Secret Still

If there is one thing that I have never stopped loving in art and illustration, it’s the cutaway. If you have drawn a cutaway, I will be in love with you forever, even if everything else you’ve ever made is crap, even if your cutaway is crap…mostly because I don’t believe it’s possible to make a shitty cutaway. Each one is a magical little window into the overall operations/layout of something. It’s like an architectural schematic with the added character of something that’s already built and in use. I can’t completely explain to you why they’re just so amazing to me, but they are. And Domitille Collardey has more than one in his repertoire. Thankfully everything else he makes is also incredible, so I don’t have to make the tough choice of whether or not to love his work just because he made a cutaway. The answer is always the same, but that never makes the choice any easier.

Domitille Collardey

Just because your last name is the same as a diabolical financial con job, doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in life. Emiliano Ponzi takes a cursed moniker and covers it in delicious layers of illustrative goodness, topped with solid textures, and slow roasted in a mind that loops through visual metaphors like a spider monkey on cocaine. The result is a visual meal that leaves you full, happy, and probably ready for a nap on the couch with your pants unbuttoned.

Emiliano Ponzi

Some smooth, creamy, butterlicious illustrations to make your eye’s fat-kid dreams come true. If they’re still hungry after this, well, you’ve got a serious problem and you should get some help. I hear the MOMA has a great program for people like you. Fatty. But seriously, get some treatment, your mother and I are worried.

Señor Salme

Designer and printmaster Justin Kamerer, aka Angryblue, just made my little printmaking heart skip a beat. That is some detailed, intricate, and provocative shit he’s making. I’d be green with envy if I weren’t already mauve with afternoon food coma.

Justin Kamerer

There is something about Chinese illustration, embodied here by the work of Dadu Shin, that I can only describe as “quiet”; things are muted, compositions are sparse, and there is just a mood of silent contemplation. Most Chinese illustrators create images that, even when frenetic, have a deep stillness in them. Why? I have no idea. Everything I’ve gathered about living in China is the exact opposite, with constant movement and cacophony. And more spitting. At this point my pragmatism kicks in, and I stop questioning, because the result is what it is. And what it is is fantastic.

Dadu Shin

I’ve mentioned the work of Ryan A. before. And then, as now, I mentioned just one of his comics specifically. This is not to imply that those two comics are the only parts of his works worth paying attention to, far from it. It’s just that those two comics were particularly poignant and significant at the time that I read them. The newest comic, Our Blood Stained Roof, is a great piece of comic arts, perfect pacing, interesting story, simple but well-developed characters, and plenty that I can relate to. The story itself is great, but the way Ryan renders the images is the perfect visual counterpart. I am now a lifelong fan of this dude’s comics.

Ryan A.: Our Blood Stained Roof

What is it about the Nordic countries that makes them so good at capturing light in striking ways? It probably has to do with being so close to the Arctic circle; I bet there’s some killer light with an angle that severe to the sun. Or maybe there’s some magical Viking stone that gives them their powers. Probably that. I’m willing to believe that magical stones are the root cause of most extraordinary things. Whatever it is, it’s working.

Thomas Ehretsmann

While I look for the perfect duck recipe, and you consider what kind of porn you’re in the mood for this evening (why else would you be on the internet), why not take a look at the Hergé-tastic comics, illustrations and doodlings of Zombiehopp. With a +5 pencil of nerdiness, this work will make you smile and possibly forget what you just saw some naked chick do with her feet. Oh, internet, you are shameless.

Zombiehipp via The Fox is Black

As artists come to balance working in both digital and traditional mediums, the possibilities for creation are slowly expanding, while in some ways the techniques are dying. This is an old argument, and not one I’m going to dig into here (though for the price of a beer at a bar I will talk about it for hours), but take a look at the work of someone like Cam Floyd and you will see that there can be a happy medium between the two. Cam creates work with the traditional tools like charcoal, graphite, paint and ink, but then brings that work into the digital realm to add subtle details and hues. And it’s exactly what needs to happen with his work. His style is smudgy and rough, and the digital gives it some sharp lines as counterpoint to the coarseness. This is a balance, and in Cam’s case it’s done beautifully, creating a mix of smooth and blurry, washes and overlapping values that create a richer, more complex emotional pull. Juxtaposition like this has been used for centuries in all the arts, and now with digital tools refining their controls and behaviors, there are two more ideas to be pitted against each other: digital and analog. Like I said, I won’t drag out the pros and cons of either one, but rather I might say that in that ages old argument the right answer isn’t necessarily one or the other, but possibly both.

Cam Floyd

I’ve always just assumed that when people say something “shows promise,” they’re saying that it “isn’t good enough.” I mean, yeah, it includes that unsaid addendum that whatever it is has the potential to be great, but it says first and foremost that it isn’t great right now. At the same time, I find myself thinking that things “show promise” all the time, even though I think it’s kind of a dick thing to say. I look at tons of portfolios and only a few of them are any good, but a few more are almost good, they have some good ideas, and some interesting methods of execution, but the artist just hasn’t gotten to the point where what’s in their head is coming out clearly in their medium. All that being said, Conor Whelan’s recent work is fantastic, professional, clean and simple. But if you go back a ways into his portfolio you’ll see some work that “shows promise.” His portfolio, then to now, is a good example of how that promise can turn into perfection given time and diligence. That’s a whole other kind of inspiration for you. And if not, well that’s only because as a writer, I still only “show promise.”

Conor Whelan