When I first wrote about Chicago based illustrator Chris Sheban back in 2007, he had little presence on the web except on his rep’s site and on Workbook.
A friend of mine let me know that Sheban now has a website.
Although there is still no bio, client list or information on technique (I’m not even sure what medium[s] he’s using, though I believe it’s at least partially colored pencil or chalks), the good news is that the portfolio on his site contains many more of his wonderful, whimsical illustrations.
Sheban’s warmly colored, richly textured images have an immediate appeal, backed up by his sometimes unorthodox compositions and a playful experimentation with light and shadow.
Don’t miss the fact that his portfolio goes on for several pages via the arrows to the side of the thumbnails, and there are fun pieces in the “Sketches” section as well.
[Suggestion courtesy of Jack Harris]
[Addendum: Chris was kind enough to write and let us know a little bit about his process. He starts with a dark watercolor underpainting an works over that with Prismacolor pencils and occasionally touches of pastel. He works back into darker areas with watercolor. The grainy surface texture is achieved through the use of and Arches 90 lb cold press surface. Chris assures me he is working on adding some bio and process information to his site in the near future. It's certainly worth checking back periodically to see if there are new portfolio additions as well.]
‘Wonderful’ is right on.
Super charming!
those are very sweet; I like the mixture of reality with imagination.