Shaun Tan

The Arrival; a story about immigration told entirely through drawings, no words, dialogue or any typography whatsoever involved in the telling of one man's journey away from his family, across the ocean to a brand new country.
Shaun Tan uses a realistic style but creates a new world populated by weird and wonderful creatures, landscapes and cultures.

The story is inspired by stories told by immigrants including Tan's own father.
There are hints of war, holocaust, poverty and slavery in the stories told by the protagonists fellow immigrants.

The book is immensely useful for studying how close-cropping, framing, perspective, tone and expression can be used to great effect to tell a story without resorting to words.

Arthur Rackham

 Beautiful ink work and paint. I'm especially interested in the muted colour scheme with just splashes of colour

 He really knew how to use composition. The colour is at diagonal corners of the picture.

 I don't know if it's Rackham or just the book about him, but I was charmed by the hand drawn letters with the illustrations, like the book of kells?

 Self Portrait. Look at the cropping! This is why the teachers kept nudging us towards his work.

Shadowy painterly type illustration. There weren't too many of this type in the book.

I love Arthur Rackham, especially since his biography said he was a bit shy and weird. He wasn't really the networking type, he just got on with what he was best at.