Wenqing Yan has an unusual mixture of work; from cute and fun, to despair and abstract, I find a lot of her work really captivating. The most interesting illustrations for me are the surreal works, full of imagination and fantasy. There is an excellent interview on The Daily Californian, if you’d like to find out more about her.

Sidenote: I Googled Wenqing Yan and it was interesting to find an ‘award winning artist’ copying one of her illustrations!

See Wenqing Yan’s Deviant Art page for more. You’re in good company, she’s had over 8 million page views and counting…

Argentine Andrea Gen creates some great manga style illustrations, using both digital and traditional colouring techniques. On her Deviant Art gallery you can find some of her sketches as well as more polished pieces. Her Alice in Wonderland work is particularly good! Head on over… 

Svetlana Tigai (a.k.a. Tsvetka, a.k.a. Ink-Pot) is a CG artist living in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She uses computer programmes such as Photoshop and Painter to create her illustrations, which for the most part consist of fantasy art and pin-ups. There are also a few excellent portraits in her website portfolio, which you can find here.

John Tenniel was a London-born English illustrator who’s most notable work includes illustrating classic literary works such as “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”. On top of these he was the principal political cartoonist for Punch magazine for over 50 years (undoubtedly a great achievement).

Any serious illustrator has at some point studied or happened upon the illustrations of John Tenniel’s first publication of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.  A lovely collection of the original woodcuts can be found here.

They are a great source of inspiration and most definitely needed to be presented here at The Lounge. I find there is something intrinsically nice about these images and when I’m all out of ideas or feel distracted by life’s misfortunes, I spend some time looking at these and they set me  nicely back on course.

Accomplished playwright, painter, poet and illustrator Mervyn Peake (1911-68) has an exhibition on now at the British Library. It started on the 5^th of July, but there’s plenty of time to catch it as it ends on the 18^th of September. The British Library recently acquired an archive of Peake’s work, and it’s on show. A big plus for Alice fans; his original drawings for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass can also be seen at the exhibition.