[Hundred Ways Editor's Note] In the magazine "Reader", which is the largest circulation in China, almost every issue has the work of a painter, his name is Li Chen. Serious personality, tireless motivation let Li Chen work in the garden of "Reader" illustration for 17 years. In his conception, there are only small illustrations, no small artistic conceptions. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Reader magazine, and the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House has published a series of books entitled "The Most Beautiful Classics, Li Chen× Letter Sets", which not only pays tribute to Reader" but also pays tribute to Li Chen, a meticulous illustrator. How did Li Chen become a professional illustrator? How did his new book "The Most Beautiful Classic, Li Chen×, And Letters" land in Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House? What experiences and advice will he offer to young people who want to become outstanding illustrators? Baidao Network wrote an interview with Li Chen, and in the self-described article he returned, we came to find the answer together.
Li Chen
When I was a student, I was at the height of Chinese comic strips and illustrations, when the works of comic strip artists such as You Jindong and He Duoling were flourishing, and thousands of Chinese held comic strips and loved them. It can be said that our generation grew up under the influence of comic strips and illustrations.
In 1984, I graduated from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts. I started out as an art editor at a magazine, but I didn't have time to create large-scale paintings, but I was able to create illustrations in a seamless way. Remove the things on the table, free up a plane, and lay a piece of paper to create. Illustrations in that period were in high demand, and good illustrators and works were well known to the editors of various magazines. At that time, illustrators and comic strip artists had a high social status, and in addition to being respected artists, there was another factor, that is, they had a fixed salary income, and income from the creation of illustrations and comic strips.
I was illustrating both my own journal and other publications. Because of my work relationship, I came into contact with many excellent traditional Chinese illustrations, such as the illustrations of the Soviet "Spark" magazine, as well as the illustrations of some American painters who are usually difficult to see, which have laid a deep imprint on my heart and laid a good foundation for me to create illustrations.
I became acquainted with Reader magazine 17 years ago. In 2004, Mr. Ren Wei, the editor of Reader magazine at the time, saw my illustrations and comic strips in the exhibition, and he asked me to draw illustrations for Reader magazine. Reader is the leading publication of Chinese cultural magazines, with the largest circulation and influence, and the works of many outstanding artists such as Yu Xiaofu, Xia Baoyuan, Zhang Shouyi and others often appear in Reader at that time. Illustrating The Reader has always been my wish, so when the middleman finally found me after several twists and turns, I agreed very happily. Wish to achieve, with the reader is a surprise, the years passed, time passed, I painted this painting to the present, still continue to create.
I've been illustrating The Reader for 17 years. In 17 years, a child is almost an adult and can perform the rite of passage. Over the years, students often tell me that he grew up watching my illustrations. On the public account, you will often see a message saying: "Teacher Li, it is precisely because I saw your illustrations that I decided to take the art exam and embark on the road of painting." Someone else said to me, "Teacher Li, I have been following the reader down because I like your paintings..." Perhaps it is this complex that makes me and Reader friends, and Reader has turned readers and her illustrators into friends.
Gulliver
By chance, Qiu Mengyu, editor-in-chief of the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, met me at an exhibition event in Shanghai, during which she talked about the illustrations I had created for The Reader magazine, and she was very interested, and she said that she wanted to give me a set of illustrations. Editor-in-chief Qiu is a fierce personality, and the style, style, and other details of the book are sorted out between conversations.
From then until today, the publication of this book has condensed the painstaking efforts and sweat of many editors of the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House over the years. Previously, the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House also published my comic strip "Border City". At the promotion and exchange meeting of "Border City", many readers were surprised by the excellent preparation of the book, saying that the book was warm and well-done, and gave readers spiritual enjoyment. The spirit of the Pursuit of Quality of Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House has always touched me, and I dare not relax and strive to create better works.
The book "The Most Beautiful Classic, Li Chen×" brings together more than 180 articles by Famous Chinese and foreign artists, integrating ideology, knowledge and interest, and each article is accompanied by a "most beautiful illustration" to match the interpretation of the article. In the choice of the theme of the illustrated articles, I will discuss and decide with the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House to gather Chinese and foreign masterpieces such as Wang Anyi, Yu Dafu, Lu Xun, Xu Zhimo, Charles Lamb, etc., and will also combine current affairs hotspots or popular elements. For example, when "One Hundred Years of the Founding of the Party" was popular, they hoped to add Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and a number of other early leading figures of the Communist Party of China, and I had painted more than 200 portraits of the figures of the Republic of China, so the increase in the content of articles and illustrations was easy for me. This also shows the importance of ordinary accumulation.
Lu Xun
Hu shi
Feng Zikai
My illustrations are mainly characters, and the historical and contemporary characters in the biographical articles are familiar to the public, so I try to conceive from the simulation of their real life conditions, so that readers can fully appreciate the charm of the characters. I hope that the illustration will not be a filler in the eyes of the reader, so that the illustration fits the imagination in the reader's mind, the reader sees it at a glance, feels that it is really so, so that the function of the illustration can be fully reflected, which is the responsibility of our illustrators.
Anna Karenina
Before I give illustrations to the article, I must read through the article to understand the author's intentions, and the superficial meaning of the text can not be too much attention. What illustrators have to do is to use painting to show what words cannot convey, or to give readers a broader world on the basis of words. Through the form of painting, it is possible to show a richer plot or more specific details, which complement the text and are interesting.
Fog is orphaned
The book was carefully curated by editors and designers, whether from the folio, typography, title selection, or illustration selection. The illustrations were selected by the editors from more than 600 Reader illustrations scattered across my computer. These three exquisite books presented to the readers embody the painstaking efforts of the editors of the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House and reflect the sincerity of the publishing house.
Illustration can develop the ability to observe life. When I collect footage, I often photograph and record interesting things. Students often ask, teacher, is it useful for you to record this thing? At the time, I couldn't say whether it was useful or not, but many years later, almost all the material I collected appeared in my pictures. If you paint more and dabble in a wide range, all the materials will become the real materials in your paintings. Most of the characters in my illustrations over the years are based on the people around me, my students, the little sister next door, the old king next door... Many familiar faces around me have appeared in the Reader's illustrations. So that for a while, when everyone picked up "Reader", they were particularly happy, guessing who Teacher Li would be illustrating in the next issue.
Illustration is to insert a picture into a good article, use this picture to analyze and reconstruct the scene constructed by the author with words in the article, help everyone understand and understand the characters in the article, turn the abstract text into a figurative image, and infect the reader with the complementarity of the picture and the text. Painting and illustration habits will affect the creation of theme paintings, resulting in whether it is a major historical theme, or the performance of heroes, historical celebrities, always can't help but tell the events as stories, and paint the characters like people living around them. Always feeling that amiable, believable characters and plots with environmental backgrounds are more likely to resonate and move people's hearts, and this kind of illustration thinking does not know whether it is good or bad.
When there are more illustrations, it is no longer simply a picture of other people's words, but it is seriously created as an independent work. When some of my illustrations were shown separately, many people said it was like a subject painting. So as early as more than ten years ago, Jilin Fine Arts Publishing House published two illustrated books of illustrations that I drew for "Reader". Looking back at his illustration career, he has painted so many stories, some of the Republic of China, some of today's, some of foreign countries, some of children, and some of the ethnic minorities... Along the way, it seems to have trained himself into a "miscellaneous" family.
From the time I graduated from college to now, I have always insisted on creating. Now I have a lot of topics in my hands, a large part of which are comic strips and picture book illustrations about the subject figures. In the just-published works such as "Wang Jinxi", "Ye Shengtao", "Deng Jiaxian", "Guo Yonghuai", "Yu Min", "Wang Ganchang" and so on, there are not only heroic figures, but also educators, as well as scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the "two bombs and one star", etc. There are many characters, the themes are complex, and the span between the ages is also very large. At present, these works have been signed with publishing houses.
If you want to be a good illustrator, then I want to give you some advice: the illustrator must have solid painting skills, good artistic literacy, in addition, the illustrator should also be a miscellaneous family, the stomach is a grocery store, or a splendid heart; the painter should not only expand his experience, know how to observe life, use experience, but also skillfully deal with the text, and to keep up with the pace of the times, familiar with the current new media Internet.
At present, illustrated comic strips are in a period of vigorous development, there are more and more excellent high-quality paintings and periodicals, and painting forms such as electronic illustrations and comic strips combined with digital media are the trends and directions of future development. Therefore, I am full of confidence in China's illustration career, and I believe that as an illustrator, the subject matter, creative form and creative space will become more and more extensive.