Ape on the Moon: Contemporary Visual Arts » Pencil Illustration

Philipp Zurmöhle’s Structured Sketching Style and Digital Drawings

Philip Dennis — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:46:44 +0000

We’re enjoying the energetic and structured pencil work from Philipp Zurmöhle. Based in Nuremberg, Germany, Philipp works as graphic designer for apparel at Adidas Performance, while also working on his own illustration and design projects. His work is a real mixture, balancing a more digital style with his pencil drawings. He tells us more.

My artworks have recently moved away from abstract graffiti-inspired drawings to more figurative ones. Those often show monkeys or other animals in a tribal or cult-like situation. They tend to have a vigorous expression, that contrasts with their almost soulless eyes. I mostly use pencil, ink and aquarelle on big sheets of paper.

For my commercial illustrative work, I use a combination of hand drawn elements and vector forms. I don’t like the very digital outlook of images, so I try to make all them look a bit more tangible.

Will Long’s Atmospheric Illustrations from Pencil to Digital

Philip Dennis — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:45:59 +0000

There are some really beautiful textures being woven together in Will Long’s illustrations. Using a mixture of pencil work, scanned-in surfaces and Photoshop elements, he creates these moody, often chilling scenes. We’re enjoying the cinematic quality and sense of stillness in them. He tells us more about his process.

“My work usually originates as pencil sketches with varying degrees of detail. Everything after the sketches is done on Photoshop. Some sketches I work from and others I scan in and work on top of.

By this stage I normally have a loose frame to build up and I lay out shapes with the polygonal lasso. I use a Wacom tablet and custom brushes to make textures or refine the shapes. I’ve also got a bunch of scanned textures, which I sometimes bring in, and on recent projects I’ve blended the white and light greys away, cut bits out and rearranged them.

At the end, I like to merge everything and blend it with a texture, or drop very low transparency colour layers over the top. The picture seems to sit better as a ‘whole’ afterwards— I think that’s just to satisfy myself and make it easier to leave it alone.”

Sketchbook Sneak: Topher MacDonald

Philip Dennis — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:52:05 +0000

Here’s a look at some of Topher MacDonald’s wonderful sketch books. We love the use of lines and one-directional shading.

“Topher MacDonald is an illustrator and avid sketchbook keeper who just moved his studio from Milwaukee, WI to New York City. He uses pencil, ink, Photoshop and Illustrator to create his illustrations, portraits, zines and comics.”

Nick Sheehy/Show Chicken’s Beautifully Surreal Universe

Philip Dennis — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:16:17 +0000

Haunting owl-like creatures brandishing strange instruments, in battle with creepy serpents, fill Nick Sheehy/Show Chicken’s depictions of his mythological world. Perhaps it’s his characters’ hollow eyes that create the unsettling atmosphere, but the lovely pastel colours and delicate pencil work create something altogether beautiful. We’d love to see him work on a children’s book!

“I like to draw weird pictures of things I’ve not seen before, combining clumsy with precision. I start all work with a mechanical pencil on either Bristol Board, Moleskine or heavyweight drawing paper.

I like to work into a drawing with crosshatching or standard shading, using a combination of leads and then colour at the end with thin glazes of acrylic paint, colour pencils or watercolours. If the work is for a commercial project then I usually colour in photoshop.”

Illustrations Inspired by Myth from Juan Chavarria Jr.

Philip Dennis — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:32:35 +0000

We love the simplicity in the way Juan Chavarria Jr. treats his pencil illustration in Photoshop. The restricted palette highlights the drawings beautifully. He describes below how he finds inspiration and creates his work.

“I read a lot of mythology, or tragic stories online. If I read something I could translate into an illustration, I instantly brainstorm in my Moleskin with a Staedtler pencil, or sometimes a Sharpie pen. When I find that I’ve accomplished the story told in its simplest way, I transfer that onto large sketch paper. When the drawing is finished, I scan and color it in Photoshop.”

Monika Aichele Describes her Love of Colour and Screen Printing

Philip Dennis — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:33:27 +0000

I’m really drawn to the entirely mixed media aspect to Monika Aichele’s work. There’s always so much going on with material, colours and textures in her illustrations, which has created in a palette and visual style so definitely uniquely her own.

“I work in different techniques, ink on paper, silkscreen prints and acrylic colour. Computer-generated illustrations have been an easy method for me while travelling, still my love for real silkscreen prints is stronger. In my Berlin neighbourhood I am regularly seen at the silkscreen workshop ‘shining’ and loving mixing colours and creating my images.”

Mystical and Psychedelic Celeste Byers

Philip Dennis — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:03:30 +0000

Celeste Byers‘ world is full of modern psychedelia, mysticism and brazen sexuality. But, what I love most about her work is her easily identifiable visual style, taken across an mix of media, yet held together and cohesive from one to the next. from looking at her gorgeously mutated forms in her paintings and pencil work, you might think it difficult for them to translate into 3D, yet her sculptures look like they could’ve easily fallen out of one of her murals at a medical marijuana dispensary.

The categories on her site alone, which include ‘light boxes’, ‘body paint’, ‘xxx’ and ‘kamasutra’, illustrate versatility and willingness to try new things. Check out her trippy video, ‘Cream Guru’.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

“I work with a variety of materials depending on the project. For my pieces on paper or wood I use gouache, pencil, and ink. Sometimes acrylic. I’ve been making sculptures out of expanding foam recently and am releasing a video later this week that uses digitally shot live-action stop motion that I animated over frame by frame using Photoshop and AfterEffects. After finishing the digital version of the video I recorded and added text with VHS. I’ll be posting both versions on my website.”

“For Cream Guru I animated my drawings and paintings then mixed them in with live video and stop motion. I got the idea from reading ‘The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep’ by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. There are 12 spiritual practices the Tibetan Buddhists use when lucid dreaming and I included some of their techniques into the content of my video.”

Stuart Whitton’s First Solo Exhibition, ‘Origin’

Philip Dennis — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:52:49 +0000

Stuart Whitton‘s pencil work is precise and delicate with a beautifully soft touch. I especially like the child portraits he did, seen below, which seem to have been overlaid with the surfaces of cloth or crumpled paper. They appear to be the kind of work that really needs to be seen up close and, if you’re in London in October, you’ll get a chance.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Stuart will be presenting his first solo show, ‘Origin’ during October at the Exposure galley, London. You can get a sneak peak at some of the new work in the video shown here. Below, Stuart tells us more about how he creates his work.

I began to express myself creatively at a young age, by drawing various elements from my imagination and surroundings.

Using traditional mediums I create imagery tailored to my perceptions. A careful discretion of detail is utilised to develop a visually appealing relationship between meticulously drawn ethereal illustrations of the human form, objects and typographical elements.

My influences lie in the process of image construction, form, and surreal ambiguity with a preference towards detailed tonal qualities true to the realistic.

The work is a direct representation of my personality and inspiration, which can be identified in the smallest details.

Armando Veve’s Detailed Technical Pen Sketchbooks

Philip Dennis — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:21:28 +0000

Whether in his sketch books, on single sheets of paper, or as completed pieces, Armando Veve‘s drawings are embellished with overflowing details and fine renderings. I love the effect created by the sheer volume of marks and minute elements he adds. I can understand how arduous and time-consuming an undertaking they must be, which he goes into here.

A shot of his studio area is at the end of this post.

I run free in an imagined world where I am the architect, cartographer, creator and destroyer. Like building a sand castle, delicate lines and dots collect to form curious spaces that weave and dissolve.

A large part of my process involves collaging and digitally manipulating found imagery, both historical and contemporary, for reference. These images come from pictures gathered from Library Collections to images found online. As I better understand the direction a drawing will take, I will usually spend more time collecting imagery. Even if I don’t end up using all the images found, I archive them as they may be relevant for future drawings.

All of my drawings are done using a single-sized technical pen filled with calculated mixtures of inks. My process I have established is very slow and laborious, yet fully rewarding when a drawing is completed.

Sketchbook Sneak: Bryce Wymer’s Rich Sketchbooks

Philip Dennis — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:17:54 +0000

It’s always good to have a look at artists’ sketchbooks whenever the chance comes up, it’s interesting to see how different people use them in their own personal way.

I love Bryce Wymer‘s sketchbooks for their mixture of free, exploratory pages, and the more complete drawings, which sometimes find their way into completed pieces of work. Have a look at his website, where you can see how some these drawings have been used.