Uploaded November 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
“My creative processes are associated with the discovery of personal and collective symbols. For this, I apply methods that reveal the voice of the unconscious, such as active imagination – a term used in Jungian analytical psychology – as well as dreams and visions. I try to ensure that all my illustration works go through these creation processes so that the result is a translation of the author’s feelings and wishes.”
Carolina Zambrano is an award-winning Colombian illustrator, graphic designer and artist, working primarily with graphite pencil, fountain pens and acrylics.
Carolina explores topics related to the symbolic world, magic, alchemy and nature.
[from:theinspirationgrid.com/editorial-drawings-by-carolina-zambrano/]
Music: Steve Roach "What Remains"
“My creative processes are associated with the discovery of personal and collective symbols. For this, I apply methods that reveal the voice of the unconscious, such as active imagination – a term used in Jungian analytical psychology – as well as dreams and visions. I try to ensure that all my illustration works go through these creation processes so that the result is a translation of the author’s feelings and wishes.”
Carolina Zambrano is an award-winning Colombian illustrator, graphic designer and artist, working primarily with graphite pencil, fountain pens and acrylics.
Carolina explores topics related to the symbolic world, magic, alchemy and nature.
[from:theinspirationgrid.com/editorial-drawings-by-carolina-zambrano/]
Music: Steve Roach "What Remains"
![Natalie Wargin
I have entered a world of connectedness, where wildness survives and I can live in balance with it. I do not feel like a superior creature. Instead I feel a kinship with all of nature, especially the wild birds and animals. The Hudson Valley landscape has given this to me. This is what I paint.
Natalie Wargin is a nature and landscape painter based in Cottekill, New York. Her paintings are narratives, each telling a story of the Hudson Valley landscape, focusing especially on the birds and animals that cross her path daily and the sense of inclusiveness in wild nature that these encounters create. Following a move from Chicago to upstate New York she discovered a completely different and surprising environment. Concrete and highrises gave way to woodland and farmland and mountains. The connection Natalie feels to her new home and to all the creatures moving around her not only places her firmly in the wide world but has also taught her to open her eyes and connect.
Her work is influenced by naturalists and nature writers like Henry Beston, Richard Louv, John Muir and John Burroughs, and explores her personal encounters with nature, birds, and animals.
Natalie received a BA in Communications Design from the University of Illinois. She had a graphic design studio in Chicago for over twenty years, working with both corporate and non-profit clients, designing for product and print. She began painting in 2013 and began exhibiting her work in 2017.
[from:http://www.nataliewargin.com/about]
Music: Steve Roach A Few More Moments Natalie Wargin](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a6Mlg-6ASNM/mqdefault.jpg)
![Kay Nielsen
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1886, Kay Rasmus Nielsen described being raised in a “tense atmosphere of art.”
The son of actors Martinius and Oda Nielsen, the artist was deeply immersed in the performing arts from a young age, a formative experience that was to influence the course of his career. With an aptitude for drawing and a passion for literature, Nielsen’s short-lived notion to pursue medicine was abandoned in favor of studying painting in Paris from 1906 to 1911. Nielsen’s formal art training began with French artist Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921) at the Académie Julian, followed by study at the Académie Colarossi under Norwegian painter and illustrator Christian Krohg (1862-1925) and French painter Lucien Simon (1861-1925), among others. In 1907 Nielsen interrupted his studies to travel to New York to accompany his mother, a celebrated actress and singer, on an extended performance tour of the United States sponsored by the Danish-American Society.
While a student of painting, Nielsen also devoted himself to illustration, creating stark black-and-white compositions in pen and ink, related to contemporary literature or inspired by personal experience. This dramatic body of work elicited an invitation in 1910 to exhibit his work at Dowdeswell & Dowdeswells Ltd. Nielsen moved to London where his first exhibition in 1912 included the notable but unpublished series The Book of Death, a sequence of ten illustrations meditating on Pierrot devastated by the death of his beloved. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, Nielsen often focused on the melancholic or macabre elements of tales, and created visual sequences with themes of love, sexuality, loss and death.
Surprised by the intensity of emotion in Nielsen’s illustrations, contemporary reviewers often linked his work to that of Aubrey Beardsley or Carlos Schwabe. Today, Nielsen’s deep appreciation of illustrators active around 1890 to 1910 is evident—Carl Otto Czeschka and Edmund Sullivan come to mind—but the “originality” of his work and his “rare visionary power and imagination” was consistently noted from the start. The success of Nielsen’s first exhibition led to several gift book illustration commissions, and accompanying selling exhibitions, beginning with In Powder and Crinoline, a compilation of French fairytales, by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in 1913. Nielsen’s Rococo-inspired vision resulted in both pastel fancies, as well as brooding, jewel-toned settings for some of the darker tales. A master of fairytale illustration described as “the only living artist who can draw a troll,” Nielsen’s work only occasionally included fairies, as he typically focused on creating dramatic settings for the stories’ protagonists.
Nielsen received greater international attention in 1917 with an exhibition at Scott & Fowles in New York, sponsored by Martin Birnbaum who noted the “genuine pleasure to reach the oasis of a Kay Nielsen picture in a journey through the printed pages of a book.” A portrait photograph of Nielsen in the accompanying exhibition catalogue shows the artist at his desk crowded with pens and pencils, brushes and paint pots. Somewhat staged, the image never nevertheless conveys the complexity of Nielsen’s artistic practice. Technical examination of some of Nielsen’s watercolors suggests a significant effort to plan the illustrations in advance, as the clarity of the initial outline in graphite is striking in confidence. Once the outline was completed, a dense color scape was created through highly controlled use of watercolor. Finally, the drawings were finished in ink, accenting the original outlines. In an example from his Great War series, the paper is scratched extensively to create highlights, further accenting the composition. It seems likely that Nielsen employed masking as a technique to ensure crisp definition. Overall, the works appear tightly controlled, yet in places there is a surprising looseness to his handling of color, and freedom to the decoration. Less well remembered today, Nielsen also worked extensively in pen and ink, creating countless monochrome line illustrations and margin decorations for all of his projects, published or not.
An internationally celebrated artist in his youth, Nielsen found minimal commercial success in the last decades of his life, eking out an existence with Ulla, between Denmark and California, with the support of a small group of devoted friends. In the years prior to his death in 1957, although plagued by poor health, Nielsen completed a handful of public painting commissions, including the school mural The First Spring, a monumental reflection of his artistic abilities as both stage designer and illustrator.
Meghan Melvin
Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Curator of Design Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
[from:https://societyillustrators.org/award-winners/kay-nielsen/]
Music: Alio Die, Arianna Tondo Air Sustain Kay Nielsen](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aY_2JaUA6N0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Nicole Rifkin
I’ve had a different upbringing than most. My mother and her family are Slovenian Canadian citizens—with English as their second language—and my brother was diagnosed with autism when I was very young. At one point, I realized that the one thing that bridges everyone together is the understanding of an image. My brother learned how to associate words with images via flashcards. This led me to an extremely impactful realization: language is changed to accompany images. I also loved to draw and took great joy from the communicative aspect of illustration; I really wanted to tell stories and make them accessible to everyone. I knew I wanted to be an illustrator when I was 17, even though I didn’t have a strong concept of what being an illustrator meant!
[More at: https://www.commarts.com/fresh/nicole-rifkin]
Music: Numina Beyond Infinity Nicole Rifkin](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/am_hcYLCCbc/mqdefault.jpg)
![Hallie Packard
The morning sun projects the day onto waking eyelids. In an instant, you are here. A tickle in the corner of consciousness brings a faint memory of a place. The tickle becomes an itch. The mind stretches furiously, straining to retrace steps, to push back into that otherworldly yet unsettlingly familiar “place.” Just as pieces begin to rematerialize, something slips and it all vanishes completely from beneath your feet. For a split second, you hover between two worlds. For a split second, it all comes back.
Hallie Packards works depict a place nostalgic and foreign—comfortable and untouchable at once. A place through which the presence of humanity echoes, but from a source that has long since expired. Human-made relics interact with the natural world, confirming the question of previous human existence and conforming to—even mutating to become one with—the wildly organic environment surrounding them. As reminders of the wonder that abounds and the respect it deserves, these works are dedicated to rediscovering and cultivating the magic of this world.
[from:https://www.halliepackardart.com/copy-of-about]
Music: Aglaia Vernal Equinox Hallie Packard](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ccEf21kFwTY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Yuri Yakovenko
The name of Yuri Yakovenko is well known in Western Europe. Personal exhibitions of the artist were held in Spain, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Sweden and Cyprus. The artist’s works are kept in the collections of the Vatican Library, galleries in New York, Toronto, Stockholm, museum collections in Russia and Belarus, as well as in private collections of Queen Elizabeth II, the Spanish and Swedish royal houses.
Yuri Yakovenko is a member of the Belarusian Union of Artists, an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, a member of the International Club Graphic House (Sweden). In 2010, he was awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of the City of Grodno”. The master has more than 25 international and domestic awards for participating in the print and book graphic biennale. Among the latest achievements of Yuri Yakovenko is the Grand Prix of the II International Graphic Biennale of JOSEP de RIBERA in Javit (Spain). The most valuable award for the artist (by his own admission) is Rembrandt’s self-portrait, printed from the board of the great Dutchman.
[from: https://gallerix.org/pr/yuriy-yakovenko-gravirovannye-mify-frukty-zveri-koroli-v-galeree-belyaevo/]
Music: Oophoi/Tau Ceti Valles Marineris Yuri Yakovenko](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d4GX4a_dkXU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Camille Saint-Saëns - The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods
Le Carnaval des Animaux (The Carnival of the Animals) is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
Le Carnaval was composed in February 1886 while Saint-Saëns was vacationing in a small Austrian village. It was originally scored for a chamber group of flute, clarinet, two pianos, glass harmonica, xylophone, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, but is usually performed today with a full orchestra of strings, and with a glockenspiel substituting for the rare glass harmonica.
Saint-Saëns, apparently concerned that the piece was too frivolous and likely to harm his reputation as a serious composer, suppressed performances of it and only allowed one movement, Le Cygne, to be published in his lifetime. Only small private performances were given for close friends like Franz Liszt.
Saint-Saëns did, however, include a provision which allowed the suite to be published after his death, and it has since become one of his most popular works. It is a favorite of music teachers and young children, along with Prokofievs Peter and the Wolf and Brittens The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra.
Le coucou au fond des bois (The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods):
Two pianos and clarinet: The pianos play large, soft chords while the clarinet plays a single two-note ostinato, over and over; a C and an A flat, mimicking the call of a cuckoo bird.
[from Wikipedia]
Artwork:Remedios Varo,Creation of the Birds
Played by:French National Radio Orchestra (Pierre Carbidier). Camille Saint-Saëns - The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d4ll80_QpUI/mqdefault.jpg)
![Amelia Jane Murray
Amelia Jane Murray (1800 to 1896) or Lady Oswald, was a Victorian fairy artist from the Isle of Man in Scotland. Her watercolor paintings depicted fairies and flowers and were inspired by the folklore of the island. She was the daughter of Lord Henry Murray and the niece of John Murray who was the 4th Duke of Atholl.
Amelia Jane Murray was born in Port-e-Chee, which means `Fairy Music in Gaelic. Growing up, Murray lived in Mount Murray, her familys home which was five miles from Douglas.
Murrays fairy paintings were inspired by the rich folklore of the Isle of Man and many of them had embossed borders. They date to the early 1820s and the watercolor pictures suggest that Murray had significant knowledge of the flora and fauna. They are often based on Manx folklore and depict delicate fairies in the natural beauty of the landscape.
In 1829, she married Sir John Oswald of Dunniker, who was twenty-nine years older than her. They moved to Fife, Scotland where she looked after his six children from his previous marriage, as well as their own two.
Murrays paintings of fairies were later published for the first time in 1985, in a book called, A Regency Lady’s Fairy Bower.
[from Wikipedia]
Music: Vidna Obmana Dwells Into The Heart Amelia Jane Murray](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d5tyNpqNkic/mqdefault.jpg)
![Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939) was an English book illustrator.
Arthur Rackham is widely regarded as one of the leading illustrators from the Golden Age of British book illustration which roughly encompassed the years from 1890 until the end of the First World War. During that period, there was a strong market for high quality illustrated books which typically were given as Christmas gifts. Many of Rackhams books were produced in a de luxe limited edition, often vellum bound and sometimes signed, as well as a larger, less ornately bound quarto trade edition. This was often followed by a more modestly presented octavo edition in subsequent years for particularly popular books. The onset of the war in 1914 curtailed the market for such quality books, and the publics taste for fantasy and fairies also declined in the 1920s.
Arthur Rackhams works have become very popular since his death, both in North America and Britain. His images have been widely used by the greeting card industry and many of his books are still in print or have been recently available in both paperback and hardback editions. His original drawings and paintings are keenly sought at the major international art auction houses.
Rackhams illustrations were chiefly based on robust pen and India ink drawings.
Rackham gradually perfected his own uniquely expressive line from his background in journalistic illustration, paired with subtle use of watercolour, a technique which he was able to exploit due to technological developments in photographic reproduction. He would first lightly block in shapes and details of the drawing with a soft pencil, for the more elaborate colour plates often utilising one of a small selection of compositional devices.Over this he would then carefully work in lines of pen and India ink, removing the pencil traces after the drawing had begun to take form. For colour pictures, he would begin painting by building up multiple thin washes of watercolour creating translucent tints. One of the disadvantages of the 3-colour (later 4-colour) printing process in the early years was that definition could be lost in the final print, Rackham would sometimes compensate for this by over-inking his drawings once more after painting.He would also go on to expand the use of silhouette cuts in illustration work, particularly in the period after the First World War, as exemplified by his Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
Typically, Rackham contributed both colour and monotone illustrations towards the works incorporating his images – and in the case of Hawthornes Wonder Book, he also provided a number of part-coloured block images similar in style to Meiji era Japanese woodblocks.
Rackhams work is often described as a fusion of a northern European Nordic style strongly influenced by the Japanese woodblock tradition of the early 19th century.
[from Wikipedia]
Music: Monokle Gray Sparks, Goldmund All Four Holy Mountains. Arthur Rackham](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dFPsI78yfDo/mqdefault.jpg)
![Nicole Duennebier
Nicole Duennebier’s delicately rendered paintings push the boundaries of traditional concepts of the still-life. In the artist’s compositions organic forms appear to be “growing out of darkness.” Some of the subjects are clearly depictions of botanicals and insects, while others are imaginative, strange hybrids. Using acrylic on panel, Duennebier paints a mysterious world where drama unfolds in an arena of darkness.
[from:https://zam.umaine.edu/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/nicole-duennebier/]
Natural phenomenon—dermoid cysts, fungus, invasive flora/fauna—and my love of candied, old-master opulence have a constant presence in my work. Through painting with attention to detail, I’ve become accustomed to the fact that nature itself, or anything living really, never totally allows you to have a perfectly idealized experience. Everything is always spewing, dripping, rotting a little. Similar to 17th century still-life paintings with those vibrant lusty fruits that show the light fuzz of beginning decay, I don’t see these works as allegorical depictions. To me it is more the realization that both the rot and the fruit are a textural attraction in their delicacy; both take the same concentration and care to paint.
The classic chiaroscuro darkness in still-life is a primordial soup, a pool of black that springs forth a decadent, and sometimes horrible, growth. I’ve always been attracted to the obsolete idea of spontaneous generation, all that awful stuff popping into existence for no reason. The paintings reflect this; they are more spontaneous generations than firmly rooted in actual living organisms.
[from:https://nicoleduennebier.com/about-boston-artist-nicole-duennebier]
Music: Alio Die Veritas Temporis Filia Nicole Duennebier](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dam9H_xQ4k0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Chloé Poizat
Chloé Poizat is one of several illustrators whose work has been circulating via The New York Times feature “Notable Opinion Art of 2013”. The Paris-based illustrator’s piece (below) looked interesting, but I was in no way prepared for just how curious her images are. Chloé flirts with the edge of “commercial” and “creepy”; there’s a darkness to her collaged narratives—whether black and white or garishly-colored—that is irresistible.
[from: https://baladycreatives.com/chloe-poizat/]
Music: Numina The Shadow of A Day Chloé Poizat](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dnWWU8yZHAs/mqdefault.jpg)
![Victor Safonkin
I enjoyed drawing, as all children do. Understanding my surroundings was still far away, but there were smells and feelings, huge rats and headaches.It was another life strongly influenced by nature.
I had been watching and examining for a long, long time, before all of this shaped itself, after many years, into conviction and painting. It all surfaced from subconsciousness. In the mean time I finished secondary school and begun studying technical school, where I gained secondary education. It gave me nothing, and did not fill even a little area of my brain hemispheres. I was feeling useless. Rationalism and routine, however, would have finally suppressed the psychedelic fever and would have feeded my minority complexes, if it was not for the striving of my subconsciousness. Taking its roots in the childhood it bursted the frontiers of banality.
1990 was not only the year of sun eruptions, but also of my brain. My heart confessed to me and opened the gate of creativity. I crossed it, forever, without looking back, with no doubt, lost for shadow and disbelief!!!
[from:https://www.safonkin.com/author.htm]
Victor Safonkin (born 1967 at Saransk) is a surrealist painter.Victor Safonkins work is self-described as Eurosurrealism, or European classic surrealism & symbolism. His work is redolent of Salvador Dali. Victors work has been highly acclaimed, and in 2005 he was invited to exhibit at the European Parliament in Brussels. The rock band Killing Joke used his Hosannas from the Basements of Hell as an album cover in 2006. Viktor Safonkin is featured in the 2007 [Venus and the Female Intuition,] published by SALBRU. Safonkin has been called one of the most brilliant artists I have seen in a long time, by master Surrealist Professor Ernst Fuchs.
[from:http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/safonkin1.html]
Music: Steve Roach Begin Where I End Victor Safonkin](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e0zWTcwbox4/mqdefault.jpg)