Illustrator Saturday – Lorraine Dey

Lorraine Dey is an illustrator with a broad range of artistic styles. From the fresh, whimsical, unique and colorful characters in her children’s and textile illustrations, to the realistic scenes, animals, and product art produced in great detail for the advertising & publishing industries. Lorraine has been a professional illustrator and designer for many years in various company staff positions as well as working from her own studio for several years.  She has illustrated books for such organizations as Rockport Publishers, Rodale Press, and Simon & Schuster.

She recently illustrated a children’s picture book, A Sweater for Duncan, written by Margaret G. Malone that was just released by publisher Raven Tree Press.

She is now working on illustrating a picture book that she wrote as well, The Rain Forest Party is the story of an adorable little armadillo named Hector-Armando which will be released next Fall 2011 by Raven Tree Press.

Wildlife Art and Lorraine’s admiration for animals… In the late 80’s and through the 90’s, she exhibited her traditional pencil drawings and acrylic paintings extensively throughout the country in such prestigious shows as The National Wildlife Art Show in Kansas and The Waterfowl Festival in Easton, MD. She won the title of NY DU Artist of the Year in 1990 with her painting of Green Winged Teal titled, “Muddy Water Retreat” as well as NJ DU Print of the Year with “Floating Buffleheads”.

Many years of studying, sketching and gathering reference for wildlife and their environment has helped build a solid foundation for developing credible animal characters in her children’s books.  Although Lorraine enjoys illustrating all types of animals, she is just as comfortable creating expressive children and adults in her images as well.

All of her recent work starts out as a traditional pencil sketch and then gets scanned into the computer as a digital file to finish color and detail in Adobe Photoshop.  She uses a Wacom tablet and stylus pen to paint in brush strokes similar to the way she used to paint in acrylic paint traditionally. “I know there are faster ways to work in the programs but this is how I feel comfortable working.  It doesn’t seem to bother me that it takes a long time and I’d rather see it look as far away from digital art as it possibly can.  I enjoy the process too much to rush through it anyway. 

A small section of a digital painting is in progress in this video clip, (just a warning, it is a bit like watching grass grow!)“… http://www.deystudio.com/videos.html

Her work can also be seen on various home decor, kitchen accessories, giftware, greeting cards, apparel, magazines, and package designs. Several of Lorraine’s designs appear on kitchen dish towels and accessories in stores such as Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, K-Mart, JC Penney, and more.

Hope you enjoyed visiting with Lorraine today.  Please visit her website to see more.  http://www.lorrainedey.com or contact her at info@deystudio.com

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy