This illustration of John Lennon was made using a combination of the pen, brush and gradient tools. When making illustrations like this you have to use multiple layers and change the stroke on the lines to get the nice shapes and harder edges that make this illustration work. What I really like about this one is the expressionistic use of color the artists take on how the light hits the subject. This piece was probably a trace from a portrait of Lennon, but I could be wrong. Either way avery nice piece in my opinion. 
GRA 217 Section 5 Group 2
The official blog for GRA 217 with Sherri Taylor
This illustration is very eye-catching. I like how the colors work together. It creates shadows and introduces multi-dimension. The artist may have used pen tool, brush tool and paint bucket.
Having chosen a portrait for my illustration also, I can really understand the appeal in this image. I really love how the artist has chosen very eclectic colors to design Lennon’s face and bring out details, especially in Lennon’s eyes and hair. The purple paint is very effectively used to shade one side of Lennon’s face and creates a very convincing argument the there is natural light shining in on Lennon’s features from the left hand side. As said above, this image could have been created using the pen tool, adjusting the thickness for different areas to show both bold and intricate lines.