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There's more to this artist than his fantastically detailed and nostalgic fairytale images, as Ed Ricketts find out
I'm not proud of my computer illiteracy but I do feel the need to be honest about it and share my situation with others," admits Scott Gustafson, renderer of gorgeous fairy tales scenes in traditional media. "It's only through talking about this shameful problem that I think we, as a society, can come to terms with it and learn to deal with those less fortunate among us who neither text nor tweet..."
He is, of course, joking. As a veteran illustrator of 36 years to date (and counting), Scott has little need of digital tools, versatile as he is with almost every traditional medium - be it oils, gouache or charcoal. Besides, the kind of gloriously detailed and coloured scenes he paints, harking back to the Golden Age of illustrators, seem to cry out for the gentle touch of media to canvas, rather than the sometimes harshly delineated tones of software.
Scott is unashamedly influenced by the likes of NC Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and Arthur Rackham, and like those admired artists, he creates nostalgic, glowing images that never veer to the sickly or twee. It would be slightly reductive to call him a children's artist, although it's true that Scott has created many illustrations for age-old fairy tales and bedtime stories (if you're of a certain age and grew up in Britain, you might be reminded of the classic hardback Ladybird story books).
Yet he has also written and illustrated his own children's book, Eddie: The Lost Youth of Edgar Allan Poe, which showcases a somewhat darker side to his talent, and commercial clients include Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post, The Bradford Exchange, DreamWorks and The Greenwich Workshop.
SINGLE-MINDED AMBITION
"I grew up in a small town in northern Illinois, and attended elementary and high school there," Scott says. "I always liked to draw and was continually encouraged by my parents, relatives and teachers to continue drawing and painting, so the idea of someday becoming an artist was with me from just about as far back as I can remember."
However, it was animation that called to the young Gustafson, so much so...