Narrative Illustration Artist research. Julie Morstad

Whilst searching though some illustration reference books I came across the work of children’s book illustrator Julie Morstad. Her style instantly struck me for its use of interesting textures and overall sombre look. Her work is recognised for it's cute characters washed out colour pallets and interesting use of texture. She has worked on illustrations for many recently published books which include “How To”, “Singing Away the Dark” and “This Is Sadie”.

The illustration to the right is an example of Morstad’s work from the children’s book “Singing Away the Dark”. The book has a very sombre tone probably caused by the colour choice and layout of the illustrations. This image also highlights the amount of texture which Morstad uses in her images. The image is quite simple but I think this benefits its overall look, a lot of Morstad’s work has used negative space around her characters but this one has a painted background.

The next illustration is called “Boat” and shows the more recognised drawing style that Morstad uses in her work. A lot of These pencil illustrations are borderless which means they may have been used as vignettes in the books. Even if they were not then I think the lack of a background helps the image to blend into the page. The colours are more toned down compared to the previous image I talked about. I think this really complements the pencil drawing look. Also in this image the boat has not been coloured in, this seems to be another part of Morstad’s work as it appears regularly in her work.

The example to the top right is called “Thimble” and is another good example of an illustration which uses negative space. I think the colours on this piece work particularly well on the spools in the background. This illustration seems more playful to the previous examples and its quite fun to see the little character stumbling around with the Thimble on his head.