Zaria Forman

Working from her Brooklyn studio, fellow pastel artist, Zaria Forman, captures the natural world in all its beauty and vulnerability. Having travelled the coast of Greenland, retracing the 1869 journey of American painter William Bradford, documenting the rapidly changing arctic landscape in 2012, she then moved on to document the Maldives, a country facing the very real threat of climate change and with it, rising sea-levels.

Craww

Female figures, crows and skulls, often surrounded by wilting flowers and plant life, flow from Craww’s mind onto each sketchbook page or wood panel. They develop naturally and organically without too much forethought, the product of an imagination allowed to wander freely through the woods.

Based in Sheffield, UK, Craww’s background in graphic design shows in his compositions, displaying a great sense of balance, allowing a narrative to appear through the outwardly chaotic finished image.

Soul searching: Joel Daniel Phillips

It’s on the corner of 6^th and Mission in San Francisco that Joel Daniel Phillips meets with the poverty stricken subjects of his ongoing series of finely detailed drawings, 'No Regrets in Life'. These are the protagonists of hard lives whose stories emerge in his large-scale, charcoal and graphite drawings on paper. Every line and wrinkle on a face, or fold and crease of a jacket, tells the story of a life well-worn and the experiences gained along the way.

The one-to-one scale of his work allows every tiny detail to be viewed and explored in a way not usually possible in graphite drawings. This allows us a glimpse behind the first impression of the sitter and gives an indication as to what makes that person who they are.

 

Mark Demsteader

During the 1990s, with Brit Art on the rise, figurative draughtsman and painter, Mark Demsteader found himself surrounded by an art market dominated by conceptual art.

In the difficult years that followed however he finally found massive success, especially following his recent popular drawings of actress Emma Watson, and earning several notable awards including The Lyceum Prize and The Sidney Andrews Scholarship in the process.

His incredible work, a combination of original charcoals, pastels and oils, has undoubtedly renewed interest in traditional life drawing and classic figurative paintings. His drawings typically feature a beautifully balanced combination of the detailed, closely observed upper torso leading to equally striking expressive line work below.

Jared Muralt's sketchbook

Every now and then you come across an artist whose work just flaws you. And not just one incredible piece of artistry, but every picture of theirs you see. This is true of the Swiss illustrator, Jared Muralt, founder of the illustration and graphic design studio, BlackYard.

Jared attended art school for a year in his native Bern, Switzerland. He is largely self-taught, receiving much of his study through books regarding art history, anatomy and comics. All of which are explored in his work and clearly visible in his sketchbook drawings below. There are so many of these drawings that it was damn hard trying to pick only a few.

For more of his work check out his website or his instagram feed. Seriously, every post is unbelievably good.