Hayao Miyazaki

Howl's Moving Castle

Sprited Away

My Neighbor Totoro

Hayao Miyazaki

Although Miyazaki is known as a well known animator and film director, I just wanted to point out his excellence in artistic technique and skills as an illustrator. If anybody were to watch one of his many animation films, they would agree that each cut serves as a "high-quality" illustration, taking note of his use of color, character design, and concept/narrative of each piece. One of my favorite films of Miyazaki's is Kiki's Delivery Service (unfortunately not shown here due to lack of high quality image format) because of his pure use of character and style in technique but also mainly because I'm interested in food illustration that that is why it caught my attention (the setting is in a bakery). His animation films are always a joy to watch and never gets "old" every time I watch his films I learn something new as an artist and illustrator. 

Peter Sis

Peter Sis

As everybody should know, these are a couple children's book illustrations by Peter Sis. The reason why I wanted to share his illustrations particularly is because his use of style and application of visual components gave me a huge influence into the style of illustration that I am working on today. What I appreciate the most about his works are his method of mass space compared to the attention of detail; as you can see in the second illustration from The Conference of the Birds Peter creates this great mass of color and shape of the birds in his composition while taking careful note of each individual bird. Peter's great attention to meticulous detail creates a sense of depth and interest to the viewer from a far point of view as well as a close up view. 

** I don't know how many artists that I posted, but I just wanted to share a few more! :)

Taiyo Matsumoto

This is another of my favorite artists, a japanese illustrator/comickeer. He's most famous for writing and illustrating Tekkon Kinkreet  (Black & White), a comic about two rebellious street kids, which was eventually turned into a movie.

I'm still not sure if comic artists count, but I think his design and other senses are still really important to look at, even for non-comic narrative illustration. Everything from his covers, characters, storytelling, colors and line & drawings sense is really great. I'm sorry my scans are so bad!!

here's scans of his other book, no. 5:

Mary Beth Owens' A Carribou Alphabet

Mary Beth Owens is an author as well as an illustrator. In the library I found an interesting book of hers all about carribou.

She works traditionally, I'm assuming watercolor but I couldn't find out for sure. What I love about these is the delicate paint and patterning around the letters, and also the light narrative. She does a great job of illustrating an alphabet while still making things both legible, having a narrative, and engaging at the same time. Her paintings are very beautiful. She doesn't focus on alphabet drawings, but does more traditionally narrative work as well.

You can find more info about her books here: http://www.jacketflap.com/mary-beth-owens/106475

Crazy Cats with Martin Leman

I'm a big fan of cats. Bigger than expected because I got weirdly drawn to all the strange drawings of cats in this book (and a few others which I haven't got the chance to scan yet)

These cats are from Martin Leman's book "Twelve Cats for Christmas". He's a british painter and illustrator, primarily of cats. He really likes painting cats.

I found the paintings of cats in his book very funny and playful. They have a very strong folk art feel. I choose to hi-light this illustrator primarily because I find his cat paintings really interesting. He isn't specific with his paint media in his online presence, although he has is an "Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society".

You can find more pictures of cats (and a few other works) on his website: http://www.martinleman.co.uk/




ps: if I get the chance, I will scan some more of the cat books I found! Because I love cats!!!!!!!

Stephan Zavrel

I looked in the library for interesting children's book illustrators, this is work by Stepan Zavrel.

Stepan (1932-1999) is a Czech illustrator who escaped from communist czechloslovakia to live in Italy. Later he established one of the biggest centers for children's book illustration in a village around 60 km from Venice, where they have a huge festival every year! (info here: http://www.freewebs.com/evaulian/aboutme.htm  & http://www.radio.cz/en/section/books/the-magical-world-of-childrens-book-illustrator-stepan-zavrel )

His work is very lyrical and fantastic watercolors. I think his use of color (especially in the book "They Followed the Stars" ) in narrative, and his shape and design, are really powerful. 

(this last is a picture of the town where the big Children's book Festival is held)

here's a review for his book Drogman, which includes more pictures of some of his other work!

http://mashadutoit.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/drogman-by-stepan-zavrel/

That Spiderwick Guy

Tony DeTerlizzi was the illustrator for the Spiderwick Chronicles and more. His ink drawings and watercolor pieces pay homage to a more classical style of working.

Try checking out his blog at some point. He updates regularly and talks about his work and his life, not to mention the industry.

Lisbeth Zwerger, cont.

I'm adding to what Erin said previously. Seriously go check out Lisbeth Zwerger, her stuff is awesome.

Interior from "All the World" by liz garton scanlon

illustrated by marla frazee (caldecott honor metalist)

Santa's Favorite Story

Interior from Ivan Gantschev's Santa's Favorite Story

Helen Oxenbury

Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.

The Experiments of Doctor Vermin

Tim Egan's spread from "The Experiments of Doctor Vermin"

Katrina Germein

Katrina Germein is a children's book illustrator from Australia with a great watercolor style.

David Christiana

These are some of the illustrations from "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg", some Disney book about Tinkerbell.  It's a shame that such good paintings are in such a stupid (in my opinion) book, because they're a great combination of really delicate and soft washes with heavy watercolor crosshatching in some areas.