Nothing beats the good, old hand-drawn (or painted) illustrations. With the emergence of photo editing softwares and drawing tablets, it is sometimes refreshing to see traditionally crafted artworks on ads, magazine covers, and other such materials. The effect created by traditional media are so astounding sometimes that many graphic artists synthesize them on Illustrator or Photoshop. And I can’t blame them.
There’s a wide variety of media and a wider array of techniques in creating astounding illustrations. Artists can even create their own style. For today, we’ll be covering 3 popular media and 10 sample works each. We’ve added a fourth, mixed media, which is basically just a combination of two or more different media.
But whether or not you’re into drawing yourself, you might as well join in. After all, the artworks below are so cool I promise you’ll both be impressed and inspired.
Here we go.
Pen and Ink Illustration
Pen and ink drawings are probably the most popular since anyone can try creating their own piece, maybe even unknowingly. I bet you even have it at the back of your science notebooks. (Perhaps you’ve scribbled or doodled during class, or before creating a logo for a client…then ended up drawing something else entirely? Great! Me too.) Well, ballpoint pens are great devices in creating intricate artworks as well. .
Here are 10 awesome illustrations:
~bjfab
~xmmarauder
Randy Glass
Iain Macarthur
Mar Amongo
Aaron Baggio
Mike Lyon
Kim Philipsen
Emily Gallardo
Sean Ohlenkamp
Watercolor
Watercolor is another great medium. Many graphic artists use this for primary sketches since it’s lightweight and easy to use.
Unlike oil and acrylic, watercolor is made of pigments that has been mixed to a water soluble vehicle, and when applied on paper (or another support/material), tends to look translucent (or transparent, as many artists would say).
Without further ado, here’s 10 cool watercolor artworks:
Randy Glass
Bjona Dimitrovski
Electric Park
Diego Rodriguez
Leonardo Rodriquez
Eric Davison
Stoyan Petrov
Jesse Winchester
Eva Jensen
~Kir-Tat
Scratchboard
This can be likened to engraving, where you etch through a hard surface. In this case, a sharp blade is used against a clay-coated board.
Here are 10 amazing scratchboard illustrations:
Caitlyn Knepka
Mark Summers
Kent Barton
Douglas Smith
Steven Noble
Jacqueline Eilerman
Walther Sorg
*Rah-Bop
ame-ga-furu
heatherzart
Mixed Media Illustration
Watercolor on ink, digitally colored line art, just mix one media with another, and that’s it. Here are 10 great illustrations that made use of two or more drawing methods:
Leonardo Rodriquez
~imaginism
Matt Greg
Adrien Deggan
Jason Mowry
Natalia Pierandrei
Andrea Preis
Nimit Malavia
Florian Nicole
Salty Shadow
