Field Trip: Society of Illustrators

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A few things that I like about Orson B. Lowell. 1) he knows how to get your attention. 2) his technique of presenting satire throughout his compositions have been successful. In his illustration, “Drunken Man Speaking to Table” where he demonstrates the drunken state of the man. The legs of the table and chairs are seen a bit wobbly just like the man’s to present how drunk he is. The anomaly of Lowell’s illustrations can really catch your eye.

Another work of Lowell I’d like to talk about is his illustration, “Poor Old Thing! Strange That His Case Has Never Been Correctly Diagnosed.” Despite the long title this is a very powerful cartoon expressing how women have desired a meaningful career throughout the world where man had viewed their choices as pointless and stupid. The woman with the graduation cap and gown is feeding the man (Earth) with pills that may change his views on equality. This is a very deep illustration and again, Lowell has succeeded.

SOI Trip!!

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I spent my commute the week before the trip drooling over Orson Byron Lowell’s illustrations so much, I almost forgot to look up more information on him that just his works. Pictures online do not do his works justice. It was hard to pull myself away from one illustration of his to admire the next. From afar or at a smaller size, the images look picture perfect, as if a pen had not even been involved. Upon a closer look I saw how much of his work consists of shading and hatching, the drawings almost void of a significant contour some of the times. What I used to consider scribbles Lowell used it fully in his works, understanding both the medium and his subjects. Some of his work was pretty ironic, for example “Birthdays” piece, depicting how much youths are in a rush to grow up while the elder women are running away from it. Most of his works depict the middle to upper class, dapper gentlemen and elegant ladies, the latter in all forms of stylish attire. One thing I certainly learned from his work is the importance of knowing the subject and that it’s not necessary to have perfect lines to execute perfection.

Society of Illustrators Blog Post

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Deepti Sunder
Herbert the Hungry Monster Fortune Teller

This piece was on the second floor of the Society of Illustrators. The second floor held an exhibition titled MoCCA Arts Festival Awards of Excellence. Sunder is a modern illustrator who came to America from India to pursue art. Right now she’s studying at FIT for an MFA in Illustration. Her style is very bright, colorful, and cartoony. However, if you stumble on her Behance there are some really well done illustrations that were even made for children’s books. In an interview about the book: Bonkers the interviewer asked Sunder about how her process works. She says that she tends to (like Professor Woolley has been saying all along) that she starts off not too rigid. Depending on the client, she creates rough sketches then sends them to her editors, sees what she needs to tweak up, then sends the complete sketches and SHAZAM! Bam, bam, thank you ma’am there goes her completed projects.

What drew me to this piece, Herbert the Hungry Monster Fortune Teller is how its an actual fortune teller. I also like the illustration and how it really captures Herbert. Based on the illustration you can tell that Herbert is a Hungry Monster Fortune Teller. I just thought it was very creative and I love how she took this concept to more than just drawing a hungry monster on a flat sheet of paper. She mentioned in the interview that she does most of her work traditionally and with dry media but she said she would love to tamper with digital work and she has gotten interested in watercolor, so I would love to see how her process was when she created this piece. Granted, this interview was in 2014 so she probably already tampered with it. Then again she might have already graduated. She could have been able to do this digitally. Though the textures in the image feel more traditional. Unless the robots known as Photoshop made a really cool texture brush or something. Anyways, Herbert the Hungry Monster Fortune Teller is sitting pretty on the second floor in the Society of Illustrators so if you didn’t already check it out there or on her Behance. It’s really cool!