Lately I’ve been asked professionally who is someone that you look up to, typically an artist always comes to mind for me, Loish. Lois van Baarle is a very active artist who I think really expands on what illustration is and character design can be. Without going too far into details of how I enjoy her art I really admire how she uses color for character design. Color-wise; the technique and even brush strokes really define that they are her characters. Her style is so defined that it functions for even graphic design.

Even her blog has complete function, which is what I really like. It’s a lot more than just the front page and that gives the viewer something to relate to. On her blog there is artwork, sketches, process, news and update, random, and archive. All of these options allows you to see her artistic process which is really unique and professional for an illustration blog.

The area that the picture is actually in the random page. Why I chose this image is it emphasizes how she expands the functions of an illustration blog, she has tutorial videos and is making a Kickstarter for the said project.

This isn’t even her only blog, if you were to Google Loish you would be able to find that the whole first page is filled with all of her different blogs. Each of these blogs able to please many different demographics with dramatically different formats for each website. With each different format of the website it allows the fan to see her art in many different approaches, which gives a lot of dimension to each piece individually and her style as a whole.

I thought that my personal favorite website of hers was her professional blog, which is in the picture above. It greets you with a business card and already allows you to choose what kind of art you personally are most attracted to. For instance, if your interested in having some art for you home then her original art link would direct you to different themes of her illustrations. All of the art on this webpage is so neatly organized and that makes even the web design aspect of art fun. In conclusion it’s one thing to make beautiful art, though to me it’s about how you make the art and what and how you bring art to life.

#illustration #graphicdesign #characterdesign #activeartist