Reportage illustration is a method of visually documenting the instances which transpire in a particular space.

Reportage illustration, or ‘from life’, is a method in which artists transcribe the world around them. Some artists choose subway tunnels, gatherings at coffee shops, or even animals at the local zoo.

Each finished drawing is a narrative of the artist’s willingness, transcription abilities, and interests.

The compositions of these drawings are completely reliant on the position of the artist during the transcribing of the events. For instance, a daring artist my transcribe an environment while sitting on an overpass bridge. Each car driven may be represented in its entirety or a few blurred lines. Often, pages become filled with seemingly random lines but each is representative of a movement, position, or a moment in time.

This transcription method is true for all subject matter and the level of detail is typically indicative of the amount of the time which the artist had in which to capture the moment.

Reportage drawings can range from a page full of random scribbles as an artist tries to capture the movement of a large crowd of people, or laden with the most pain staking detail as he or she draws an old vehicle overtaken by nature.

Regardless of the perceived beauty of the image, we must stop and recognize the efforts and deliberation taken by the artist because it is them we are looking at and not their composition.