Artist Research: Martin Haake

Another illustrator that the tutors directed me to when I started my new printing technique for my final major project was Martin Haake.

Now here is an illustrator I really like. He uses colour and texture to achieve his shapes, rather than using line, and this is the transition I’m trying to make in my work at the moment, because I rely far too heavily on using outlines. His shapes are really strong and striking though, whereas in my work it’s a little harder to work out where the shape should end, which I’m not sure if I like yet.

I’ve also noticed that where he does line, they are to make patterns and more interesting shapes than to inform the audience, so I think that I should take on board the idea that line can be used for more than just the one use.

Haake uses composition in an inspiring way as well (for me anyway). He includes a lot more elements in his work than I am at the minute but in the future I want to get into adding more and more elements to my work to make it more interesting, so here is a guy I want to be keeping an eye on.

One final thing that I enjoy about Haake’s work is that not everything is perfectly drawn out, there is collage, and type, and they are designed and composed well but… they just have more personality than I see in a lot more digital artists work, and I really like that because I like the idea that an illustration is part concept, part narrative but also part of the artists personality.