Elena Odriozola

Elena Odriozola is a published illustrator of children's books. Some of the published credits of Elena Odriozola include The Story Blanket, Vegetable Glue (Books for Life), Cuando sale la luna.

Below are a selection of her work:



I like the way she's been using collage-like pattern to make the woman's clothes, the braches on her head shows a feeling of fantasy.





Though the character is almost emotionless, the picture is still communicating a sensation of coldness and loneliness, I like this sort of simple but impactful style of drawing.






I really do admire her style of illustrations, the tone of voice is quite peaceful, silent, but meaningful at the same time,I like this kind of beauty.And it's a sort of style that I can develop myself into.

Meng-chia,Lai

Student prize-winner

Meng-Chia Lai is interested in pursuing a diverse illustrating career, including adult and children’s illustration, editorial and character design. During her studies, Meng-Chia made four children’s books, of which OH! is the third. She is currently in discussion with French publisher, Edition Lirabelle, over its publication and that of another book Peebi Lost . For inspiration, she draws with children at her parents’ kindergarten in Taiwan. Artists who have influenced her include Picasso, Matisse and the ancient Chinese calligrapher and painter Wang Hsi-chih.

Winning Illustration: OH!

Dummy book, laser printed from original artwork in Chinese ink on Chinese paper

Meng-Chia came up with the story for OH! after swallowing an orange pip while chatting to her mother. ‘She said to me that I don’t need to buy oranges in the future! I chose ink with a touch of orange to make the book with a simple but practical message for children, "Don’t talk with your mouth full".’ - Meng-Chia Lai

"Oh!" Published by Édition Lirabelle, France 2006

Ling likes oranges. She shares it with her classmate Mei. Ling swallowed an orange pip by accident..... This is a picture book with a message- "Don't talk with your mouth full".

This book was chosen one of the five V&A Illustration Awards Student Illustrator 2005, the original paintings exhibited at the V&A Museum London.

Web:Meng-chia Lai

Meng-chia Lai loves being inspired by everyday life. Especially people, music, nature, and food. Expressing from her mind on to her art works give her the opportunities to communicate with others. It is one of the best ability to have.

The core ingredients of her work are the warmth of humanity, and imagination and inspiration from everyday life. As she works, she enjoys being the casting director, set designer and director, creating a world from her observation and imagination to communicate to people.

Image-making is a language that is understood internationally and is a unique ability given to human beings. Her strength is her ability to use images to communicate to people all over the world, bringing an emotional atmosphere to people in order to move them.

Brian Biggs

He has written and drawn comics and graphic novels, designed magazines, and illustrated for many many magazines and newspapers. In 2003 he began illustrating children's books with Shredderman. Since then he has illustrated several more books and he's currently working on even more. He continue working on editorial projects, as well as a lot of advertising, posters, and on a lot of toys and puzzles. He also work with animation, music, and various other media.

Web: Brian Biggs

Marc Boutavant

Marc Boutavant is a French graphic designer, illustrator, and author. His illustrations have been widely published in magazines, books, and album covers globally including the New York Times, Martha Stewart Kids, and the New Yorker. He was recently featured as one of world’s leading children’s illustrators in the book Play Pen: New Children’s Book Illustration.

Web: Marc Boutavant

Bill Porter

On Time Off / 4'30" 2008

This is a short clip from Bill Porter's graduation animiation at the RCA, and it was shown in the international animation festival programmme 3.

Drawn from life and from his memories of working in an ice cream cafe in Cornwall, these images form an animated landscape that takes the viewer on a journey through fire and ice cream and micro-dramas between strangers on a sweltering holiday beach.
Sound design by Shervin Shaeri.

I like the color he used in the animation, he bravely colored people's skin pink, and different tones of red. I like the way he made people look like in a delicate watercolor painting, the images are flowing like water, however, with some careful details depicting the different gestures and facial emotions.

I also like his idea that making connections between fire, icecream as metaphor to the hot weather.

Web: Bill Porter

Bill Porter is currently based in London working as a freelance animation director, animator and compositor after recently completing a master's degree in animation.

MA Animation, Royal College of Art / 2008
BA Illustration, Camberwell College of Art / 2006
ND Fine Art, Cornwall College / 2003

Claire Richards

Claire Richard is an artist and illustrator. She illustrates children's books, paint kids portraits, design cards and make groovy toys. She paints with bright watercolours, oil paint and digital. Her art is inspired by childhood memories and kids she meets.

I came across her website by incident when I was actually researching Claire White, and I was then fancinated by her bright style.





These pictures are selected by myself from her online blog, I really like the light and bright colors she used, and there's a tone of innocence in her drawing that make me admire this style.

Web: Claire Richards Art Blog

Jimmy

Jimmy , B.A. in Fine Arts, with a major in Design. Since 1998, Jimmy published several illustrated books with amazing originality and multi-faceted narratives. He had set a fashion in creating and publishing illustrated books in Taiwan and then international markets. Utilizing images as a refreshing form of literary language, Jimmy creates in his works poetic frames that emit charms and appeals.

So far, his books are translated into English, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean and so forth. Being the most popular illustrator author in Asia, creating lots of fantasy and touch hearts cross all generation. Immersing in his works is just like to go into Jimmy's inner world, his inviting stories reflect our real life, more and more people are intoxicated by his vivid strokes and his magic realism narratives. Now in Asia, "Jimmy" is like a pop of a new life style.

From www: Metapedia

Below are the books I've read and like written and illustrated by Jimmy.

Making picture books for adults

Jimmy Liao's illustrated books about people coping in the modern urban world have been a big hit with office workers, housewives and other adults.

The picture books are popular because they touch on common feelings of being alienated, stressed out by work or fears about losing jobs and loved ones, readers say. Most of the pages in the paperback books -- usually the size of a cocktail napkin -- have one line of text and a clever, cute or whimsical cartoon-like drawing that advances the plot.

From www: Taipei Times

Unlike modernism trying to present the truth of world, postmodernism aims to create new world by languages. Jimmy attempts to replace the sole meaning of fixed language; instead, his use of illustrations can boost imagination. His whimsical and poetic moments gave birth to beautiful ideas, which are transmitted by pictures. There would be various interpretations and understandings of the same picture book and they all depend on reader’s personal experience. In a postmodernism age, picture plays an important part of communication, and it is able to leave a blank space for free imagination. That is a crucial feature that pictures books of Jimmy can translate into several languages and touch people of distinct cultures.

From Jimmys own articles, I found that he's not good at remembering numbers or dates, however, he's quite good at remembering scenes and pictorial information. Many of his pictures in his novels came from his dream or a short period time of pictorial memory. Also, he felt forced to draw when he first started his career, all his characters were tools for him to make a living, he didn't have any sentiment on them. Until he got very sick, he had to fight against destiny, he started to miss his characters, and started to put his real emotions inside them, and this gradually made him become a master and get successful afterwards.