Bernice Myers

Bernice Myers is an author and illustrator... unfortunately I wasn't able to find out much more information about her than that!
However there is quite a lot to say about her work which is both fun and beautiful. I'm guessing that she works on textured surfaces such as canvas, or maybe she texturises the surface with a gesso... then she uses mixed mediums such as paint and pastels mainly, with perhaps a little bit of colouring pencil?
Her backgrounds are generally very simple, comprised of only a gradient or sometimes even nothing. This is definitely something that I can try to take on board in my own illustration as I have a tendency to flatten my images by trying to include too much detail into the background.

Digi-Art

Here are the final pieces I came up with after experimenting with photography. I layered them up with textured paintings of mine and played around with opacity levels and artistic filters on photoshop. These are both going in the exhibition on series that I shall be participating in. This will take place in France over the Autumn.

Experimentation

I have been experimenting with layering photography and drawings/paintings this summer, here are some of the results:

Love lies bleeding

This is a story I am currently writing/illustrating for my niece who has a rather unhealthy obsession with princesses. Last time I went to stay with my sister and her family, I took along a princess book that I had to read to her every night at bed time, so I thought I would try to make my own one and see whether she's just as keen on it!
Here are some of the illustrations I'm working on. I am trying to keep a fairly consistent style going...

The Rihanna Saga

Some of my friends and I have a constant joke going on involving the singer, Rihanna and her apparent psychosis which she gives the impression of in some of her songs.

So, as a joke I have started making a series of comic strips recounting the adventures

she has when she meets my friends... she ends up putting most of them in hospital!!

Anyway, here is an example of the illustrations I am doing for it! 

Goodnight And Go

Illustration of the song "Goodnight and Go" by Imogen Heap.

Big Fat Duck Cookbook

This is a book written by Heston Blumenthal and illustrated by David McKean. It is extremely big, extremely heavy, and extremely expensive. The illustrations are very beautiful and are made using mixed media such as: Photography, painting, drawing, photoshop etc.
He uses great colour + light/dark contrasts that make the images all very dramatic. His use of line and dirty colours continue his typically macabre style that is so prevalent in all of his work. It is interesting how with most of the illustrations, the type is incorporated into the image itself, which gives it a much more contemporary feel and gives more meaning to the text.