The illustrator has the art director and the client giving them comments at each step — the critique begins at the hiring and ends with the paycheck, which could speak to the importance of criticism in fine art, where there is nowhere to get honest feedback. Cheerleading is fundamentally positive, but the reader does not see all that is not written about, and in that silence may be my own criticism.

“The simpler the design gets, the more complicated the act of printing can become. Big flat shapes of color with no modulation require a steady hand. With a lot of our more minimal prints the artifice is in the way the layers come together, and if the elements are off-register the illusion of the print is ruined.”

– Melissa Buchanan

The work of Montreal based illustrator Pascal Blanché explores the endless possibilities in the connection between mankind and space, and his visions are both beautiful and frightening.

The work of JJ Harrison exists in the pages of a comic book — an illustrated children’s paperback. Harrison is at play in the universe of characters that roam through your television via Cartoon Network, drawing the worlds of Clarence, Adventure Time, Regular Show amongst others. Harrison’s role requires him to understand the intent of characters created by other artists and render them accurately, true to the creator and also to his own style. In Harrison’s hands, Finn and Jake of Adventure Time gain a warm painterly touch. The chaotic youth of Clarence retain their bubblegum and grease, that blur of chaos captured perfectly into panels of a comic.