Since I've been perusing back issues of the New Yorker, I'm really taken by the cover work of illustrator Heidi Goennel, and I really don't know why they don't use her work now - they don't seem to have used her for covers since the early 1990s. She's still around - here is her web site.
I just love her flat color arrangements that are both beautifully abstract yet completely figurative. There's just something about that look that I really love. I'm going to have to buy some prints one of these days.
Some more of her New Yorker covers:
She does well with water.
She's not big on faces - too many small areas, but that's OK, it's a style choice. Anyway I love the composition here, especially the way the yellow is balanced.
This might be my favorite, with the giant foreground Easter eggs - for some reason this doesn't show up in searchs of the Conde-Nast store.
