Tritan Elwell is an illustrator who graduated from the High School of Music and Art in New York and went on to attend the School of Visual Arts there on a full scholarship. In addition he worked as an assistant to photorealist painter Charles Bell. He returned to the School of Visual Arts as an instructor, teaching classes in painting and illustration.

He has maintained a client list that includes HarperCollins, Penguin, Avon, Pocket Books, Bantam and Tor Books. Tor books has a gallery of his work.

He has also been featured in Print, Communication Arts and the Spectrum collections of contemporary fantastic art.

Elwell utilizes contrasts, not only of value and color, but of degree of detail, to control how he directs your eye and snaps attention to the focal point of the image. He also maintains a designerly eye to the graphic elements of his images, giving them a balance of positive elements and negative spaces.

The image shown here is perhaps not as representative of his work as some others might be, but seemed delightfully appropriate for Halloween.

I was unable to find a dedicated web site for Elwell, but I’ve gather a list of links to galleries of his work.

Suzanne Duranceu is a Canadian illustrator whose paintings evidence a strong sense of textural detail and a delicate refinement that give them a feeling of presence and gravity.

In other hands images like her version of works by Holbein or Gainsborough as represented by cats might lapse into kitsch, but she handles it with such élan that it becomes a naturalistic extension of the painter’s style.

Her other work ranges from fanciful to serious, and often makes use of detail and value contrasts to give weight and solidity to otherwise whimsical scenes; like her Newlyweds, the Owl and the Pussycat, enjoying a seaside picnic (presumably with the client’s delightful foodstuffs) before embarking on a honeymoon cruise in their beautiful pea-green dingy.

She also has on her site some intricately detailed interpretations of ecosystems (unfortunately in small images), and a fascinating Escher-like series of world views called Trilogy.

The web site is apparently still in progress. I found the navigation throughout somewhat problematic, the individual image dots didn’t respond to my click (at least on the Mac), but the Next and Previous arrows seem to work OK. A couple of the sections are still unfinished, including the bio section. For that you can turn to her bio on ZAKS Illustrators Source.