An art student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts who lists himself as bENCE hAJDU on Behance has posted a short series of images in which he has used digital image editing to remove the people from some classic paintings and fill in the backgrounds where they once existed.
Makes you think twice.
[Via NewsWorks]
I wrote about illustrator David Johnson in June of last year. At the time I particularly admired his portraits, wonderfully composed of contrasting areas of intricate line and carefully arranged open shapes.
Johnson has launched a Tumblr blog on which he is posting a series of the portraits, titled A Portrait a Day Keeps Myself Sane.
The portraits are mostly, though not all, literary figures, and Johnson is posting them accompanied by relevant quotes. The portraits also feature figures from music and other areas and include a self portrait (images above, bottom)
As much as I enjoyed Johnson’s portraits amid his other illustration, when taken together like this they are even more wonderful, with face after face revealing itself in sharply distilled contrast to the others.
Johnson has a skill for suggesting strong planes in his faces without the use of tone. The open areas take on a surprising geometric solidity, and create a firm platform on which he can arrange his playful marvels of flowing, looping, wiry, clipped, shaggy, dangling, frayed and calligraphic hair.
A visual treat every day.
Hopefully, there is a book or similar collection project lurking here somewhere.
For more, see my previous post on David Johnson.
From Book of Hours by Master Jean de Mauléon.
This is a book illumination. The original is approximately 7 x 4″ (17 x 10 cm).
In the Walters Art Museum. Click “Download Image” for full size.
Cliff Childs is a concept artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles. He studied at the Otis College of Art and Design and is, I believe, currently working with Sony Computer Entertainment America.
Childs has an approach to concept environments that stresses atmosphere, both in the sense of atmospheric perspective and in terms of mood. Even in his renderings of daylight scenes, he plays with visual sensations of moisture laden air, giving his designs a palpable feeling of distance and temperature.
He also works his lighting in a theatrical manner, focusing attention with spotlighted effects, controlled passages of color and suggestions of texture.
In addition to his concept work, Childs has done illustrations for the Magic: The Gathering gaming card series.
I didn’t see any of the latter on his blog, but you will find a lot of his concept and personal work, including sketches from life in traditional media.
Childs’s work is on display as one of the artists represented in the Painting in Pixels: An Exhibition of Concept Art currently at the Riverside Art Museum (see my recent post).
Lachrymae by Frederic, Lord Leighton.
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Click on “Fullscreen” under then image, then use zoom or download arrow. There is an image of the painting in the ornate, portal-like frame Leighton chose for it here.
“Lachrymae” is latin for “tears”.
Originally from New York, Jennifer Hom studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design.
She now resides in San Francisco and works as an illustrator for Google, where she has created the images for a number of Google Doodles, including the wonderful recent tribute to Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland that I mentioned in this post.
Hom’s website showcases her personal work, which varies in approach from graphic and linear to a more painted approach. A number of the pieces are now available as prints.
(Note that the last three items in her online portfolio are not individual images, but additional sections.)
Hom also maintains a blog, on which you can find additional work, both personal and professional, as well as preliminaries, process images and works in progress, including a full rendered version of the Winsor McCay tribute.
