Jim Gunardson, 32, is a freelance artist who does most of his work for magazines. Jim wears many hats as a creative, as he also works as an interactive web designer, focusing on interface illustration, and icon design. Jim currently lives in New Jersey, right outside Philadelphia. He has lived in Sarasota, Florida and in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. The mountains, he says, is were he has derived alot of his inspiration for his artwork.

It was purely by chance that I came across Jim’s work at Deviant Art, or perhaps it was purely by chance that he came across my own Deviant Art gallery, because if he hadn’t i never would have found him. However it worked, I was glad it did, as I thoroughly enjoyed going through his gallery of artwork. It was immediately clear to me that Jim had extensive traditional training in the fine arts, as many of his works are oil paintings which are great examples of figurative and still life studies. I was not surprised when Jim told me he holds a BFA in Illustration from the Ringling School of Art and Design (RSID). His understanding of the figure, light, surface and composition is clearly evident in all of his works.

As much as I loved his tradional paintings (and his digital paintings) as a contributor here at Vectortown I was focusing on his vector illustration of which he does primarily in Adobe Illustrator. There are a few pieces in particular I would like very much to showcase here, as they stand out amongst the rest in my mind.

This first piece is titled “High Noon” is a wonderful illustration which shows Jim’s command of composition and color, as well as a very confident expression in his lines. This fluid and simplistic (seemingly simplistic) semi-cell shaded illustration shows how important camera angle can be in creating tesnion in a composition.

A great example of simplicity and effective use of line is this piece entitled “Lapse in Time”. I really liked this one for its composition and use of neutral colors. The lips just jump out in contrast to the tone of the image and draw my eye. It appears in the illustration that Jim has used a simple modified brush stroke to do his lines and he carries it out effectively.

This last illustration is a very nice rendering of a Mustang Fastback, entitled, “69 Fastback”. Great color and once again the use of simple shapes is handled expertly.

You can find more of Jim’s work at his deviant art gallery or his website, Visual Elixer.