Naturalistic Illustrations
Abstraction and creativity are some of the most powerful tools of an illustrator. But sometimes, sticking closely to reality is just as valuable — maybe even more so.
Meticulously capturing every detail of a subject often results in very impactful illustrations that immediately grab the viewer’s attention. That’s why naturalistic illustrations work great for packaging and editorial content. They pull the viewers in and provoke their curiosity — often pointing them to details they might have missed otherwise.
Another way to leverage the power of naturalistic illustrations is in portraits. Drawing portraits is a centuries-old discipline, and it’s obvious that an illustrated portrait has a much bigger impact than a photograph.
Look at these projects for some examples of naturalistic illustrations:
For a botanical specimen book, I created more than 120 paintings of local plants, a selection of which is presented here.
Whether it’s for an interview in an editorial context or a team page on your website — an illustrated portrait is much more individual and impressive than a photo. In this project, portraits in different styles are collected.
Using exaggerated objectivity is an interesting stylistic device as well. It can be great for reportages because of its documentary appearence.
Naturalistic illustrations are particularly well suited for series where there are multiple similar but distinct motifs, like in this series of fish.
