I love her use of bright colors and marker as a medium. The texture, combined with the repetition of shapes makes this series of illustrations simple, yet rich.

(This particular piece is my Twitter background, until I can find the time to make a huge version of the DLB guillotine)

Via.

Via.

Truly one of my favorite illustrators. I really admire Blair's grasp of color.

Her palettes start with these natural, desaturated colors that she layers over with bright, decidedly unreal hues. Everything ends up being so well-balanced on the page. It gives her pieces this great blend of the mundane and the fantastic.

I think a lot of illustration today practically assaults the viewer. The linework is slick and often heavy; colors are too-bright against a minimal field. By contrast, Blair's is more contemplative-- there is restraint at work.

Most of all, I dig Blair's forms: that strong, yet fluid, "gestural geometry" I find so appealing in artists like Modigliani and Matisse and in contemporary illustrators like Bruce Timm. (I think it speaks to the architect in me.)

Cynics might dismiss her work as "cute", but Mary Blair was ahead of her time. Look at all the work today that is inspired by Disney animation --Pixar, for example. Blair's legacy is a part of that.

For more examples of Blair's work, check out these collections on Flickr and Drawn!.

The 3D tutorial is going to be delayed until next week. It's taking me a long time to prep all the models and images I need.

Instead, I'm going to share something I came across recently on Drawn!. (If you're a fan of illustration and animation, this site belongs in your bookmarks.)

I can't find much information about him other than his images, but I like what I see. Parfenov reminds me of the work of Tamara de Lempicka, one of my favorite artists.

Like de Lempicka, Parfenov's focus seems to be portraiture with the occasional landscape. I think the fact that these are paintings, and not vectors, is what makes them so appealing to me. The geometry is strong, but the natural colors and the blending soften things up. It's that "soft-machine" look that really appeals to my tastes.

Some of his likenesses are better than others, but overall he's got some striking pieces-- like our ol' buddy John, here. Check him out.