Combining Illustration and Oil Painting

It's an interesting back and forth process to switch between illustration and oil painting.They're very different stylistically but they each influence the other. Over the many years of illustration I've explored different ways of getting an idea or story across depending on the requirement for each particular assignment, that builds a bit of a mental storehouse to draw upon for subsequent paintings.

The idea of combining my illustration and oil painting has been lurking in the corners of my mind for a few years but it was a vague idea of exploring themes, patterns, and favourite subject matter in the naive style of my illustration in oils. I made a few stabs at it but it wasn't quite what I wanted, the vision was hovering but just not clear.

One day while doing my early morning writing I could see my vague idea become clearer. I was writing about my recent studies and the things that I was learning from them like painting colour more intuitively and much looser and freer brushwork when suddenly I could see how I could use these expressive ways of painting to combine my illustration style with the oils in a way that would be pure painting pleasure.

What to paint? I kept it simple, choosing motifs that I love like pattern, birds, cats, flowers, and still life. I began exploring different techniques and with each painting things began to fall into place. Where are they going? I'm not sure. I only know that it's the pleasure and exploration that's important for now and the joy of seeing how they change over the years. I would never have done this had it not been for all those years of illustration and then the oil painting, it's all the experimenting and the doing that brought me to these new paintings and it reminds me of the great importance of exploration in art.


Bird with Tulip & Vase, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell


Thoughts, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell


Spring Songs, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell


Russet Spring Songs, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell
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New Children's Book - Clever Rachel

Clever Rachel - Author Debby Waldman/Illustrator Cindy Revell

Clever Rachel is book 2 of the Jewish folk tale series published by Orca Books. It's a challenging and rewarding experience to bring the characters in a story to life but then illustrating a kid's book is always quite an experience. My studio becomes a flurry of activity with tracing paper everywhere filled with character sketches, tiny thumbnail sketches that are used to capture those first initial ideas, then later the fine tuned and enlarged drawings. Finally I scan all the sketches and email them to the art director or editor to meet their deadline. A big relief. I clean up the heaps of paper, work on other jobs and paintings and wait for the go ahead to move on to the final illustrations which usually take about a day each to do. A kid's picture book is a process that takes a few months during which time my regular assignments like illustration for calendars, magazines and educational books have to be worked on as well, and they have their deadlines too. In between all that I work on oil painting commissions, Project Heroes, paintings for my gallery, and practice. There's a busy hum in the studio and with so much going on at once I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed but I can't imagine a life without that creative buzz.

Clever Rachel is in bookstores now and can be purchased from Amazon or Chapters/Indigo. Book launch and signing on Oct. 18, 2009 at Greenwoods Bookshoppe at 7925-104 St. in Edmonton, Alberta. Come join Debby and I at the book signing for coffee and Debby's homemade rugelach which was mentioned in the first book in this series.