Leigh Ellexson is an illustrator/ artist based in Cincinnati Ohio. She runs her own personal store towards her illustrations she posts her art on Instagram and she also makes YouTube videos. From running her online store she sells her own merchandise and from other platforms like patreon and YouTube she gains income from the support of her fans. She attended an art school and after transferring to different school Leigh came to the realization that art school wasn’t for her and she could better spend her time and her money elsewhere. Doing so it allowed her to follow her own pursuit into the industry and became a freelance artist. She started her illustration business on Etsy in 2015 and completed a lot of commissions.
Leigh Ellexons art is very illustrative with the theme always being revolved around animals and nature. Using gauche watercolours ink and colouring pencils as her main art supply she bases her colours around an expressive bright colour palette that gives a sense of happiness. Her style is simplistic cute and stylish always using the focus of lines to add impact. She typically surrounds her illustrations in nature such as leaves and flowers. For each particular illustration she makes she designs them as cute as possible with small eyes and cute poses with a main primary colour for each that tends to compliment each other. She usually illustrates cute versions of bears and tigers theming the animals around a cute innocence with colours that really flourish and compliment the white space on a page. the art being simple its easy to identify the animal and artistic shape. Alongside traditional art she also takes use of digital art.
https://www.leighellexson.com/our-story
Vanessa Gilling’s is an illustrator and a children author who creates her art around fairy tales, nature and everyday scenes. She uses gouache paints and has formed her own technique unique to herself she developed on her own. Vanessa posts on Instagram, twitter and Tumblr and runs her own website selling her illustrations. Vanessa also has her own skill share class in where she teaches people her gauche techniques and how to do illustrations.
Her illustrations are very subtle, but the shapes are strong when she suggests personality. Her art is themed around mainly anthropomorphic animals, children book-based concepts and characters that are relaxing and lovely to look at. Her art uses a lot of patterns and clear crisp simplistic shapes that help the art stand out. her art has a slightly vintage them using flower prints and colours such as green and violet purple. Her art is calming and creates serenity the colours she uses are interesting and unique her pieces are always composed with elements of things she likes. This gives the art the personality and story it needs. She uses repeated patterns that set as the background and foundation of her art. I enjoy her art because it is very child friendly but has unique concept and the colour pallete is my favourite her art is always looking peaceful and refreshing to look at.
https://www.instagram.com/vanessagillings/?hl=en
Aron james draplin- draplin designs
Draplin started his career by creating a graphic design for solid snowboards. He went into designing for café signs, company logos and advertising campaigns of which all led too the creation of draplindustries. finishing his degree at the Minneapolis college of art and design his skills had improved there. After this it lead him into managing the snowboarder magazine. In 2002 the design office of Portland Oregon offered him a place as a senior designer and he took it moving too south California.
Eventually Draplin set out and started Draplin design co. In 2004 and has worked for many companies such as Nike, Wired, Dinosaur Jr, Timberline, Chunklet, Eaux Claires Music Festival, Poler, Incase, Sub Pop Records, Fender, Marc Maron, Cobra Dogs, Jill Soloway, Sasquatch Music Festival, Rhett Miller, Old 97s, Jason Isbell and Nixon Watches and so many others. He also runs a skills share class on merchandise. His designs are graphic based focusing on recognisable designs that are clear and can sell as merch and be recognised as company logos. Very straight forward concepts and colour designs the formats typically being flat and shape based. His popularity has grown from his working experience. On skill share he has taught many people how to create merchandise and create designs that can be assessed across multiple play forms and uses such as for printing onto clothing and creating patches that can go onto hats and many other uses. His main process is digital more than likely using thumbnail sketches on paper to concept his designs.
http://www.draplin.com/info/