If you’re a sucker for good strong figurative work with a flair for the unexpected, you’ll like the work of New York illustrator, Michael Camarra for sure. I’ve known Camarra since our days back at Pratt, when he still painted with a brush and a tube of paint. Now that Camarra has moved on up into the realm of digital painting, I’m amazed at how, incredibly, the digital paintings lose almost none of the raw spontaneity his traditional paintings possessed but instead introduce a somewhat cleaner edge overall, which lends itself to his cleaner graphic sensibilities.

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I have been following Tomer Hanuka’s career since, well, pretty much since he was in college. (No, I am not a stalker!) I always admired his work, but I am especially in love with his recent work, where he builds his own fantasy world with weird creatures.

For the longest time I was an enormous admirer of the loopy, distinct line drawings of Brooklyn-illustrator Matt Hollister. Having seemingly lost track of his work for a couple of years (who knows how that manages to happen), I was shocked to stumble across his work yet again recently while perusing the New York Times. I had to check out his website immediately, and from there I wandered into his blog. The best part was that you could almost watch a new style emerge chronologically, beginning with the old drawings and then a small experiment, a mono print and then, more and more, mono prints and experiments, less and less loopy drawings. Even the subject matter seems to have changed and become much quirkier to accommodate the new style. I’m certainly feeling that staying abreast of Hollister’s work should now prove pretty inescapable.

In the beautiful work of New York City-based illustrator, designer and typographer, Mario Hugo, finely rendered faces and figures intermingle with various abstract patterns and shapes to create some seriously refined, surreal, and mysterious work that’s all that, and then some.

I met Caroline Thaw at Brooklyn’s Third Ward in one of the courses I taught. The first time I saw samples of her work, I was happily overwhelmed by her diversity of styles, her cute yet twisted characters, the radiant and infinite beauty in every piece she made, her delicate line, and her strong sense of style and scenographic space. Part of her work’s charm comes from her experience in theater design designing sets and custumes for productions that traveled around the world (she is from England, originally), and her tremendous love for kids.

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We asked New York illustrator Christopher Neal about the inspirations behind his work: ‘Each job is different. Sometimes looking through old books and artist monographs will spark something. Other times, its just putting pen to paper until I get an idea. Things like music videos, movies, trips to the museum all seep in and resurface later in my work. For my personal work, a lot of it comes from my sketchbooks’.

There’s some awesome new work up on New York-based illustrator, Sam Weber’s website, including this one above which is did for the Soulpepper Theatre. We asked him a little while back about what his studio workspace was like: ‘I am fairly particular about where I like to work, and what sort of stuff I like to have around me. There are things that I look at often — a book of Max Ernst collages, one on Yoshitaka Amano, and a big stack of clippings from magazines and the Internet that I will periodically leaf through to get inspired’. [more about Sam Weber]

The loose linework and watercolors that mark the illustration of Victor Kerlow bring to mind several other well known editorial illustrators, but Kerlow is clearly doing his own thing. I love his White Sheik illustration, which he did for the New Yorker, in particular. The New Yorker, yes. It’s hard to believe this guy is only just about to graduate from SVA. We will most certainly be seeing more of him in the years to come.

Matthew Langille is a talented New York-based illustrator and graphic artist. Not content just to work on paper, he’s also successfully made the leap to textile designer. He sells designs for apparel, footwear, bags and sunglasses, landing big name clients like Marc Jacobs and Victoria’s Secret.

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The talented New York-based illustrator, Marcos Chin, [responsible for the Lavalife drawings on the subways], ‘will demonstrate digital coloring techniques incorporating traditional media’ at a workshop put on by the Society of Illustrators. As part of the class, ‘a line drawing will be taken, step by step, to a fully rendered final — including shading, layering, patterns, shadows and texture. He will also discuss how to build a consistent aesthetic for advertising campaigns and how to balance commercial and personal work’. The workshop, which is on between 6.30-8.30pm next Wednesday night [October 29], will be followed by a print signing. Registration details are on the Society of Illustrators website.

I declare New York-based illustrator Phillip Fivel Nessen one of the most chameleon-like illustrators I have ever come across. In many cases, for someone working as an illustrator, this sort of quality tends to be seen as a negative. Nessen commands each style so effortlessly, though, and with such originality, that we can hardly complain? Despite the wide range of styles, I find I can easily pin it down as having come from him each and every time. I love everything in his portfolio, from the illustrated type (which seems to be his latest obsession), to his colourful print like illustrations, to his moody, scratchy older work, to his trippy Milton Glaser-like works, to his amazing alter ego, Abe Twist. And I wait in anticipation for his next whim.

Though most know Max Bode as an art director over at the ubiquitous New Yorker, he is in fact quite an illustrator. Creating bright, clean illustrations, in a style at times reminiscent of old video games and cartoons, Bode work is a real treat, especially when stumbling across one of his illustrations in the New Yorker.

One of our favourite illustrators, the New York-based Christopher Neal, just happens to share a studio space with Sam Weber. Oh man! To be a extra large fly on that wall. It would be so tempting to attach a canvas to your back and just buzz on out of there! We asked Neal what he would have done with his life if art and illustration hadn’t yanked him so firmly by the hand: ‘I think about it all the time. Before I got into illustration I played in a band and was set on a long career in music. Then I started working as a graphic designer. Finally, I fell into Illustration. My days playing in a band seem like a life time ago. It’s possible that I will find some other passion and look back on illustration the way I look back on music now. I’ve always been intrigued by film-making … Who knows, I may even come crawling back to music one of these days. I guess a lot of it depends on how I change as a person and how the Illustration industry changes over time. It’s hard to predict’.

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I’ve worked with the brilliant New York-based illustrator — and Lost At E Minor contributor — Yuko Shimizu remotely for some years now. But despite the fact that we live in the same city, we’ve only met up once — at a group exhibition that she was a part of at a Chelsea gallery. Even then, I could tell she was as vibrant and colourful a personality as her illustrations suggest. Which is why it’s so nice to see these photos from deep within her studio space; to get a window into the environment in which her creativity is unleashed.

Painting ships and designing logos while working for the Maryland Coast Guard is an unusual start into the world of illustration. However, New York-based artist Jacob Thomas has gone on to win a swag of awards, including the cover of Communication Arts. His illustration style is perfect blend of art meets communication and has attracted the attentions of big name clients such as The New Yorker and L’Oreal.

Marcos Chin graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design, in Toronto, Canada. Since then, his work has appeared as book covers, advertisements, surface design, fashion catalogues, magazines, and CD covers. He has received a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, and has had his work published in numerous award annuals such as Communication Arts and American Illustration. Perhaps the most recognizable work are the illustrations he has done for Lavalife’s international advertising campaign — appearing on subways, billboards, print and online.

We checked in with one of our favourite illustrators, Yuko Shimizu, recently: How are you dealing with the mugginess of the New York summer? ‘I am originally from Tokyo, where humidity is a lot higher in general, and summer temperature can go a lot higher’. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I sometimes cannot stand the New York summer (especially waiting for the subway at the stations!). But when I feel that way, I think of the Tokyo summer, where you step outside of the air conditioned building and you feel sweat running down your back immediately, and I am at peace with it’. Is is fueling or stifling your creativity? ‘I don’t function well when it is humid, so I stay in my studio with the AC on’.

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Maryland’s MICA just seems to be cranking out the talent this year! Recent grad, Megan Russell, creates quite lovely, intricate, densely pattern-based illustrations. With a polished portfolio that runs the gamut from editorial to set design to fashion, she is clearly a versatile illustrator. Be sure to check out her Narrrative-Book section as there are some especially wonderful illustrations composed of multiple vignettes colliding all over the page to create quite lively narrative tapestries.

South Korean artist Seounghyon Cho currently resides in New York City, having received an MFA degree in Illustration from School of Visual Arts.

Anyone who reads The New Yorker will be familiar with the work of Brooklyn illustrator Jashar Awan, a consistant fixture within its pages. With strong influences clearly drawn from the worlds of superhero comics and modern art, Awan creates his own style of timeless, bold, richly narrrative illustration. Perusing his portfolio, several comic book covers that he did for The Escapist are not to be missed as well as a large grouping of horizontal images created for The New Yorker over the years — a format that seems to work especially well for him.