Influential Artists

Kmye Chan

Kmye Chan is a freelance illustrator who produces enchanting designs. As Kmye is employed as a scientist, it is her love of Art and design that drives her to produce her beautiful pieces as a hobby. She creates work because she enjoys doing it rather than feeling she has to in order to make a living. I believe this is very visible in some of her work. Her artistic career started in her late teens, when she posted a few pictures of her work online. She was not expecting the large amount of response she received. She was so thrilled with the positive feedback, she started producing more and more. As her confidence and talent grew. She began producing creative pieces for galleries and has been featured in many group and solo exhibitions across Europe and the U.S.

I love her work because its dark and whimsical, it reminds me of the type of style that I often want to achieve in my own designs.

Christi du Toit

Christi is a freelance illustrator who produces work on a wide variety of commercial projects. He began drawing at a very young age, every opportunity, anything he could find. He didn’t recognise it as art though until he was in high school learning about illustration. It was here that his eyes were opened to the possibility of illustration as a career. He still didn’t know a lot about it, other than the fact that he wanted to draw for a living. He took a year off after high school and taught himself the ins and outs of using Photoshop and Illustrator by watching tutorials on YouTube and searching Google for more online lessons. He decided to study graphic design. He figured that, as he could already draw, graphic design would teach him more about the technical aspects. Which programs to use, design theory, the best practices to deal with client briefs, and also how to think conceptually about projects. After getting his degree in graphic design, he worked on a month-long internship at an illustration studio called Muti, from there, he ended up working for a year at another illustration studio called Radio (MadebyRadio) where he worked with some amazing animators. He learned a lot through working for these studios, which gave him the confidence to work for himself, and continues to do so.

I love his designs because although he works digitally, he still uses brushes with texture to make the designs seem more handmade. I also like his designs because he uses a limited colour palette which usually includes quite dulled tones. This to me, makes the design more appealing to the eyes as the piece is not too packed with information.

Audrey Beardsley

Aubrey Beardsley was an illustrator who was born in Brighton on the 21^st of August 1872 and died at the age of 25 in 1898. Although he did not have a long life, his work did have a great impact in the art world, especially during the art nouveau movement in the 1890’s.  

He had started his artistic career by creating drawings and caricatures for multiple British magazines, this had helped him develop his own style, using pen and ink. He had then travelled to Paris, where he had discovered a love for Japanese prints and had also found a love for the posters designed by the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, these both became major influences in Beasley’s own work and style. He then went on to create book covers, posters and illustrations for many companies with his own black and white, pen and ink style.

His work shows, what I believe to be a higher-class society. I feel his idea of a utopia was based from the aristocracy of his decade. In the 1890’s people would never have imagined it to be possible to have the technology that we have today, so for someone like Aubrey Beardsley, I believe the highest dream would have been to be a part of the upper-class, living with the finer things in life, hosting and going to banquets every night with the very elegant surroundings.

I was attracted to his work for its contrasting aspects, other than the more obvious black and white contrast, in some areas there is no detail which contrasts with other areas where there is fine, intricate line work. This appeals to the viewer’s eyes and makes them look more closely at the designs. I personally love working with positive and negative spaces in my work, and will try to take inspiration from him in my future projects.