Tom Schamp is a Flemish illustrator with a long track record. He used to make a lot of work for magazines and newspapers, cd-covers and other commercial graphics, but nowadays he’s more into making picture books (he has made 15 of them in the last 5 years).
The “Literair Museum” (literary museum) of Hasselt, Belgium is having a nice exhibition of Schamps’ work which focuses mainly on this more recent work for picture books. The illustrations are far more detailed than his older work and always very humoristic. Schamp has a fascination for strange objects, little hand painted boxes, stamps, animal-shaped coffeepots, you name it… They appear in his pictures but apparently, they are real too. A whole collection of them is on display at the exhibition.
Also worth discovering is the more technical aspect of his work. Schamp uses acrylic paint to achieve the typical intensity of his colors, but he makes all the different elements of an illustration separately on pieces of cardboard, which later get scanned to be puzzled together digitally.
If you are anywhere near Hasselt, Belgium, try to pay a visit to this lovely artist and his work. For now, here’s a small selection of older and more recent work.
Visit the site of the Literair Museum Hasselt here. (The exhibition runs ‘till November 7, 2010). Or go to the site of Tom Schamp himself for some more work here.
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