The post John Holcroft’s Illustrations Provide Powerful Commentaries on Modern Life appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>Through these illustrations, Holcroft provides powerful commentaries on various aspects of modern life. He covers a wide range of relatable subjects, including social media, politics, the environment, current events, personal relationships, and much more.
Most of Holcroft’s works paint the world in a negative light, but according to the artist, that is our reality.
“The world we live in cannot be summed up in one illustration. I suppose I mainly focus on the negative aspects because that’s where we will find an injustice. If I was to sum up the world we live in, it would have to be something negative,” Holcroft shared in an interview with ReArt.
Each of Holcroft’s illustrations will make you think deeply either about your own life or the world we are currently living in. One thing is for sure, they don’t leave anyone indifferent. Check out more of them below.
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]]>The post Natalie Shilo’s Illustrations are Full of Positivity appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>Full of vibrant colors and unusual elements, these illustrations capture the moments of enjoyment in everyday life. The subjects seem careless, enthusiastic, or just unbothered by anything else besides wanting to embrace the moment. They dance, pick flowers, play musical instruments, and invite the viewer to be a part of their activities.
Shilo creates her artworks using digital tools but still manages to make them unique. This is in part thanks to her commitment to making every element fit together perfectly.
“I am constantly searching for the perfect combination of shapes, colors, and textures,” Shilo said in a recent chat with Colossal.
Shilo is a versatile artist whose creativity goes beyond illustrations. Aside from having experience in artistic photography, she is also involved in the fashion industry, creating graphics for one Polish clothing brand. She is also interested in animation and weaving while planning to get involved in mural design and ceramics.
Shilo shares her newest illustration works on Instagram while also offering prints through her Etsy shop. You can check out more of them below.
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]]>The post This Illustrator is Inspired By Thai and Chinese Cultures appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>“I began drawing when I was very young,” she shared with Lake. “During my childhood, I was surrounded by Chinese and Thai decorations. My grandpa used a Chinese ceramic bowl and teapot, and my grandma wore a Thai motif textile cloth. I thought I absorbed a lot from my childhood environment. My parents always encouraged me to continue my creative path.”
“I am into traditional Chinese painting,” she adds. Inspired by wall paintings in Chinese temples, as well as Thai textiles, Ploy says she enjoys the complexity of natural shapes and animals in folk tales. “I am so thrilled to see illustrations and patterns come to life,” she says.
Using mainly watercolor, but also gouache and ink, Ploy’s selected clients include Samsung, Design House Greetings x Trader Joe’s, and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “Social media is a huge part of my career as a freelance illustrator and designer,” she says. “Clients have found me through social media, especially Instagram. I use them to share my work and connect with other people. I can’t imagine living without it.”
Enjoy some of her work in the gallery below:
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]]>The post The Soft, Romantic Illustrations of Mateja Kovač appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>“I believe that the ambiance in my work is much more important than the content,” she remarked in an interview with Viva’s. “I could even say that my choice of motives and color is made considering the ambiance I’m trying to achieve in my illustration.”
Having graduated with a master’s degree from the School of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Kovač’s style has developed over time and with much trial and error. In 2014, she began collaborating with international clients, and over the years her projects have ranged from social media marketing campaigns to packaging and stationery.
“The projects I work on are varied and they all demand a different emotion,” she reflected. “You could say that I tend to surround myself with sources of inspiration that awakens a necessary emotion in me, depending on the project I’m working on.” She explains that while working on a fashion editorial, her inspiration might come from the old masters of fashion illustration; if she’s working on an illustration of a city, on the other hand, then she might turn to old photos or vintage postcards for inspiration.
When illustrating women, she finds that the challenge is greater. “On the internet, I often find very caricatured and grotesque illustrations of the female figure whose sexuality is shown in a very explicit way or just the opposite a very infantile way,” she says. “It is always a challenge to represent a woman’s sensuality without highlighting her sexual attributes. I’m not sure if I have succeeded in it but that was the main guidance thought.”
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]]>The post Artist Illustrates Her Obsession With Plants appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>“I like to start with a person or a pose and work it into a possible scene. What they’re doing can inspire the scenery around them. I go straight in with color when I’m drawing, but as the image develops I tweak the colors to suit each other,” the artist shared in an interview for Ballpit and added that in addition to create her art she uses her iPad and Procreate.
Although she has reached a little over 1,000 followers, we really enjoyed browsing through her Instagram page and we believe that you will enjoy it, too. Follow her for future updates.
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]]>The post Dutch Artist Depicts Female Characters to Empower Women appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>She depicts female figures using a bright and colorful palette. She currently has over 5,000 Instagram followers and hopes that with her illustrations she’ll make women and girls confident and true to themselves.
“I usually start with a simple sketch and put together a color palette. Sometimes I immediately start coloring shapes, and I automatically see what happens,” she shared in an interview for Ballpit. “I like drawing characters the most, so I usually start with the character and then come up with a background later.”
Just like many of her colleagues, Heuvelman likes creating illustrations digitally. As she explains, she likes it because she can correct any mistakes and use various textures and effects.
Check out the gallery below to see the beautiful artwork this Dutch artist creates. Don’t forget to follow her on social media for more images. Take a look at her website, as well, because she’s currently having a sale on her prints.
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]]>The post Angela Hao Captures the Aesthetics of Japanese Storefronts in Her Illustrations appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>Hao is especially fascinated with the fronts of Japanese stores, restaurants, and shops and enjoys drawing them. She recreates the storefronts she sees during her Google Street View sessions but allows herself a lot of artistic freedom in the process. This includes giving the drawing a “dreamy” and cartoonish feel by adding elements like plants, flowers, vines, trees, and animals.
In a recent interview, Hao revealed that many of her storefront drawings are also largely a product of her imagination. She often combines two storefronts from real life into one drawing, taking the elements she likes the most from each one.
Other times, Hao reimagines the purpose of the store and uses that as a basis for her drawing.
“Sometimes when I look at a reference photo, I would imagine what if this Raman store was actually a bookstore. I would then start to ‘remodel’ the store on my canvas,” she told My Modern Met in a recent interview.
Check out more of Hao’s works below.
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]]>The post These Illustrations are Flat Out Wonderful appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>According to her bio, as a teenager in Poland, Stasik avoided doing her homework in favor of making collages and doodling. She continued this hobby throughout university (surprisingly, not art school) experimenting with a Wacom tablet. But it was only when she landed an internship at a game tech startup that she really honed her craft.
“I never went to art school and I’m 100% self-taught,” she stressed in an interview with Sense of Creativity. “At some point I’ve landed an internship at a small Polish tech startup creating iOS games for kids. I was offered a full-time position there and that’s how my career started.” According to Stasik, being the only creative on board she had to learn a bit of everything including illustration, animation, and graphic design.
But after some time she found she needed a change of scenery, moving first to France and later on to Canada. Now based in Montreal, Stasik works as an illustrator full time, with clients that include giants like Apple, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Sony. “I don’t think it’s about learning the creativity itself but more about figuring out how to access what’s already inside,” she says. “And that is definitely something you can learn later on in life.”
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]]>The post This Illustrator Encourages You to Draw Every Day appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>His signature style is more of a doodle, with added witty remarks and comics-like speech bubbles. Some of his illustrated series include random facts and illustrated one-star reviews of well-known landmarks. According to Lowery, his very particular style has developed over time through daily practice.
“When I was little, I had a grandmother who was an artist and she encouraged my brother and me to keep sketchbooks,” he recalled in an interview with Travel Channel. “Later, I had a college professor who required we draw in one every single day. It really forced me to draw a lot. I used my sketchbooks as a place to experiment with how I draw, what I draw and what materials I use to draw.”
According to Lowery, he still keeps practicing daily in his sketchbooks. “Even when I’ve been drawing for clients all day, it’s that important to me,” he notes. “It was in these daily sketchbooks that I really found my voice.”
“My biggest bit of advice is to make a point to draw for at least 30 minutes a day,” he says. “For some, that seems really tough (it seemed impossible for me at first), but I think it’s incredibly important. You’ll find your voice and figure out how you like to work and draw. It’s also a great way of recording your progress as an artist.”
Take note!
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]]>The post The Digital Collage Art of Anna Kövecses appeared first on PlayJunkie.
]]>Aside from working on commissioned illustrations, Kövecses enjoys exploring small quiet scenes that portray parts of her everyday life. Living in a small seaside village on the island of Cyprus, her inspiration comes from living by the Mediterranean Sea, growing up in Eastern Europe, and being a mother of three small kids.
“I often scribble some vague sketches into my phone or notebooks that lay around the house and then get back to them later to turn them into final artworks,” she described her creative process in an interview with Papirmass. “When working I often surround myself with books and albums on art, plants, children’s novels, landscapes or food that I spread out on the floor like a live mood board,” she notes “I spend the morning drawing or working on illustration projects and drinking way too much tea.”
“It took me quite a while to learn how to distinguish myself as an artist and my other self as an illustrator,” admits Kövecses. “Accepting the fact that as an illustrator I usually have to follow instructions I still find it hard to cope with tweaking my artwork many times before coming up with a final illustration.”
When not working on commissioned projects, Kövecses creates drawings with oil pastels, experiments with clay and paints with her kids’ tempera. She also enjoys baking fresh bread in the morning, picking oranges, and growing veggies in their garden. An ideal lifestyle if you ask us.
I'm going to show you one new print every day from today and launch the shop in the weekend. This one is from last year called Bougainvillea 
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