London-based illustrator Ricardo Fumanal creates tight graphite drawings that combine many elements to create an almost collage-like effect. The drawings might have come off as cold and without human touch if it hadn’t been for Fumanal’s skill in capturing the expressions of his subects. And then again, if you get so good at rendering in graphite that people find it hard to see a human touch in the first place, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. See more of the artist’s work after the jump.
Nicomi Nix Turner draws upon her upbringing in the Pacific Northwest in her Nature themed graphite illustration works. The delicate graphite lines work nicely with some of Turner’s busy, full-of-life compositions. Beetles, insects, skulls, and girls that look like they’ve spent their whole lives in the forest come together as one. It’s fun to go over these works a couple times trying to uncover every element of their makeup. That quality of “oneness”, when considered as equal parts subject matter and composition, comes off really strongly. Beautiful stuff. Check out her blog too.
London based artist Emma Mcnally makes abstract graphite drawings that look like city grids and star maps. But this description doesn’t come close to doing them justice. Usually large in scale, the drawings emit a wizened, emotive quality. Somehow, each miniscule mark of graphite takes on endless personality. In the end, the works are just as effective as maps of life’s random chaos as they are as any type of reference to formal cartography. (via)
Renee French has been making comics for a long time. But for a few years now, she’s maintained a sketchblog full of spontaneous, faded graphite drawings that draw their appeal from creative character design and dubious narrative elements. Think of the black and white surrealist aesthetics of a Travis Louie painting, scaled and repackaged for children’s book production.
Never were there lovelier tortured souls. Wisconsin-born and University of Wisconsin at Madison-trained artist Melissa Cooke works primarily in powdered graphite and often casts herself as the subject of her drawn musings. Striking in both subject matter and detail, her creations explore themes of violence, sexuality, and identity. The nuances of story and emotion evoked are powerful, often unsettling. All of this is made by the artist’s skillful hand, guiding her dry brush across thin layers of graphite on sizeable pieces of paper.
 Graphite Sketches From Renee French "Pin It")
