Eric Orchard is a Canadian illustrator whose book credits include Anything but Hank! written by Rachel Lebowitz, Zachariah Wells, A Forest for Christmas, written by Michael Harris, and The Terrible Horrible Smelly Pirate written by Carrie Muller and Jacqueline Halsey.
His painted comics work include a story for Scholastic called Robot Museum, which is an offshoot of a longer project Orchard has had in the works for a long time (image above, bottom right, larger version here).
Orchard’s drawings and paintings, done with loose, informal linework and textural passages of watercolor or gouache, can have a charming, almost innocent feeling, while still edged with darker themes.
Orchard seems to have, at least for the time being, abandoned his dedicated web site in favor of his blog and another Revolving Portfolio blog. He also has a small gallery on toonpool.
On his blog you’ll find a variety of posts about his projects, in progress or finished, sketches, drawings and bits of personal news, as well as mentions of other artists he finds interesting. I’m uncertain how often the “Revolving Portfolio” revolves.
Orchard was a participant in last year’s Totoro Forest Project (and was the one who let me know about it) and his work was recently showcased in the Spectrum collection of contemporary fantastic art (image at top, larger version here).
There is a nice article on Orchard, featuring large reproductions of his work, on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
Orchard also maintains a blog called Meta Chronicles, dedicated to anachronistic science fiction themes, which often showcases related illustration.
Great work. Really nice guy.
I am consistently impressed by Eric Orchard’s incredible output of work on his blog. This guy makes brilliant work so often I wonder if he ever sleeps.