American Illustration 32

The other day I was flipping through the American Illustration 32, a collection of winning illustrations from 2013. These were some of my personal favourites and why:

These portraits are by Tina Berning and I liked them for their simplicity and the different marks she uses, ranging from loose inky washes, to cross-hatching, patterns, simple strong line work and blocks of black. I especially like the way Berning uses the lighter tones of the ink to achieve subtle shadows in the facial features, the tonality of each piece is very effective.

I loved this whole spread for its playfulness. The artists have been set side by side purely by chance because of the alphabetical ordering of the book, but I think it works really nicely. Christopher Niemann's use of photography and real pencil shavings reminds me of Lord Whitney and the idea that illustration doesn't have to be flat 2D images on screen or paper. Even though it's simple, the emphasis is on the idea and the fun of the image. It does what I think good illustration should do and communicate without relying on words. Opposite, Nik Neves uses colour really boldly and I love the contrast between the green of the tree and the block reds and oranges of the buildings.

This image is by Peter Oumanksi and I think I chose this for the flatness of the perspective and the fairly limited colour scheme; the pink and olive green work really well together against warm grey, and stop it becoming to heavy with the black outlines and high detailing. I definitely like the composition of this image, the blank space seems to allow for the dense detail and draws you in. Personally I know I would always be tempted to draw in some waves in that blank space, but they'd be unnecessary, the viewer knows it's water without them. Making me consider how much an image can be pared back.

I adore Brian Rea, so obviously these images made my top ten from the journal. Again it's the genius behind the image that gets me, not necessarily the style (although I like that too). This one was for the Modern Love column, accompanying an article about a man faced with throwing the items of a shared home after his wife dies. You can feel the unwillingness and loneliness right from the offset just by the body language of the figure and the composition of the piece. The room looks empty even though it is full of possessions. Originally, I thought this might be about consumerism and how you can't find happiness in things, which isn't too far off.

Brian Rea again, and again it's the reflective quality of the image that I love. You know immediately that this guy's only friend is his dog and that maybe he's struggling with a life direction from the simple clues in the illustration, such as their posture, the empty pizza box, the fallen cup... This was to accompany a Modern Love article about a man who's love for his dog helped him past his heartbreak, but you already knew that just by looking.

I chose this image for its playful quality in the colour scheme and marks. Everything has a spontaneous feel in this illustration, including the composition, things are layered haphazardly and drawn over. It draws you in.

This caught my eye because I'm really enjoying the trend over the last few years of a kind of rough, hand-drawn mark and coloured pencil texture, as opposed to digitally clean illustrations. The misty fading at the top of the image balances really well with the dark roofs at the bottom and I like the odd splash of mustard yellow against the grey. This A/W fashion collection has featured that palette quite strongly so it would be interesting to see if illustrations like this from 3 years ago fed that trend???

Another illustration that speaks with some comedy. This drawing style reminded me a lot of Quentin Blake because of the soft, scratchy line work and delicate watercolours, so it caught my eye. Then I realised it was actually quite comical as well and so it made the top ten for using a nice, traditional style that took me back to my childhood of books to remind me that social media is a bit of a black hole.

Looking through my selection I can see a tendancy towards the hand-drawn, delicate or limited colour palettes and comedy in my picks. I guess I like illustration that is either easy on the eye or saying something interesting, but preferably both.