watercolour pencils and collage)
These were not by far the only artists featured each week. The programmer pulled lots and lots of different books to show us examples of the media, but she chose 2 artists each week to highlight. She showed a brief clip of each artist at their work or doing an interview. We had the chance to peruse several picture books by different illustrators to take inspiration from, before starting on our own projects.
I hope this inspires you to create some of your own illustrations 