Tara McPherson

Tara McPherson is an illustrator in New York, famous for her "art about people". She has done poster art and illustrations for advertising, editorial and comics. Her fine art has been in galleries in new york, california and germany, and will be in a gallery in texas in march. She's even been featured in the film Juno. I love the comic book covers featured on her website and her poster art, because they're always so creative.

Her website is taramcpherson.com

Blaine Fontana

Blaine Fontana is an artist in Portland, Oregon. His work includes paintings, sculpture, mixed media illustrations and various graphic design projects. He's been featured in several galleries, mainly in California, and was recently chosen to create a concept car for scion. The brightly colored pieces are usually pretty strange, sometimes with an asian influence; my favorites are his mixed media pieces.
Go to his website here.

Melissa Cole

My art class worked with Melissa Cole around the beginning of winter, so I thought I'd display her although it's not a style of art I usually like. She does bright, textured mixed media paintings of wildlife. Her workshop was a lot of fun because she has such a varied cultural background and had all these stories to tell us about living in India, visiting Mexico and even swimming with dolphins. The techniques for creating texture she taught us were amazing. You really can't understand the whole concept of the painting unless you see it up close in person. She's used everything from grout to rubbing alcohol to create her paintings. She is currently featured in galleries throughout the western united states, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and does commissions.

Her website is melissacole.com

Jonathan Viner

Jonathan Viner is an artist residing in New York. He sells prints of both drawings and paintings online and is frequently exhibited. He has been in galleries in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Tokyo, among others. I really like the surreal, almost dreamy quality of his art, which often features sad or serious people in forlorn scenery.
His website is here and his myspace is here.