Michael Knapp

Continuing with my coverage of my favorite illustrators in no particular order, today I am covering Michael Knapp.  I discovered Michael Knapp and his work through another artist by the name of Robert Mackenzie.  On his blog Robert Mackenzie talked about a collaborative project he was involved in called "Out of Picture".  It was a production by Blue Sky Studios and the many concept artists and illustrators that work there.  They spent their spare time putting together individual stories that were rattling around in their heads and they never got the chance to illustrate.  Then they assembled all the work into a book and published it!  I went on Amazon and found it and fell in love….and also discovered Michael Knapp's work among them.

He is a concept artist who also develops wonderful characters.  Here are a few samples of his work

I really like his quirky style and his line quality in his concept drawings.  He works in full color, but I find his black and white work my favorite because of his value patterns.  I also like how he handles the graphite medium and how he uses variations in the value of the graphite to lead the viewer through his compositions.  He also has a wonderful visual story telling ability that needs no words.  I like to study his work hoping to learn some of his techniques myself:)   

Michael Knapp has a blog that I like to explore to see what he is upto and what other projects he is or has worked on.  You can click here to go to it.  His last project was Sketchtravel which you should definitely check out!  You can click here for an animated short about the project.   The website for Sketchtravel is http://www.sketchtravel.com.  I bought the Sketchtravel book and was so inspired by it. The last image I posted above was Micheal Knapp's contribution to Sketchtravel.  So I hope you have enjoyed learning about Michael Knapp and check out his work on his blog.  I'll be back in a few with another one of my favorite illustrators:)