#black illustrator

[vampirepyramidscheme]

Claudia's Dear Diary... (2025)

My full piece for @thevelvetcompote's Blood and Brocade zine/artbook. Forgot to share the full image sooner - but I'm fixing that now.

You can still purchase digital copies of the zine here.

[seraphicsapphics]

I am endeavoring to finish or let go of all the sketches in my sketch folder. There are many of veth because I remain obsessed with her

Ko-fi|Insta|Cara|Bsky

[adannadokmai]

poppy girls from the wiz♡

[wysteriadragon777]

Raph portrait complete!

[mightymorphinpowerreiner]

🪩🪩🪩

[itgetsbetter]

🌙 In love with this new illustration from koidoodles!✨

Koi says: "To celebrate Black queerness (and at once queer Blackness) is to celebrate the multitudes of life. In much the same way that the sea's beauty is enhanced by the world it reflects, or how the sky is not just the atmosphere but the clouds and stars and all that it holds, there is unique vibrancy in appreciating intersectionality. To me, to be Black and to be LGBT are two important parts of me but not two separate concepts. There is overlap, they affect each other.

I see this in myself, and on a much grander scale in the way Black culture and queer culture are both enriched by Black queer people, who all deserve to be celebrated and uplifted for who they are.

I hope this piece reflects some of the peace and warmth that can be found in taking time to celebrate your own intricacy as well as that which exists all around us.” 💜

PS: If you sign up to be a recurring donor to support LGBTQ+ youth during Black History Month, we'll send you Koi's exclusive postcard-sized piece as a thank-you for free. Win win, no?

[itshunnib]

Happy Pride Month✨

First illustration for Pride month. I love it 🫶🏾💕✨

[uwmspeccoll]

Spotlight: African Folktales

For Black History Month I found another book of folktales (shocker) to share with you all! The fun and exciting part of this job is being able to look into things that one would not normally take the time to explore, and I have been given the opportunity to do nothing but explore and dig into the expansive collection we have in Special Collections (if you aren’t getting interested to come in and take a peek, you should be).

The book I am keen on sharing is The Ox of the Wonderful Horns: And Other African Folktales, a children’s book from our Historical Curriculum Collection, published in New York by Atheneum in 1971. The stories were retold and illustrated by Ashley Frederick Bryan (1923-2022), an American writer and illustrator for children’s books, of which most of his subjects focus on the African-American experience. Bryan’s desire and challenge for the anthology was to “bring the stilted language of the linguists’ narration back to an oral tradition through rhythm and poetic verses.”

This anthology features five tales from Akan-Ashanti, Angolan, South African, and Kaffir myths with various illustrations accompanying us through each story. The illustrations switch between half-page black and white and full-page color that are meant to evoke African wood block motifs that suggest the ochres and reds of African clay dyes and African textile designs; very eye-catching and absorbing!

View another of my posts.

View more Black History Month posts.

-- Elizabeth, Special Collections Undergraduate Writing Intern