Friendly, Playful Illustrations by Denise Tonner
Things in the Seed, intaglio, Chine-colle, ink
Our featured artist today is Denise Tonner. Denise is an illustrator and printmaker based in Vancouver, BC. Denise’s illustrations are relatively simple and yet seem to open endless avenues for storytelling.
Illustrated Map of Oyama, BC, digital
Denise's Sketchbook gallery on her website
The artist favours sketchy lines and not-quite-opaque colouring and like other mixed-media illustrators, experiments with materials such as chalk, scratchboard and gouache. The result is often a slightly layered effect. Denise creates friendly, playful illustrations for children, often featuring characters that, while cartoonish, seem to express the behaviours and feelings of children in a real but accessible manner.
I particularly enjoy Denise’s black and white illustrations. The sketchy aesthetic works extremely well here, where the white parts of the drawings occasionally reveal the dark background underneath, making everything seem that much more akin to a storybook. Despite their dark colouration, the drawings retain a certain friendliness. View more illustrations and look through Denise’s sketchbook on www.denisetonner.com.
