Artist 139: Maria Herreros

We have another artist feature for you now, lucky for us we have the lovely Maria Herreros with her unique and characterful illustration. Maria started out at six with a mercurial instinct and a pocket full of crayons and her love of drawing has strengthened over time. She has a great and instantly recognisable style that not only showcases an epic talent for capturing the essence of her subject but also gives the viewer a great sense of life and animation. Her faces are expressive and have a real joy to their expression. She creates some great likenesses utilising obvious mechanical skill but she takes this and twists it through her own lens. She has a unique sense of composition that gives a great candid feel to her subjects backed up by her soft warm palettes. Maria brings us a distilled version of her subjects that have a wry gentle sense of fun and both compliment them and give the viewer a new perspective. We are really lucky to have her so please give Maria Herreros your support and check out her interview!

Who are you:

I am Maria herreros, an illustrator based in Valencia, Spain, but open to the whole world! 

What do you do:

Work my ass off as an illustrator.

How did you start:

When I was 6, I realised I had to to sell my work to my parents (business is business, no family there) so they would appreciate it, so I used a pseudonym, "Mariasso" (a mix between Maria and Picasso). They always bought them, but then, after a few days I used to find them stored in drawers. I took them out and sell them again (higher price), so I suppose, I started working as an illustrator at 6.

A Personal statement about you or your work: 

I am very open to any project or proposal that passionates me, when it is work. There is no frontier nor barrier for me, when it is doing what I do. Only thing I dont like about this profession is people not realising its a profession. Now I am preparing my first commissioned book, illustrating for publications, and exhibiting my work national and internationally.

Links:

www.mariaherreros.es

Tweet

Artist 84: Carmen Ortiz

A brand new artist feature for you now, hailing from the beautiful Bilbao it's the phenomenal Carmen Ortiz.Carmen is that rare breed of artist who has bags of technical skill and an amazing eye for detail. Self taught, yet deft and light with her touch Carmen can distil a personality and tell a life story with just one image. She simply gets it, recognises what makes an expression and renders her subjects with such a tender grace they almost take you by surprise. She has all the clarity of an expert photographer but none of the waste, every line is cared for and her work is subtle yet has an earnestness that captures your gaze. As you lock eyes with her subject, she takes you to them, acting as a conduit you can construct your own idealised image of them. Great to have an artist who can stand up for mechanical skill over pure concept with such a beautiful technique and laser point accuracy. Certainly another bright star on the Spanish stage, It's the dedicated and skilful Carmen Ortiz.


Who are you: 

Hi! My name is Carmen Ortiz, I´m a self-taught artist born in Bilbao.

What do you do:

I do freelance work as illustrator for some magazines. I specialize in portraits drawn by hand, using graphite pencils. I'm skilled at drawing realistic, almost picture like portraits. I’m quite old fashioned in my process; everything starts with a pencil and a good photo. I like to capture features, expressions, personalities and light. Sometimes my illustrations are digitally enriched with a littletouch of color

I took some courses in web and graphic design and occasionally do commissioned works. At the moment I am focusing on selling my artwork, preparing some exhibitions and post on my blog every day.

How did you start:

I love to draw since as long as I can remember. I have always known that it was all I wanted to do. I used to spend my spare time drawing with my sisters. I began drawing portraits at the age of 14 trying to draw people pictured on magazines. I have always found people features fascinating. 

A Personal statement about you or your work: 

The road to becoming a freelance illustrator is a difficult one, but you don’t need permission or approval to be you and do what you do. My goal is to create images straight from the heart and improve day by day.

I'm used to working listening good music. Photographers such as Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Hedi Slimane, Rankin and Tom Hoops are a big influence on my work.

I also take a lot of inspiration from art, classic films, book and fashion.

My links:

Portfolio

blog
behance
glossom
issuu
myspace

Tweet

Artist 79: Becky Ryan

A wonderful warm welcome to Becky Ryan, this young talent certainly does have a wonderful set of skills, clearly demonstrated by her sharp observation and attention to detail. There is a certain lightness to her work, which shows she has a delicate touch and a great command of quality. Yet she also can be bold and dynamic, bringing movement and spirit into her work, combining the beauty of her observation with a dash of life and joy. Tea and hugs lover Becky certainly embraces her subjects, both in the accuracy and character she brings to them. It's a strong style that can be propped up by such obvious technical skill and compositional awareness. Which ever direction she chooses to head in she is incredibly capable of delivering uplifting work with a quality and joy about it. She will do really well using and refining that subtle palette and blending in her sharp eye with her soft touch. Certainly an illustrator to look out for in the near future, it's Becky Ryan.

Who are you:
I'm Becky Ryan, a 21 year old illustrator from Liverpool England, currently in the last couple of months of a BA Hons degree in illustration.

What do you do: 
Draw :D Mainly portraits...and also mainly in ink as of late. There's something kinda fun about knowing you can't rub out mistakes, so it makes me try harder not to make them hehe, I also just really like the line quality of pen and the contrast of black on white rather than the grey of a pencil.

How did you start:
I've always been a keen artist really for as long as I can remember. My Dad used to draw at home when I was little and I really hoped I'd be as good as him one day so I used to draw a lot to just try build on the hereditary bit of talent I guess, that and I've just always really enjoyed drawing as a past time anyway.  It's been a consistent interest through school, art college, and now university.

A Personal statement about you or your work: 

I'm inspired by music, random pretty or quirky things that I come across, the people in my life, and other artists.  

After finishing my degree I'm hoping to try and get some freelance illustration work, just getting my work out there and hopefully being noticed by people who like my stuff.  I think I'd enjoy creating illustrations for cards, so I may try and go down that route.

I have done some editorial work for the Lancashire Evening Post and Wireless student magazine, and that's another possible area to go down.

Although I am quite overwhelmed with university work right now, I do take on commissions from friends and the general public to do drawings for them when I can so if you're interested and you like my stuff get in touch :)

Apart from art and illustration, I like music, films, reading, animals, going to stand-up comedy gigs, hugs, tea and cake!

Becky's portfolio
blog
twitter
facebook
flickr
Illustration Mundo

Tweet

Portrayal March!

Hope everyone is well, March is still pretty freezing isn't? I've been having an awful cold for over 10 days and it sucks. Anyways, we had an amazing success with our Valentine's Day event, we hit over 10,000 pv in February and I hope everyone who submitted their work had good exposure too.   

So what should we do in March? I say let's do "Portrait Rally"! 


We decided to have different themes for each week as having subjects is our style, but I hope everyone can find something interesting from one of them... 

Graham Coxon by Natsuki Otani

Ideal dinner party guests: 7th to 13th March 
Please draw David Lynch, Nick Cave, Björk or Marianne Faithfull 
Draw one or more of them if you want! 


SF Films: 14th to 20th March 
Any SF film related portraits, it can be Steven Spielberg, Roy Batty from Blade Runner or even the prawns from District 9!


British Music: 21st to 27th March
Any British music related portraits! Beatles, Sex Pistols, Radiohead... hmm maybe Simon Cowell is more iconic nowadays, he does have amazing hair.


Use your creativity freely to draw amazing portraits but please follow our simple guidelines set out below, so I don't confuse myself too badly sorting everyone's submissions out.

Submission Guidelines 

• Don't forget to tell me who you drew and non offensive art please, cheeky is ok but no thank you to nasty stuff. We don't wan't be sued by Simon Cowell.
• Any form of art is welcome, illustration, photography, graphic design, animation and more.
• Low res jpeg file please (72 dpi is good enough) so my old pc which has been giving me blue screen ever so often won't explode.
• Don't forget to send us the links to your portfolio sites, (blog, facebook, flickr and etc) if you are sending us your product, send us a link to the pages you are selling your products.
• Send us a link to your twitter account if you have one, so I can promote you on twitter effectively.
• Deadline for each themes is each week's Sunday.
• Please send your work to illustrationrally[at]hotmail.co.uk with the title "Portrait March Submission"

So get cracking and let's have fun!


Natsuki x

Tweet

Colours of the rainbow: Red

By Karina Yarv

twitter

Tweet

Artist 11: Lana Hughes

Lana Hughes' portraits are so attractive, she captures the essence of people's character and their characteristics. She combines typography and illustration to make bold eye catching images. The quality and fun shows in everything she does.

Who are you:
Hi there, I am Lana Hughes, I am an Illustrator and typographer, and an all round fan of cats, beards, tea and toast!

What do you do:
I like to draw many things, the work I do typically consists of portraiture, animals and pattern, although I enjoy drawing just about anything really! Much of my work begins with hand drawing, scanning and then editing using Adobe Illustrator. I am very interested in the mixture of hand drawn and digital in Illustration.

How did you start:
The drawing began as a child..which later progressed into a hobby...which later led to a rather sizeable collection of paper and thousands of pens and pencils, then I knew I had to keep going as I was having so much fun! I then went to University gaining a BA (Hons) in Graphic Communication, Image Rich studies meaning I then got to draw all the time! I am now a freelance Illustrator whilst I eat all this toast and tea I speak of.

A Personal statement about you or your work:
I enjoy people watching, deep sea documentaries and patterns in nature, in which I take inspiration from to use in my Illustrations.

Tweet

Q is for Queen

By guest contributor, Piktografika

Tweet

D is for Damon Albarn

By Natsuki Otani

Tweet