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50 Beautiful Feminine Illustrations and Artworks
July 28th, 2008 in Inspiration | 82 Comments
By Elaine B. Inc. and Smashing Editorial Team
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is the quality of femininity. Exploring this for many artists takes on a diversity of themes. From exploring the pleasures of being a girl to a simple childhood memory, each artist embodies this message in its own unique way and choice of medium.
The collection of renderings selected in this episode of the Monday Inspiration series, 50 beautiful and creative feminine illustrations is sure to please your feminine side. And if your feminine side is non existent — beautiful women have always been and remain an excellent inspiration.
Please notice: this showcase was supposed to present unusual styles, ideas and approaches to the illustration of a woman — not just some beautiful illustrations. Some examples are very funny, the other ones are very sad. Hopefully, everybody will find something new and interesting for himself / herself. At the bottom of the article you’ll find further sources to explore feminine illustrations on the Web and find artists that exude girly.
Beautiful Feminine Illustrations and Artworks
This post showcases different styles, different ideas, different approaches to the illustration of a girl and a woman. Some examples are very funny, the other ones are very sad. Hopefully, every reader will find something new and interesting for himself / herself.
stella im hultberg
Always…. 12″x16″ (18″x22″ framed). oil and ink on tea-stained paper.
Kattaca
La Esencia de Klimt
cinderella_web
Hi Fructose.
Cecilia Carlstedt

Emilie Dionne
These very sensual renderings have sweetness and moxie all over it.
Esther Kirby
Cherry Blossoms.
James Jean
Artists run the gamut in terms of style, approach, and output. There are those who suffer to produce work while others create with relative ease. And then there are those who gush with creativity, ideas spilling from their minds like blood rushes to the heart. James Jean is this type of artist.
Laura Su
Laura’s very couture illustrations feel like they belong inside a fashion magazine.
Kathy Jeffords
Inside jokes that everyone gets.
Very Distinctive Pieces - Experimental View on Women
noINKling
Elephant rains on girl.
Cute Illustrated Girl Characters
Lorena Alvarez
The Princess and the Pea.
Julie West
A girl with 2 birds.
Pau Morgan
Girl from another planet.
sweetimaginations
Never Lose Sight of Your Dreams
Carambatack
Sabrina.
Resources
- Etsy Feminine Watercolors Illustrations
Etsy search for watercolor illustrations. - Deviant Art Feminine Illustration
Deviant Art search for watercolor illustrations. - Fashion Illustration Gallery
Great source for inspiration. - Folioplanet
Another great site for inspiration. - Illustrationweb
An artist representation site, but nonetheless, an inspiration sparker. - About.com
A nice tutorial on how to draw the human form. - Fashion Plates
A collection of tutorials and resources on how to draw. - Girl’s Art Flickr Pool
















































Venkat (July 28th, 2008, 1:17 am)
very beautiful work great work
Julius (July 28th, 2008, 1:17 am)
Very Cool Illustrations!!!
Maneesh Prabhalayam (July 28th, 2008, 1:23 am)
Really Beautiful!!!
V1 (July 28th, 2008, 1:27 am)
seen better over at DA…
but these are ok.. i guess
Silvia Barone (July 28th, 2008, 1:35 am)
Don’t forget Daniel Egnéus.
Starting from here - Link [www.danielegneus.com] - you can easily reach his world apart and his beautiful girlz
take care
OverZero.it (July 28th, 2008, 1:53 am)
Killer article!
I’m in troubble: after this I want start drawing again, but I must/want study JSF too! I don’t have time to do both at the same time… oooh… God.
Elena (July 28th, 2008, 2:01 am)
lovely!
Dave (July 28th, 2008, 2:26 am)
Disappointing article. Not the best from Smashing :(
maja bencic (July 28th, 2008, 2:38 am)
great collection!
Eric Daigh (July 28th, 2008, 3:03 am)
don’t leave out Joe Sorren. I suspect many of these fine illustrators were influenced by him.
Link [joesorren.com]
Stimul8d (July 28th, 2008, 3:04 am)
Nice work guys.
jbcarey (July 28th, 2008, 3:12 am)
Oooohhh my iphone is gonna love these new backgrounds ;)
googiw (July 28th, 2008, 3:14 am)
so cute ^________^
Leo (July 28th, 2008, 4:24 am)
where do you get all these from ??…man, amazing..
Dulce (July 28th, 2008, 4:55 am)
Great to see Audrey Kawasaki on the list. I’m a fan of her work!
atxanne (July 28th, 2008, 5:51 am)
It continues to depress me that only skinny and/or anorexic women are considered “beautiful and inspiring”. At least there are a few healthy beautiful children.
p3@rl (July 28th, 2008, 6:10 am)
i really love these artworks!!! very inspiring! it makes me wanna start drawing again. thanks a lot for sharing!
BJN (July 28th, 2008, 7:12 am)
Like eating a bowl of saccharine. I look forward to the death of this kitsch cuteness fad.
scruff (July 28th, 2008, 7:39 am)
So ‘feminine’ = picture of a woman? How cheap.
heather (July 28th, 2008, 11:51 am)
if one were to make feminine artwork that didn’t include the human form, apparently, one would only need to include balloons, bubbles, flowers and candy. i’m not sure how i feel about that. oh and voluminous hair and crowns, those seem quite popular too. why is femininity linked so closely to childhood? it feels lolita-esque. i’d like to see anti-feminine illustrations–and by that i don’t mean masculine, but art work of women that go beyond what we already know as being representative of femininity.
i like
Steven Coburn (July 28th, 2008, 12:08 pm)
wow, a nice collection… i can easily see some of this artwork hanging in my future NYC appt. :) good stuff
Cosmi (July 28th, 2008, 12:40 pm)
Very nice!
Elee (July 28th, 2008, 12:42 pm)
It amazes me, the vehemence displayed by some of these comments. While art is meant to provoke (and, as such, I’m sure the artists are not entirely unfamiliar with this kind of response just as, given their immense talent, they are accustomed to receiving praise), there is a particular venom injected into any discourse online, an inarticulate anger shrouded in the illusion of anonymity, that prevents any real conversation from taking place. Unfortunately, this has become a typically ignorant forum (evidenced by incongruous sentences) wherein people feign intelligence by dissecting femininity and attack the artists without offering any real, meaningful conclusions.
pink (July 28th, 2008, 5:53 pm)
wow..very nice.lovely..thank you
Jason (July 28th, 2008, 8:07 pm)
Can’t believe there is nothing on here from Stuntkid.com!
gaurav chandra (July 28th, 2008, 8:33 pm)
There are some really talented people out there. Man I like them all.
Satya Prakash Karan (July 28th, 2008, 9:20 pm)
Cool!
O1O Sound (July 28th, 2008, 9:24 pm)
fresh.
nice varied collection.
some of them are super dooope!
Two Socks (July 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm)
yes very nice. plenty of artist’s doing this sort of work these days.
marg (July 28th, 2008, 11:28 pm)
my works are feminine too! xD it should be part of this! hahaha
hal9000 (July 28th, 2008, 11:46 pm)
I’d like to agree with Elee here.
I would love to be able to express myself artisticly as these people have
I would like to applaud the talents of these artists and say thank you to smashing once again for giving us interesting and beautiful content as they always seem to do (like very few other blogs i know of)
NeoSheet (July 29th, 2008, 2:47 am)
carambatack
Gisele (July 29th, 2008, 5:12 am)
Wonderful features :D What a pleasure to see so much cuteness around!!!
GN29 (July 29th, 2008, 6:23 am)
wow they are really wonderful, and inspiring, thanks for posting!!!
lica (July 29th, 2008, 7:06 am)
One of the best posts yet because it’s a cool timestamp on the way that the female figure has been portrayed. Can see lots of colleges and universities use this post for their discussions!!
Nick (July 29th, 2008, 8:05 am)
Some of the piece are nice some of the piece are still in development. What I see is a lot of is decoration, similar to what someone posted earlier. Art does not need to be defended, but it is always opened for criticism. I think intellectual discussions are for science and math forums, art is about expression and yes, these artist are expressing, but one thing I would like to see it a posting of their ages. That would give clarity on the development level of each artist and better understanding to the work they put out. If I had to guess average age is around 22. I enjoyed the view. Thanks.
Elee (July 29th, 2008, 10:11 am)
Nick,
The assumption that intellectual discussions should be a feature exclusively of “science and math forums” is absolute foolishness! Art is not just about expression, but about interpretation and dissection. Jackson Pollock–who led Abstract Expressionism–would be nothing, would never have been folded into the publics’ skeptical conscience, without Clement Greenberg’s critiques.
“Development level” has nothing to do with age, and it makes me wonder about your own age and how it would correspond to your maturity as a thoughtful person, a thoughtfulness which you, of course, reserve for left brain forums.
As to the pieces being “decoration”, I think that a lot of these artists are doing what MANY artists are striving for these days: They are straddling two worlds that used to be–only a decade ago–very separate, the fine art world and the illustrative world. Traditionally, fine art allows for a constantly evolving style and elusive and abstract concepts to be displayed, requiring analytical thought; due to the demands of art directors, illustration is much more about a direct and consistent style with a clear visual message, often corresponding to provided text. The effort to reconcile the disparities between these two worlds is a tough one, and it is what many of these artists seem to be working toward.
“Development level” has nothing to do with age, and it makes me wonder about your own age and how it would correspond to your maturity as a thoughtful person, a thoughtfulness which you, of course, reserve for left brain forums.
As to the pieces being “decoration”, I think that a lot of these artists are doing what MANY artists are striving for these days: They are straddling two worlds that used to be–only a decade ago–very separate, the fine art world and the illustrative world. Traditionally, fine art allows for a constantly evolving style and elusive and abstract concepts to be displayed, requiring analytical thought; due to the demands of art directors, illustration is much more about a direct and consistent style with a clear visual message, often corresponding to provided text. The effort to reconcile the disparities between these two worlds is a tough one, and it is what many of these artists seem to be working toward.
Elee (July 29th, 2008, 10:24 am)
Nick,
The assumption that intellectual discussions should be a feature exclusively of “science and math forums” is absolute foolishness! Art is not just about expression, but about interpretation and dissection. Jackson Pollock–who led Abstract Expressionism–would be nothing, would never have been folded into the publics’ skeptical conscience, without Clement Greenberg’s critiques.
“Development level” has nothing to do with age, and it makes me wonder about your own age and how it would correspond to your maturity as a thoughtful person, a thoughtfulness which you, of course, reserve for left brain forums.
As to the pieces being “decoration”, I think that a lot of these artists are doing what MANY artists are striving for these days: They are straddling two worlds that used to be–only a decade ago–very separate, the fine art world and the illustrative world. Traditionally, fine art allows for a constantly evolving style and elusive and abstract concepts to be displayed, requiring analytical thought; due to the demands of art directors, illustration is much more about a direct and consistent style with a clear visual message, often corresponding to provided text. The effort to reconcile the disparities between these two worlds is a tough one, and it is what many of these artists seem to be working toward.
Reginald (July 29th, 2008, 2:19 pm)
These are some truly astounding pictures.
I am still taken aback. Where do you find these rare gems?
ayee (July 29th, 2008, 3:38 pm)
nice !
terry (July 29th, 2008, 6:30 pm)
really cool ~ thank you !
Chan (July 29th, 2008, 9:12 pm)
Is there some sort of clan out there whose only mission is to post stupid negative comments on Smashing Magazine?
Esther Kirby (July 30th, 2008, 3:52 am)
Thank you for featuring “Cherry Blossom” as its a special creation for my friend Gia’s MTV. Thanks again!
Kathy Jeffords (July 30th, 2008, 4:24 am)
First, many thanks for including my pieces among such beautiful work.
To those responding to the negative comments, thank you, as one of the featured artists, for speaking out on our behalf.
As an artist who does “cute” however — I’ve grown sort of accustomed to hearing that sort of thing. If it has big eyes or could be fit in with the decor of a child’s room, it’s somehow not valid as “art”.
That’s okay. I know that not everyone has the same taste and some people will not like my work. That’s cool and doesn’t really bother me to read these types of things anymore.
One thing that does still manage to get under my skin a teensy bit is when people assume that cute paintings with big-eyed girls are just a trend — that it’s just some bandwagon everyone jumped on simply because it was what everyone else was doing. Since I first picked up a paintbrush and tube of paint, cute girls (and to a lesser extent, critters, and the occasional boy or two) were what appeared on the canvas.
Do I consider my art “fine art” or believe that it will ever wind up on museum walls? Nope. I don’t think I am Picasso and have never claimed to be — but I do not create my art because it’s trendy or I want to be famous or remembered as one of the greats — I create my art because it makes me happy, it is what fills my head and my heart.
And for the record, I am 31 (but young at heart, so if someone wants to think I’m 22, that’s cool with me). Yes, I do believe artists develop skills and techniques and become better with practice. Though I’ve been creative and crafty all my life, I just seriously begain painting about four or five years ago — and yes, the early stuff makes me cringe a little, so I have definitely improved and hope to continue to — but from the very beginning, my style, though evolved a bit, has been my style. Some people like it, some people don’t….and I’m okay with that.
Thank you again!
KJ
Giuliani Rodrici (July 30th, 2008, 1:14 pm)
¡Fantástico, estupendo, wonderfull ! Me ha gustado mucho esta colección de ilustraciones desde distintas ópticas, texturas y motivaciones. Desde luego el más sensual es Klimt, con su
“esencia del perfume”. ¡Chapeau! ¡Un 10!
germaine (July 31st, 2008, 4:21 am)
Superb selection, very neat topic !
biluri cuca (July 31st, 2008, 4:30 am)
wah wah… pitcholinhas? no rave?
Lahure dai (July 31st, 2008, 8:08 am)
impressive!!!
bsilvia (July 31st, 2008, 10:41 am)
Great list!
S
Linda (August 1st, 2008, 9:03 am)
wonderful collection! really enjoyed it. congrats to all that were featured.
Ines (August 5th, 2008, 12:36 am)
Amazing illustrations…very beautiful!
Nick (August 8th, 2008, 9:23 am)
You know posting here is a little like writing stuff on the walls of bathrooms.
Lot of great work here, and I would like to apologize if I offended anyone, but art should speak for it’s self.
Peace.
Bunny got Blog (August 10th, 2008, 3:29 am)
I like them very much.
jason levesque (August 15th, 2008, 6:02 am)
haha, the “where’s stuntkid” jason wasn’t me!
Great collection of works by the way :)
Jimi (August 19th, 2008, 5:30 pm)
Alot of these are Mucha-esque
anna (August 21st, 2008, 8:07 pm)
yeah, they have a lot of very art-nouveau elements. i think they’re quite pretty.
rkdsign88 (September 18th, 2008, 1:57 am)
Lovely works of course
John (October 12th, 2008, 9:27 pm)
What is up with think necks?