David Johnson

David Johnson is a freelance illustrator, usually drawing portraits and people. He has been commissioned to illustrate books and editorial pieces, and has won awards such as the New York Society of Illustrators gold and silver medals at different times.

He seems to specialise in portraits and people, having done a black and white series on great authors from 1503-2001. I was really impressed with these portraits because the quality of line is just exemplary- he has used varying strengths of line for different features, such as a stronger, thicker line for the facial features and many fine lines for the hair.

In his editorial work, he practices the same line technique but also adds colour and tone with an airbrush.

The airbrush lends a soft, relaxing tone to the images and dampens the impact of the bold black lines. I feel like the airbrush makes the images look a bit old and weathered, but I actually think this is a great effect because the images are very harmonious and pleasing to look at. The colour tones work well together and give the subjects a warm, inviting expression.

These are some close up shots of a line illustration he drew. I thought they were good examples of his technical ability, especially relating to the folds and creases in the clothes and the age detail of the woman's face.

Although the line quality of my work isn't always as clean as Johnson's, especially around the borders, I think there are some similarities between them in the main focus of my drawings for the book unit in our first module. The lines I used are clean and solid, however I could have tried using different line weights for a better effect. This is something I can develop through this brief, and I feel that Johnson would be a good artist to try and draw some inspiration from.

all images for research purposes only