J.D. Hillberry, a self taught artist, primarily focuses on pushing the limits of realism in a black and white medium. His art is not only a way of imitating reality using technical skill, but to tell a story or evoke emotions using imagery.
Hillberry uses graphite pencil and charcoal in order to produce dramatic light, shadow and texture. His drawing really do push the limits of realistic impressionism. His drawings can take up to 250 hours to complete.
His style of work is heavily influenced by the Trompe-l'oeil style of drawing (french for deceive the eye) which originated from a Braque style of painting where the artist would implement the technique of realistic imagery, in order to create optical illusions where objects would appear in three-dimension. Typical example of this would be Pere Borrell's 'Escapism Criticism' (1874) as illustrated below:
After watching several of Hillberry's instructional videos, and researching some of his current work, I felt I should show some of his work that I feel is very inspirational, especially in terms of pushing the boundaries of pencil medium images.
As you can see from the examples below, the realistic quality, produced by hours of labour and intense, intricate detail through dynamic changes in light and dark, creates life like qualities to his work, which jumps out at the observer.
A Work in Progress
The Man Behind the Artwork
Big League Dreams
Grandma's Tea Party
Let's go Grandpa!
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