Graham Smith is an illustrator currently working on assignments from his bright and sunny art studio, in San Diego, California.
I draw traditionally with pen and ink to create energetically hand-rendered, emotionally charged portraits of musicians, celebrities and things of interest, using rich, organic textures and deep, earthy colors. I finish illustrations digitally, to each publisher's specifications.
My latest art hobby is film making. I discovered "video mode" on the camera used for art reproduction here at the studio, and been teaching myself to make little art movies ever since!
One of my great loves is drawing the figure from life, so, as a total win-win, I instruct a Life Drawing Workshop for the artists and animators at Sony Online Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment Arts.
See my work published in magazines and advertisements: Clients include - Blue Moon Brewery, Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, Paste, Texas Monthly, Runner's World, SF Weekly, The Phoenix New Times, NPR, Improper Bostonian, ESPN, The Advocate, Philadelphia Magazine, ai5000, PlanAdviser, The Washington Post, Amtrak, INC. Magazine, J P Morgan Chase, T. Rowe Price, Worth, Pacific Standard...
I earned my BFA in illustration from Parson's School of Design in New York, and I continue to draw from life and in my sketchbooks daily.
Please visit my website, to see more work. Read: Interviewed by an Art Student to learn more.
"This guy’s stuff is great. It has a noir-like quality that could’ve come right out of the pulp fiction haydays of the 30’s and 40’s, but it still feels utterly modern. And unlike many graphic novel illustrators today he knows not to overdo it. He let’s us into the eyes or his subjects, shows us their wrinkles, and crooked smiles. He builds the character not through pyrotechnics of color and form, but through human emotion."
