Three Trees Make a Forest

by Enrico Casarosa, Ronnie Del Carmen (Illustrator), tadahiro Uesugi (Illustrator)

The three artists featured in Three Trees Make a Forest are professional illustrators with a penchant for travel and ambitious side projects in books and Comics. Ronnie Del Carmen is a story artist, character designer and illustrator at Pixar Animation Studios in California. Del Carmen has also worked in comics with DC and Dark Horse. Tadahiro Uesugi is a world renowned illustrator, based in Japan who creates intuitive drawings of landscapes, characters and urban scenery, all with an amazing sense of color and texture. Enrico Casarosa is also a story artist at Pixar and is the founder of Sketch Crawl, a worldwide marathon sketching event. Most of the work found in Three Trees Make a Forest was originally created for an exhibition of the same name at Nucleus Gallery in Alhambra, CA.

Genres: Art

128 pages, Hardcover

First published April 12, 2006

Reviews

[Melissa Helton · Rating 1 out of 5]

For the first image or two, each artist's work was interesting, but then each collection hit one note over and over and over. There was very little depth to the women being presented. Skinny, beautiful, "quivering" inside perhaps, and not much substance to most of them. I think that it's important for male artists to try to not just create beautiful, empty women. We've seen that for literal centuries. I guess I want women in art who are characters, who have nuance, who aren't just pretty or sexy for the gaze of the viewer.

[Parka · Rating 4 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

This book doesn't have anything to do with trees, although there are painted trees in some of the illustration. It's a very simple art book, an artistic expression of three artists, Ronnie Del Carmen, Tadahiro Uesugi and Enrico Casarosa. It collects the work they have created for an exhibition.

The small hardcover opens up to illustrations from Tadahiro Uesugi. He presents images of urban settings rendered in nice texture, form and lighting. They are basically snapshots of life. Enrico Casarosa, in his section, contributes watercolour portraits of women, with a few dynamic top down camera views. Finally Ronnie Del Carman with his dream girl Nina.

Lacking any stories (and depth), the art just represents themselves, certainly in a style not for everyone. I like Tadahiro Uesugi's work more as there are more detailed and he captures the mood well. Enrico Casarosa's sketches in the book don't really do it for me, his other book The Venice Chronicles is however absolutely wonderful.

Three Trees Make a Forest a beautiful coffee table book, but I would recommended it more to fans of these artists.

[JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple, gorgeous, and fun to look at. These three dudes make a great trio, and between them, the forest is looking especially lush. I'm keeping it close to my desk whenever I need to water the plants in my own artistic garden.

[SmarterLilac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and fascinating. Normally, I shy away from ultramodern art, but I found these works charming. Happy I now know of these artists.

[Oz Monz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of illustrations. The artists little thoughts and writing made it more enjoyable. It is like a journey to their souls.