Exercise: History of Illustartion Part 2

23rd April 2017

Contemporary Artist

'Contemporary Art is the art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty -first century. Contemporary Art provides an opportunity to reflect on contemporary society and the issues relevant to ourselves, and the world around us.'

      For the next part of my research I had to choose a Contemporary Artist. I did some research on the artist that are around today and it was a tough decision I ended up with six artists to choose from, the top three artist I managed to get it down to were:

Sophy Henn

    I really liked her work she is not only an illustrator but she writes her own children stories to go with the illustrations. I like her work because it was colourful, playful, simple and cartoon like characters which to me is eye catching, after looking through her work I especially liked her character Pom the Panda Bear.

   The design of the book is simple but very eye-catching with the choice of colours that she has picked. The character itself 'Pom' is simple yet adorable and he ended up one of my favourite characters out of her work and reminds me of someone who is close to me and would love this (he is my age) but he loves Panda Bears.

Michael Kutsche

   Looking at his work you can tell he uses either Photoshop/Illustrator for his work or possibly both!
   To me this was a hard decision when I cam across his because I have a passion for mythical creatures I find them fascinating and imaginative, but what most captured my eye from this particular artist was the Alice in Wonderland work, one of my favourite film/cartoons is Alice and Wonderland and I think Michael Kutsche work is amazing.

        You are probably reading this and thinking why didn't you pick Michael Kutsche as the contemporary artist to study and the explanation is..I as an illustrator prefer hand draw to computerised art, Even though his art is amazing I think me trying to create an image the way he does I wouldn't know where to begin, although I am going to be contradicting myself with the actual illustrator I have chosen...


Patrick Hruby

   Patrick Hruby is a freelance illustrator from California, Los Angeles. He has worked with The New York Times, Honda, The united Nations and American Express to name a few. He gets his influences from mid-century artists and designers like Paul Rand, Alexander Girard and Charlie Harper, but also influences like 8 bit Nintendo games and Botanical Gardens.

'His philosophy is: Make beautiful things - Patrick Hruby' 

 This illustrator again caught my eye particularly with colour, he uses a lot of bright colours in his work.

    As you can see his work above he uses a lot of colour and he doesn't use it in a literal sense either, his work is also created with a lot of shapes. I think his work is fun and very different with that of other illustrators. I love the fun idea of using shapes to create fun images as well as eye-catching colours to draw people into the work.
   when you read what his influences are and then look at his work you can see where the 8 Bit Nintendo Games links in as well as the botanical gardens.. I am a big fan if Nintendo games especially the retro side of Nintendo.