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An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated concepts or objects that are difficult to describe textually, which is the reason illustrations are often found in children's books. Illustration is the art of making images that work with something and add to it without needing direct attention and without distracting from what they illustrate. The other thing is the focus of the attention, and the illustration's role is to add personality and character without competing with that other thing. Illustrations have been used in advertisements, architectural rendering, greeting cards,
poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text ...
s,
book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
s,
graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s, storyboards, business, technical communications, magazines, shirts,
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...
s, tutorials, and
newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
. A cartoon illustration can add humor to stories or essays.


Techniques

Use reference images to create scenes and characters. This can be as simple as looking at an image to inspire your artwork or creating character sketches and detailed scenes from different angles to create the basis of a picture book world. Some traditional illustration techniques include
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
, pen and ink, airbrush art,
oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...
,
pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...
s,
wood engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and ...
, and linoleum cuts. John Held, Jr. was an illustrator who worked in a variety of styles and media, including linoleum cuts, pen and ink drawings, magazine cover paintings, cartoons,
comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...
s, and set design, while also creating fine art with his animal sculptures and watercolor, many established illustrators attended an art school or college of some sort and were trained in different painting and drawing techniques. Traditional illustration seems to have made a resurgence in the age of social media thanks to social networks like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube. Currently traditional and digital illustration are both flourishing. Universities and art schools offer specific courses in illustration (for example in the UK, a BA (Hons) Degree) so this has become a new avenue into the profession. Many illustrators are freelance, commissioned by publishers (of newspapers, books, or magazines) or advertising agencies. Most
scientific illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vide ...
s and technical illustrations are also known as information graphics. Among the information graphics, specialists are medical illustrators who illustrate human anatomy, often requiring many years of artistic and medical training. A particularly popular medium with illustrators of the 1950s and 1960s was
casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...
, as was egg tempera. The immediacy and durability of these media suited illustration's demands well. The artwork in both types of paint withstood the rigors of travel to clients and printers without damage. Computer illustration, or digital illustration, is the use of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device, such as a tablet or a mouse. Computers dramatically changed the industry and today, many cartoonists and illustrators create digital illustrations using computers, graphics tablets, and scanners. Software such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Corel Painter, and Affinity Designer are now widely used by those professionals.


See also

* Airbrush artist *
Archaeological illustration Archaeological illustration is a form of technical illustration that records material derived from an archaeological context graphically.Barker 1977 Overview Archaeological Illustration encompasses a number of sub disciplines. These are: * '' S ...
*
Architectural illustrator An architectural illustrator is an artist who creates imagery for the design professional that accurately portray the details of an architectural project. These images are used to communicate design ideas to clients, owners, committees, customers, ...
* Cartoonist * Fashion illustration * Graphic designer * Marker rendering * Painters *
Pictorial maps Pictorial maps (also known as illustrated maps, panoramic maps, perspective maps, bird’s-eye view maps, and geopictorial maps) depict a given territory with a more artistic rather than technical style. It is a type of map in contrast to road map ...
* Storyboard artist * Stuttgart Database of Scientific Illustrators * Visualizer


References


External links

* {{Authority control Filmmaking occupations Visual arts occupations Journalism occupations