Artist research: Brett Helquist

I researched information on Brett Helquist through the FAQs from his website: http://bretthelquist.com/helquist%20faqs.html I have also linked his main website at the bottom of this page. The following is the essay I wrote on his works.

There are a number of artists within the area of illustrations and one of them, whom is closely related to my main chosen artist in terms of profession is Brett Helquist.

Having had ambitions of being a comic artist, Brett Helquist pursued his career as an illustrator from a young age. He worked with an illustrator called Robert Neubecker in New York City after graduating from college, and had since developed a portfolio overtime. He then illustrated for newspapers and magazines for seven years whilst at the same time had a job as a graphics designer.


He eventually decided to specialize in drawing for children’s books, which gave him his first job of illustrating “The Bad Beginning” in a Series of unfortunate Events by author Lemony Snicket.


Helquist had taken an interest in traditional Chinese or Japanese art, mainly comic-based, as well as western illustrators like Howard Pyle and N.C Wyeth. Through practice and influence, he developed a style of his own. His distinct line techniques stemmed from his difficulty to control the edges in his paintings, which had soon grew to be his trademark skill.



The following image is extracted from Roger the Jolly Pirate. His use of broken lines makes up the picture as a whole and creates a form of texture. The shadows and dark areas consist of concentrated shades of lines that add depth to the character. His drawings tend to have a sketchy, old Victorian touch to them, especially his black and white sketches.


Helquist uses smooth, dynamic strokes to convey motion. In this case, there is a singular direction in where the lines are etched and which gives the impression that the subject is moving downwards.
I noted that most of his other works contain more complicated swishes of lines where his subjects are at a standstill to convey solidity and immobility. His moving subjects tend to have less detail within their surroundings (such as shadows and detailed backgrounds).

The thing that intrigues me is his choice of materials, which are simply pencils of various gradations to give his subjects their form. There are no indications of inks or fine-liner in his pieces although some sections may appear rather dark.

For his coloured works, Helquist uses oil paint, and they tend to give bold and vibrant colours to his characters. This takes a different route to his black and white works, where he uses basic pencils to draw.

With the use of colour, different shades of colour hue created tone and depth, unlike his pencil drawings where there is a need to build up tone with pencil lines. I noted that the lines within the subject are very faint to allow the colours to dominate, but have a strong outline to bring out the features.

Both Tony DiTerlizzi and Brett Helquist take a different route altogether; their varying techniques to drawing gives each a unique characteristic within their works.
Through observation, I come to realize that DiTerlizzi specializes in watercolour drawings that give a more subtle feel, which contradicts those of Helquist. This gives me the idea of exploring both styles separately in order to determine which would work best to apply onto my own.


More of my writing can be found in my sketchbook.