Postcard Research

McBess

"Mc Bess (Matthieu Bessudo), born July 5, 1984, is a French illustrator living in London. His style is a mix of influences such as Fleischer Studios' old cartoons he actualizes by using contemporary shapes, symbols and types. Mc Bess drawings often represent himself at the center of a surrealist world filled with food and musical references, such as amps, guitars and records. He's also a musician in the band "The Dead Pirates"

All of McBess's work is very similar, similar characters and colours. Very rarely does he include more colour than simple black and white, but I think his work is best this way. It really brings out the detail in his work. If you added colour to his more complex detailed pieces it would seem like there is too much going on and you wouldn't know where to look. Keeping it simple means you can take you time looking over the whole piece without getting a headache. I love McBess's use of lines though and want to bring this into my work and see if it works. I love working with black and white, its so classic.

Reuden Rude

"Reuben Rude was born in San Francisco, as the sun was setting on the Free Love era. His bohemian parents then moved "back to the land" to the woods of Northern California, where he spent the better part of his childhood without a television. This lack of technology forced him to spend almost every waking hour drawing and painting. When he moved back to the city to attend art school, he got into all the usual trouble with graffiti writers, skateboarders and art students. He now lives in San Francisco with his wife and eight-year-old daughter, and yes, a television. However, he still spends most of his waking hours drawing and painting. Sometimes he even gets paid for it."

This piece really stood out to me because of the lack of bright colours in it. Even colours that would normally be bright have been dulled down (the rainbow). I think this piece resembles depression very well. The expression on the girls face and the way she's standing and the fact its raining just shows cold and loneliness.

Mcbess

"My name is Isabel Greenberg and I'm a freelance illustrator and writer based in London. I've just graduated from Illustration at the University of Brighton."

Isabel's work caught my eye instantly as it was the front cover of a magazine I was looking through. The amount of detail added to the piece makes it so interesting. It's one of those pieces that you see something different every time you look at it. Personally I think this is what a good piece of artwork is, something people can't take their eyes off of because there is too much to look at. The fact Isabel has used such basic colour makes it easier to look as well, if this piece was covered in colour it would probably just give you a headache, it wouldn't work as well as it does in black and white. I love how simple it is but so affective.

Chris Buzelli

"Chris was influenced by his Grandfather Armondo Buzelli at young age, painting side by side. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, Chris moved to New York City to start his career as an illustrator in 1995. His oil paintings have appeared in many national and international publications."

I discovered Chris's work in a Nobrow magazine, this piece caught my eye because the use of colour. The blue tones in his work makes it seem very cold and quite depressing which I thought fitted in with my work perfectly. The position and look on the child's face also fit in with the colour scheme of the painting, they are very vague and her eyes seem almost worried.

Ariana Page Russell

When I was researching text and image, I came across this image and found it very interesting. At first glance I thought the image was just photoshopped or edited in some way to make it seem like the text was made of skin, but after looking deeper I found out that the text is actually made produced on Ariana's actual skin.

"I have dermatographia a condition in which one's immune system releases excessive amounts of histamine using capillaries to dilate and welts appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the hypersensitive skin's surface is lightly scratched. This allows me to painlessly draw on my skin with just enought time to photograph the results."