Luke Waller

Weller is a freelance illustrator who has worked in editorial illustration for 5 years. Usually it takes him around 2 hours to create a draft/rough sketch of his work. Then after some emails to the art director to confirm his ideas, Weller will start working on his final piece. If Weller has a very small time scale like 24 hours he will often use Photoshop. However if he is given a longer period of time he will often use pencil drawings and monoprinting to add colour to his images. Weller only learn't how to monoprint after his education at Bournemouth university. His grade suffered because he was so obsessed with defining his style, he never tried anything new apparently.

He stated that this image was drawn from a very small thumbnail on google. Using pencil drawings and Photoshop Waller was able to create a full sized portrait. The style of this image reminds me of illustrations that would accompany a statement or article in a magazine.

Weller likes to think that he is good at talking to art directors because he treats them like gods, he states that they in essence feed him, cloth him and keep a roof over his head. Because of this he gets a lot repeat clients. Up until late last year he worked without an agent. Now he is part of JSR. Quarterly Weller uses social networking like twitter and instagram to display his work and talk to other like minded people. Weller is always careful though not to post anything bad about anyone or anything. To self promote he sends out some of his latest images with a letter and customised envelope. Clients and agencies would feel more inclined to look and read a letter than an email because you can select and delete them straight away.

I find this very inspiring because of the bright and selective colours. I have chosen to make a project where I would be using practical techniques like the monoprinting. Using monoprinting techniques are quite difficult and Waller has very effectively created a layered black and white image with shaded areas and then used a board with red ink to create shaded areas and new subjects in the image.