Johan Thörnqvist - illustration and photography

Johan Thörnqvist

 I like the work of artist Johan Thörnqvist who combines photography and illustration to create quirky and cool pieces.  Johan Thörnqvist photographs a range of destinations, then edits and draws onto the photography. The combination of  cartoons and real life is really interesting to look at, giving a dream-like affect. I think the work is very cleverly done, using space well. For example turning the mug into sea where the ship sails. The work is fun appealing to children, but also families because of the use of a mother and daughter in some pieces. I think these pieces can appeal to a wide audience just because of the element of fun put into it.

The image below is of a lamp, but  Johan Thörnqvist has transformed an ordinary object into something interesting and eye-catching. I really like the idea of using something ordinary and transforming it to something surreal or dream-like, which  Johan Thörnqvist  has done.

More of  Johan Thörnqvist  work can be found here http://www.snarlik.se/

My Johan Thörnqvist inspired work.

This is the Andrew Rae inspired illustrations I created, and decided to take these experiments one step further. Inspired by Johan Thörnqvist's combination of illustration and photography, I went on to create my own. I first used Adobe Photoshop to separate the illustrations I created, then inserted the separated illustrations into Adobe Illustrator, so it is easier to play around with them. On Adobe Illustrator I used the 'Live Trace' tool, then 'expand' to remove the background of the illustrations and have the possibility to change the colours or edit part of the illustration. After this I inserted a photograph I had taken from my Lana Del Rey inspired floral photo shoot, which I used for the "Floral Queen" jar. I used this photograph because the position of the subject is perfect, as she has space around her and lays on the ground. I was about to play around with this, positioning the illustrations in various positions, till I found which suited the photography best. I used repetition of some images, to fill part of the photograph and I think this worked because all the personalities fit together.

I really liked Johan Thörnqvist's work, and wanted to create an image that combinated real-life and cartoons together, but whilst doing this I wanted to use photography which was in my own style, so an element of myself could be brought through.

After creating this image, I furhter edited the photography in Adobe Photoshop, as I saw some of Johan Thörnqvist's pieces looked like it had a coloured filter on it. In Photoshop I used the gradient map to colour the images. Firstly making it look like a light purple filter, then a green one. I added contrast and altered the brightness of the photography, so make sure the image was clear, and all part of it were defined and how I wished for it too appear. I think the colouring works well, but I do prefer the photo in it's original colour as it looks more simple but also realistic.

Below I continued to trail with the Johan Thörnqvist inspired piece I had created, but layered the image to give another dimension. With previous photography of eyes I had done using a zoom lens, I laid eye photograpy and Johan Thörnqvist inspired work upon each other, then edited using 'blending change', 'opacitiy' and 'fill'. I do like the use of the eye, because then it suggests this as imagination, but I am unsure if it looks as good as it could. The last image lays three images together, a photograph of an eye I had taken, the Johan Thörnqvist inspired piece and a portrait from the Lana Del Ret inspired work.