This amazing pencil illustration comes from a dedicated "Friendsbook - a mole for my friends" which is filled with even more amazing pencil drawings from the very talented Thomas Cian who is baced in Milano, Italy. All I can say is Wow!

To see more of his work please visit:
https://www.behance.net/chanbella

Rebecca's work mainly concentrates on the female portrait, using greens and blues with bold black outlines to capture the likeness of the model.

Her work reminds me of the photography of Man Ray or imagery from early avant-garde movies in the 1920.

I really like this mixture of photo-realism and bold brush stroke and will have to try and emulate this some day soon.

To view more of Rebecca's work please visit her website at: http://www.rebeccafontaine-wolf.com/

Los Angeles based artist Mike Mitchell has created thirty new portraits for a forthcoming exhibition at Mondo Gallery in Texas featuring a range of cult movie characters that reads like my Amazon wish list!

I have only seen six of the portraits so far but these have all been stunning and Mike captures the actors flawlessly in each piece. Truly inspiring work by a very talented painter.

To see more of Mike's work please visit his website at:
http://www.sirmikeofmitchell.com

Could not look at the work of Rebecca Guay below with out revisting the work of W.H. Waterhouse who I have been intruguide with for a long time. The way he could draw you into his painting by telling a story is truly inspiring and makes me want to eperiment more in my own work.

To see more of W.H. Waterhouse work please visit:
http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/paintings/

Rebecca's amazing watercolours and illustrations for me suggest the work of past masters such as John Everett Millais and J.W. Waterhouse, but what makes the romantic themes she investigates very much her own are how she brings modern influences to the work as her web site shows in her client list which features Lucas film, Dark Horse Comics and Marvel Comics to name but a few.
It's good to see someone be so successful with this classical style and to know its still very much alive in the world of Adobe design software.


To see more of Rebecca's work please visit her web site at:
http://www.rebeccaguay.com/

My wife introduced me to the work of Joichi Hoshi a Japanese woodblock print artist. She had seen his work while teaching in Japan and fell in love with it. I too was amazed by his studies of trees which clearly illustrate his intricate and elaborate compositions while using silver and gold leaf to eluminate his work. The artist passed away in 1979 and his work is now highly collectable.

To see more of Joichi work visit the following website.
http://pinterest.com/WandaMarie1/artists-joichi-hoshi/