Illustrator Research #8- Rebekah Nichols

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Rebekah Nichols is an illustrator noticed for her ethereal and dreamy style. She received her BFA in Illustration at the University of Kansas. She uses watercolor along with digital media.


Some of her clients have been The Dallas Morning News, Lawrence.com, Turner Duckworth, Click Wine Group, RBMM, Our Friends Place, and EatingWell Magazine.

I really like how she works with watercolor; it really creates expressive and surreal aspects, and she also combines traditional media with digital well.

Illustrator Research #7- Jonathan Williams

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Jonathan Williams got his masters at the Edinburgh College of Art and has worked as a designer and art director commissioning some of the UK's most celebrated artists including Tony Ross, Jan Pienkowski and Nick Sharratt. He became a freelance artist in 2000. He combines digital with graphite to create expressive pieces.

Some have his clients have included Virgin, Unilever, Time Warner, Viacom, Paramount, BBC, Interbrew, Gleneagles Hotel, Saga, Bank of Scotland, Standard Life, Fairfax, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Reed Elsevier, National Magazines, Haymarket Publishing, New Internationalist, Goldman Sachs, and Sony Playstation.


I enjoy the style and use of his colors. His line work is also very crisp, and the style of his work emphasizes the expressiveness of it.

Illustrator Research #6- Jesse Ewing

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Jesse Ewing has over ten years of experience in illustration, graphic design, typography, and photography. He currently produces work under Inkleaf Studio in Medina, Ohio. His work incorporates digital media with pen and ink, graphite, and watercolor.

Some of his clients have been Gawker Media, House of Pretty, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, US Airways, AOPA Pilot magazine, Organic Gardening magazine, Quirk Books, Synthesis magazine, Chronicle Books, NoMoreClipboard.com, American Share Insurance, Simon & Schuster, W.H. Freeman, The Wooster Book Company, The Crow's Nest, and Ohio magazine.

My favorite pieces of his are the ones using pen and ink. They're simple, and they really make the use of the line stand out.

Illustrator Research #5- Rob Kelly

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Rob Kelly has been a professional freelance illustrator and graphic designer for over ten years, and he currently lives in Marlton, New Jersey. His work has appeared on book covers, magazines, national ad campaigns, newspapers, posters, t-shirts, and consumer packaging.

He uses digital media mixed with cut paper with focus on use of the figure and expressions.

Some of his clients have included NBA National Basketball Association, Margaret Cho - Cho Taussig Productions, Harper Collins, Forbes, Popular Science, Time Out New York, Best Life, The American and Latin Grammy Awards, Golf Digest, American Prospect, Business 2.0, Western Standard, Cooper Tires, The U.S. Government, and American Lawyer.

His use of color and contrast, as well as expressions stands out to me, and his style inspires me a lot for my own work.

Illustrator Research #4- Julia Woolf

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Julia Woolf was born in the UK and worked in animation in London Art Directing commercials. She also worked for Dreamworks as Production Illustrator for the Shrek and Shrek 2 films. She now specializes in children's illustration, as a digital illustrator.

Some of her clients have been Dreamworks Animation, Scholastic, Pearson Learning, W.H. Sadlier, Running Press, Highlights for Children, Playhouse Publishing, Scott Foresman, Penguin, American Greetings, McGraw Hill, Harcourt, and Random House.


Her style is very simple and playful, and I do like how she plays with texture in some, while others are very solid.

Illustrator Research #3- Michael LaVasseur

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Michael LaVasseur graduated from the Ringling School of Art and Design. He often spends a lot of time at his cabin in Northern Minnesota with his family. He spends time hiking, fishing, and enjoying nature, and this inspires much of his work.

His work is created digitally overall; it is stylized and contains many natural elements of animals, landscapes, and people.

Some of his clients have been Golf Digest, Continental Airlines, Lord and Taylor, Medtronic, Inc., UPS, American Cancer Society, and The Plain Dealer.

I really enjoy his style and use of digital work. I'm not too fond of his centered images, but I do like how he approaches nature and applies it digitally.

Artist Lecture- Gary Panter

I actually had forgotten to make a blog post about this lecture, but I did write some notes that I wanted to mention. A point that Gary Panter made that really stood out to me was the idea of making a list of what you love and hate to start any kind of art. We seemed to do this in illustration class, but it really seems like a good idea for creating other ideas for other classes. He also mentioned problems with society getting swirled too much into media, and how we should go to an earlier version of ourselves before we'd been so influenced by it.  This also brought up the other part he mentioned about for artists was that anything we learn, it would be best to learn the old fashioned way first. This stood out to me since I've always been so based on digital skills that I haven't been focusing on traditional mediums as much.

Gary Panter's work itself as he mentioned, has a sense of lonlieness to it, and it also seemed to play with humorous ideas as well. What was also interesting to me is that he liked psycadelic light shows from the 1960s, and the pieces he created and described really demonstrated his focus of painting with light. The 1960s aspect seemed to stand out in his work with a lot of the ideals at the time.

His work and lecture brought up ideas of reaching beyond the exterior of ourselves and viewing how we portray ourselves as humans in general. I really can relate to his mention of art not just being for selling, but it being a spiritual trip.