Scott Campbell isn’t your usual artist based in Brooklyn, NY - he utilises unique materials to make his work. The four examples of his work above show two of the different mediums that he chooses to use: one is egg shells and the other is money! Both are unusual as a choice to create artwork with. The first two images are completed with graphite on eggshells.

Scott must have amazing patience to complete work like this. Each piece has been carefully crafted on the shell of an egg, the delicate surface then being drawn on with a graphite stick. The shadows and highlights on the pieces are incredible. The smaller highlights, in the cracks of the skull and on the hair of the spider, give them an almost realistic appearance.

The other medium that Scott uses is Money. This is used in the same way as cut paper, using paper with cut sections that are laid on top of each other to create 3D forms. All of them use a clever combination of a central piece, a gun or typography in the two examples above, and thin swirls that help focus the eye towards the main piece. These beautiful pieces keep the audience’s attention due to both the subject and the chosen medium.

Website: Scottcampbelltattoo.com 

Australian artist, Stuart McLachlan has a few different styles that he works in. The first is his illustrations; they all have a have a vintage feel to them. One style of his illustrations is his focus on shapes and shades rather than smaller details. The other side of his illustrations still have a vintage feel. However, they have a more cartoon-like appearance, due to the exaggerated features of the characters, such as the mouth and eyes.

He uses clever compositions within his work to draw the audience’s eyes across the piece. Smaller details are included towards the edges of the work. This gives the audiences something to notice once the eye is drawn away from the main piece, for example the little pig in the bottom right of the Cheshire cat piece; this is a clever addition as it increases the attention on his illustrations.

The other side of his work is using cut paper; Stuart can adapt to using his cut paper for many different uses. The first is using it within photographs to add details, for example, the crows on the canvas. The second is creating pieces using paper and shadows to create depth and interest within the piece. Both use a combination of cleverly placed lighting and thoughtfully crafted paper pieces.

Website: Stuart-mclachlan.com 

Illustration controls how a vision is communicated to the world and is perhaps one of the most spontaneous expressions of style. The work of Gemma Smith has this sense of spontaneity and its own unique flair. Gemma Smith is an illustrator and print designer and her combination of these two mediums is one of the most interesting aspects of her work. However, although she is primarily an illustrator, her print designs are also stunning and have a contemporary style to them, but inspired by traditional elements.
           
Some of the most successful work of Smith is her 'Word Illustrations', which have a unique style to them and a great use of text as a way of drawing. The illustrations could be used to communicate many areas of design and it would be great to see the words depicting the inspirations behind fashion designs, for example, with an illustration of the garment alongside. The illustrations are endearing and innovative, and it is clear that every part is considered from colour use to font and their illustrative style.
           
What is most powerful about the Smith prints is their combination of traditional and contemporary, as mentioned earlier. Some of the prints have a combination of florals, art deco and quite regal images that are all combined in a modern way using innovative colour palettes. The florals featured in the prints are not obvious, and are in some of the prints distorted to create new shapes and patterns. It is great when the prints are incorporated into the illustrations, continuing to give Gemma's work a real uniqueness.
           
Although Gemma's work has been featured in magazines such as Amelia's Magazine and Cent Magazine, she is still fairly unknown. I think that her work could be extremely powerful when combined with other mediums to illustrate design or also to convey a message through her use of text. Gemma Smith's work has a great flair to it and I would love to see more of it in magazines or other publications!
 
Website: Gemmasmithdesign.com 

I discovered Enkel through his designs for Threadless; for people who don’t know this is a website where artists submit their designs and the public vote on which ones get printed onto t-shirts. All of his designs are unique and individual, each with a different style, which is a hard task for an illustrator. The area of focus for his illustrations is ‘Pop Culture vs. Art’

The first illustration presents the play of the imagination that a writer can produce within a reader. The clever form from the paper makes up a ship, a dragon and an octopus’ leg, whilst still keeping the paper’s structure.

The other two images are combinations of popular culture and artistic flair. Both of the pieces combine two elements that are enjoyed by different cultures of society, with a focus on older and younger generations. This ‘mash-up’ of cultures is clever, as it can be enjoyed by most.

The first is a combination of Scream, the famous painting by Edvard Munch and the x-men character ‘Cyclops’. One of the best things about this painting is the interaction between the main character and the frame. The way he appears to be destroying it with his vision is inspired.

The second is the combination of a more prominent character, the Queen, and the most recent reincarnation of the Joker character played by the late Heath Ledger; which is a brave decision to make but something that works amazingly well.

See more of Enkel Dika’s work on: Society6.com 

Digital illustration is something that anyone can attempt; this means there are limitless amounts of
examples online. That being said, that doesn’t account for talent, so when you stumble upon an artist such as Lukas Brezak it is an amazing moment.  

Wacky, bright, bold and intriguing are just some of the words that can be used to describe his work. With a diverse portfolio that also manages to hone in on certain aspects makes for great viewing. A lot of his portfolio focuses on the head of a character, with their eyes as a focal point. This instantly draws the audience’s eye to the work and keeps their focus.  He then combines this with select colours rather than a wide colour palette, which really helps emphasise selected areas.

The three pieces from his portfolio have connecting features that show off Lukas’ talents. The first of these connections is texture, with a focus on the fur, an almost impossible thing to illustrate well and Lukas has managed to perfect this. The other connecting feature is the shadows and highlights, often something that is over looked by many but Lukas has spent time working on them so that the features are highlighted and made all the more realistic, especially with smaller reflections on the eyes.  All of these add up to amazing pieces.

Website: Surgeryminor.com 

There is something spooky and surreal about the illustrations of Ruben Ireland. He creates images which are visually captivating – their black and white aesthetic assuring a contrast almost hypnotic in its execution. His subjects appear as characters in a video game or comic book. Created, in part, via digital processing, the digitised, animated appearance of his subjects comes as an inevitability, and more for the better in my opinion. Working digitally is a wonderful tool for making sharp lines and shapes which not only add to the image a sense of perspective but also a pop-art aesthetic. Take the image below for example:
 

 
If I had one word to describe the above illustration, it would be: triangular. Triangles are created in the placement of the arms, in the dress, in the background; even, to a certain extent, in the crossed-over hands. Of course, there is more to this picture than just triangles. There is the stark contrast of the black dress against the grey backdrop, the white wristbands, and skin-coloured arms and hands. There is also the intriguing note stating ‘I love you’; and it is here, in this tiny love note that the illustration’s narrative really comes to life as we ponder the identity of the sender and its recipient, their love story.
 
Ruben’s illustrations are emotive, surreal, stunning, and, above all, tell a story engaging its viewers and setting up a tone of ambiguity to puzzle and intrigue us .
 
Website: Rubenireland.co.uk 

David Biskup’s work is difficult to summarise, largely because the themes with which he works are so varied. His style of illustration is clean and relatively bold, with similar colours being used throughout each of the works in his projects in order to tie them together. This is evident in the self-promotional ‘Pack of Biskups’ that he is currently working on. The same pink and blue can be found in most of the images, and is set against biscuit-browns. The premise of the project – incorporating well-known biscuits into a variety of scenarios – introduces the Bristol-based artist’s sense of humour right from the start, and this only increases when the witty puns in the titles of each piece are revealed. These are funny, charming illustrations from a talented and thoughtful artist.
 
David Biskup blends humour with a slightly more serious topic in ‘Yuri’, the silent graphic novel for which he was highly commended in the MacMillan Children’s Book Competition. As the description suggests, the book contains no verbal explanations and relies entirely on Biskup’s gift of visual narration. It’s a beautiful and entertaining read in which the titular character, an Eastern European popstar, sails to give a concert but almost doesn’t make it as there isn’t enough of the Aral Sea for him to cross. Here, David Biskup introduces an environmental issue into a seemingly light-hearted story. Whatever his intention, the images are stark reminders of one of the greatest tragedies of global warming, and Biskup’s illustrations of the stranded boats in a separate project are chilling to say the least. David Biskup is exceptionally talented at both depicting his ideas visually, and infusing them with so much emotive power that they really come alive.

Website: Davidbiskupillustration.com 

Amy Cornelson is a Canadian artist who focuses on pencil work as her medium of choice. The three pieces of hers are quite different in appearance. However, they all have been completed using a similar technique. She uses a clever combination of amazingly detailed pencil work. This, combined with the addition of colour, really makes her work stand out.

The first is a digital piece of hers. It combines a clever use of silhouettes and different colours to build up a new world and people can really start to imagine the story behind the scene.

The second is an amazingly detailed pencil portrait; everything about this image is well thought through. The textures on her lips, the reflection in her eyes and the hairs across her face: they all build up the piece to create an illustration that resembles a photograph.

The last is the most eye-catching. Amy has created an image like the last, but cleverly added colours in the form of eye shadow, and the fabric of her multi-coloured turtle neck. These are just as detailed as the rest of the illustrations but they also act as a way of guiding the audience’s eyes around the page.

Website: Amycornelson.deviantart.com

Shawn Barber is a talented artist, he uses many different mediums and techniques but he always creates breath-taking work.

He has two different focuses for his work; the first is portraits of tattooed models and the second is called the ‘Doll Series.’

His portraits normally featured alternative lifestyle models; people that are tattooed and pierced, which is an amazing idea. It is recreating art with people that have art on their bodies. His eye for
detail is honed to perfection. Not only can he paint the model to exact proportions but he can also recreate their tattoos perfectly on their bodies. 

The ‘Doll Series’ is more complicated than the portraits. Dolls represent the innocence in children and so distressing them and merging them with skulls and other objects associated with the darker side of life gives them a deeper and more jaded meaning. This clever combination emphases both sides of the objects. 

Shawn’s main medium is paints, using detailed brush strokes, he allows the painting to come alive by using meandering lines and letting the paint drip down the canvas. This gives the piece more realism as well as movement to it, bringing the painting to life.  
 
Website: Sdbarber.com 

Natasha Thompson is a freelance illustrator with a love of Sofia Coppola movies, nostalgia, and tea. She is a member of a wonderful collective of illustrators, called Tea and Crayons, that also includes Fritha Strickland, whom we featured last month. Thompson’s work has recently consisted mostly of fashion illustration, particularly focusing on celebrities. The pieces depicting Jennifer Lawrence and Lana Del Rey encapsulate all the beautiful elements of Thompson’s overall style. Delicately outlined figures are filled with subtle watercolours in pale and pastel shades. This gives each image a feminine and slightly ethereal quality that suggests flowing, graceful movement: these are not just stiff copies of photographs in pencil. Jennifer Lawrence’s dress seems to actually sparkle, and the effect moves between that of glitter and of stars. This celestial link really enhances the beautiful aspects of fantasy and fairy tale in Natasha Thompson’s work.
 
“Pretty” is a word too often used to describe art that is somewhat juvenile or lacking in substance, but this is so far from the truth in regards to Natasha Thompson. Her pieces really have an emotional effect; one that is, more often than not, incredibly soothing and calming. Thompson’s artwork is so
carefully created to do just that, and each image is dream-like and fluid. She even creates her own typography to best complement her creations.
 
Blog: Thesecret-teaparty.blogspot.co.uk
 
You can view the blog post on Fritha Strickland here.