Alberto Cerriteno is a Mexican illustrator and designer. He is strongly inspired by urban vinyl toys, alternative cartoons and the pop surrealism movement.
This piece of work is a bear illustration that he has done. I am unaware of the purpose of why he made this piece of work, but it looks like it could be used in a children’s book or a children’s animation which is what I am focusing on.
I read on his website (http://albertocerriteno.com/profile.html) that he is strongly inspired by urban vinyl toys, alternative cartoons, pop surrealism movement and traditional Mexican artistic influences in his management of rich textures and decorative patterns. This piece of work is definitely a great example of all of those aspects.
Cerriteno uses a great amount of the formal elements and he makes them work very successfully together with his alternative pieces of work. There is a lot of pattern being used; circles, lines, spikes. I especially like the lines because it makes the bear look as though he has a furry, hairy texture. I also think that the lines underneath the bear’s eyes are admirable because they show that the bear has mood- we get lines, or ‘’bags’’, underneath our eyes when we’re tired. The bear’s right eye is also bigger than his left, which shows that he might be quite drained too. There are similar lines to the ones underneath his eyes beside his mouth, which shows movement of his mouth as if he is speaking or making a noise with his mouth.
The spikes on the bear also show a sense of texture, but a different texture to the rest of his body. These spikes on the outline of the bear’s body make it look as though if you touched him, it would hurt. If this is the case, other animals wouldn’t want to get close to him as they would be scared that he would hurt them.
The bear has a few circles on his body; the symbol of a circle means unity, wholeness, infinity, the goddess, female power and the sun. This could mean that the bear is female or ‘’whole’’.
The colours used are quite warm and neutral, also relating to the natural colours that a bear usually has (browns). The colour red is usually associated with anger, violence and love. Orange is known to be quite a stimulating colour, along with brown, and it stimulates these emotions of red. Additionally, white is said to represent cleanliness, purity and softness.
Looking deeper into each aspect of this illustration has given me a better understanding of what the purpose or message Cerriteno might have wanted to get across with this. The bear has a mix of both inviting an uninviting manners about it. Although most of his fur looks soft, the spikes on the outline make it look quite risky to approach. Its eyes look tired and drained. Both of these things together make me think that the bear is a kind (soft fur) person on the inside, but people see it as something scary and unapproachable (spikes). This makes the bear get tired of trying to show other animals that it actually is a nice creature, which causes it’s eyes to produce ‘’bags’’ (lines). It has the circles on its body to try to convince itself that it is ‘’whole’’ and loved (colour red) and the colour orange shows that it is stimulating itself to feel these emotions. The circle also symbolizes female power, which may suggest that this bear is a female.
As a result, my perception of this illustration is that the bear is a female, who is a kind, warm animal but other animals perceive her as a monster or a pain. She tries to prove to herself that she is whole, that nothing can get her down because she is already very happy, but her eyes prove the opposite. Her eyes show that she is tired and drained. She’s alone.
Although my approach to this illustration may be completely inaccurate, I believe that this is a very successful piece of work. Analysing this piece of work is going to help me when creating my own characters in response to Alberto Cerriteno because I have looked at each aspect of his work deeply and I can now base my characters around a certain story which I can portray through my illustrations effectively.
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