Photography

William Klein

Finally I looked at William Kleins photography. I was really very impressed with his photos. They are just really striking and eye catching. 

These are examples of his street photography. He's just really captured the essense of the time in his photos. I love the movement and how he's caught particular expressions. Also the black and white makes the photo really striking such as the black and white squares on the top one. 

I love little elements of it such as the advertising in the background, and the postures of the people captured. Each one of his photos has lots to look at and and are each strong in there own way. 

Photography

Andre Kertesz

Andre Kertesz is the third photographer I decided to look at. It's his series of distorted images that really caught my eye. 

 This is an example of one of them. He was first commisioned to do these for a magazine, then carried on to do more of this nature. Obviously the nature of distortion appealed to him, and I think all the photos are really genuinly intreguing. They seem almost surreal. He used carnival mirrors to take the photos and pretty much all of them are of female nudes. There is something about the photos that I find quite unsettling (In a good way) as reality is completley taken away and they are really confusing to look at. I think how he's not included the edges of the mirror emphasises this. It's not clear that these are taken through a mirror via the photos themselves which make them quite mysterious, and ulitmatly draws you in more to the figure itself.

Photography

Lorna Simpson

The fourth artist that appealed to me was fine art photographer Lorna Simpson. American photographer who made her name in the 80's/90's. The piece I wanted to look close at was "Five Day Forecast" which was first made in 1988 and she remade it in 1991. 

I think the general composition and how this piece looked visually is what drew me to it. But researching more into the underlying context I found really interesting and really made me aware how strong the piece is visually and contextually.

 

The is the piece "Five Day Forecast". It's hard to see from the size of the image but along the top is days of the week engraved in capital letters, san serif font on black plaques. Along the bottom of the images is ten more plaques with the words ‘Misdescription’, ‘Misinformation’, ‘Misidentify’, ‘Misdiagnose’, ‘Misfunction’, ‘Mistranscribe’, ‘Misremember’, ‘Misgauge’, ‘Misconstrue’ and ‘Mistranslate’. In the photos is a cropped image of a black woman with her arms crossed. They are not the same repeated image, there is subtle differences in each pose. But the pose itself is very defensive and obstinate. Despite the cropping you can still tell it's a woman in these images. I think it's clear Lorna Simpson is trying to say something about sex and race in this image.
The clothing that the woman is wearing seems to be a plain shift dress and looks to be some sort of uniform. You get the impression these photos are taken from each working day and are portraying the feelings and experiences of this day to day working life for this black woman. How the pose hardly changes suggests this is how she feels every day, this is her life. 

How the image has cropped the face off, gives the woman a lack of identity. A lack of personality. Which is presumably hinting to how she is treated in her work place, or how she feels as a worker. She's not regarded as a person. All the words below have negative connotations and hint to the working relationships.

To conclude, as only really looking at this image for 10 minutes I've read a lot into, shows how strong her images are. I think there is a lot more underlying meaning to this piece and I think that's what makes it really interesting.

Photography

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman is the second photographer I decided to look at from the 50 photographers list. Most of her work is black and white photos of herself and female models. They are often blurry and quite obscure and I really was just very intrigued by her work and really wanted to look more into it. 

There is something really eery and ghost-like about a lot of her photos. How she often obscures the face gives these bodies a lack of identity. The composition of this above one is really nice, how she's taken it from the top of a stair and incorporated a reflection from the mirror at the bottom. Theres a real enigma to the photo. The blurriness of the figure has created a movement in the image, as if she's falling/fell/been pushed down the steps. It's quite a violent image. The cracked mirror, the brawled figure and the grungey stained walls.

I really like this one. How it's really captured the movement. The blurring of the figure and the garment. How the clothing the figure is wearing, even though you can't see it appears quite white and crisp, it contrasts nicely with the dirty wall behind. The floor is really dark and grimy but the figure looks free, let loose. I think it really is a nice image. It's distorted just enough, it's still clear that this is a female figure and you can still make out the dress she's wearing.

This one is also really quite a nice one. It's subtle. How the figure is semi in the water and semi intertwined with the roots of the tree. It's as if she is one with the ground. She's part of the nature surrounding her. 

Photography

Idris Khan

For contextual studies for photography we were shown a PowerPoint of 50 photographers and had to pick 3 in which we wanted to have a look at in detail. Idris Khan was the one that struck me as most interesting. I think it's the general use of layering that I thought looked really effective and have always found appealing when it comes to photo distortion. 

The Houses of Parliament London 2012

I'm also a bit of a sucker for black and white photography, so it's no wonder I found this photographer of interest.  This above photo I particularly liked. He apparently used 70-100 different images, different fragments of the image. His sources ranged from photographs, to stock images and postcards. I think it looks really effective, the different opacity's and layers. It urges you to look closer into the photo.  I also like even though the image looks really distorted you can still see what building is. It is still recognisable, which shows he's been very selective with which bits of the building he's chosen to repeat and how he's layered it. He's been careful not to alter the essence of the building and the surrounding area. 

I also thing there is something about the image that makes me think of time and change. From researching this work some of the photos used were from the 1930s and I presume others were contemporary. Which I think draws on this theme of change and the passing of time. 

The London Eye London 2012

I also think it's genuinely really interesting to see a photographer whose primary material is software. Often it's just a tool used to alter photos slightly but for Idris Khan software is essential for making he's artwork. I think this is interesting, as fairly often photo manipulation can be something that is kind of frowned upon, and seen as a 'cheat', when really so much can be achieved with it and his work is a great example of that. This London eye one I really find quite mesmerising. The way the different layered images of the eye are from deifferent angles and prespectives is really interesting and again really gives the idea of movement. It works really well for this one because the eye is a moving structure and this effect nicely gives an impression of movement.

A Memory of Being Watched 24/7



This one above is of street cameras. Hence the title "A Memory of Being Watched" apparently the cameras that Idris has to pass on is way to work every day. I really like this image as almost as if you can see rays of light like spotlights coming from the cluster of cameras in the middle. Plus you feel like your looking up at the cameras from a low angle, and with the vertical brick wall that is also visible within in image it really makes you feel looked down on. As if something is watching you from all angles.

Illustration

Dima Rebus

Dima Rebus is a watercolour illustrator that I found from thisiscolossal.com. His painting style and technique is really nice and each painting I've looked at of his i've just loved. But also his concepts, something is really captured in each his illustrations.

Such as this one below, it's really mysterious. Not only because it's obviously headless but the painting style,how the blending looks almost like smoke, it's quite dark and eery. 

 

This one below is called 'Money' and I think this is my favourite one by him. I love the colours used, it really just gives that coldness and again eeriness. It's quite unsettling. I really like on this one how the figures aren't fully painted and how the paint bleeds out into the background is really nice. It makes it look really foggy and adds to that coldness. The characters themselves are great too, they look really thuggish with the dark clothing, hats, bandages and serious expressions. As well as the ravens.

This fox one is another lovely one by him. It's great to compare this one and the one above. How the colours are a lot warmer. With the nice strong orange and redy tones and the cream background. I like how they are ganged together, curled round each other, protective of one another. How some of them are starting out sharply, others are yawning and others sleeping. It really captures the characteristics well.

Illustration

Ian Kim

Ian Kim is another artist found from Illustration Now. He is a californian illustrator who does illustrations, comics, paintings and motion design. I really like the line work in his illustrations. On his website he has a variety of different kinds of work. He even has some life drawings put on there, which just shows he's a great observational drawer, and you can see this also through his characters.

I just think his illustrations a really nice, crisp and clean. I love the sky backgrounds on these two. Theres a real kind of realistic look to his drawings too in a way, which I also quite like.

 

I love this quirky red carpet illustration. The colours are really nice and strong, and even though they are digitally coloured (I presume) you can still see drawing-like lines which is quite nice.

Illustration

Jörn Kaspuhl

Jörn Kaspuhl is another illustrator I found from Illustration Now library book. He's a freelance illustrator that has worked for several internation agencies, magazines, publishers, musicians and fashion labels. The below image is an example of one of his work for Benevolent. The reason why I picked this one in particular to blog was because I really like the two tone colour scheme. The album is called "The Rain and the Sea" just from the title I felt he'd really represented it well. But I thought it would be a good idea to actually have a listen to the music itself to see how well he's captured it. It's an acoustic band whose vocals are really soft and the music is quite melancholy. 

The cover has captured these elements nicely. By incorporating things such as the doves, the waves and the colour makes it visually appear quite soft and peaceful, Similar to the music. He's also Incorporated the clouds, the leaveless trees and the washed up boats which kind of portray a element of disruption and sadness. Which I think captures the album quite well. The songs seem to be quite deep and the title "The Rain and the Sea", makes me think of troubles, like 'troubled water' etc.  but he's brought this idea together nicely with a rather peaceful element as well. 

 

A lot of his work he likes to incorporate nature and animals and the interweaving of nature. The illustration below is another CD cover he's done. This is a great example of his animal illustration. A lot of his work is the unifying of animals and humans and this one below I really like. I think it's really interesting how he's layered the different birds among eachother in place of the mans hair. I also like how he's used simple black lines but filled areas in to add more definition. I didn't realise at first but even the right hand side is also birds in negative. I thought this looked really effective, as at first I thought it was hair, then saw the beaks and realised it was infact also birds.

These ones below are some other layered nature illustrations. These ones I'm not so keen on. I don't really like how busy they are I feel they're really hard to look at. So many different colours and so many different animals, characters and plants. I also feel some of the colours don't really compliment eachother as well as they could.

I do however really like the busy layered nature illustrations that are done with the two tone colour scheme. I think it's just the combination of heavy colour and busy subject together that doesn't work quite so well.

 

 

Illustration

Andrew Bannecker

To find some more illustrators that I'd not heard of before I thought it would be a good idea to go into the library and delve into their illustration books. I found the book Illustration Now, which had a wide variety of different illustrators, and I came across Andrew Bannecker. 
He's an 'award-winning' illustrator from Washington and his clients have included Starbucks, Nike, Coco Cola and Sainsbury's, among many others.

I think the reason I picked Andrew Bannecker is because I really like digital illustrations done on illustrator/photoshop and the likes. It's something I've been trying to teach myself over the past few years and my interest in it just keeps growing. I really like this one above with the shapes used and how the textures have been created and layered up. It's stuck to a nice tight colour palette and is  subtle and quite pleasant really. It incorporates nice simple shapes and the repetition used works nicely at the right hand side with the cluster of triangles.
 

  

 These above illustrations are similar. I love how on the left one these wave like shapes have been layered over each other in different opacity's, and how they've come up to a point not like  natural waves would. I think the combination of colours on this one makes it almost dream-like, I think it's because of the starry night sky and how the tides really look quite rapid and sharp but at the same time seem it seems so peaceful. The two illustrations above work nicely together as well. How the skies contrast in each one, like ones daytime and ones night. I like how it's a similar idea but done in a completley different way.

These above ones are examples he's done for clients. I always think it's interesting to compare commisioned work with someones own artwork.  It's clear to see there is some similarties. He's still encorporated some of his texute with the background on the bats for lashes poster and the background of the coca cola. Plus it's in a similiar vector style. The one thing that does differ a lot for obvious reasons is the colours. The coke adverts colours are a lot different from his other work, with the bright red and greens and of course the context differs a lot too. The bats for lashes poster is similar in colour scheme to his boat illustrations, how he's stuck to a nice simply scheme that's quite subtle and toned down.

Illustration

 David Litchfield

The next illustrator I've found just today is David Litchfield. This illustrator I found from Tumblr which I think is a great way to find both upcoming and professional artists. David Litchfield uses mainly traditional techniques such as pens, pencils, watercolours and coloured pencils. From what I gather he is a freelance illustrator and has appeared in magazines, children’s books, animations, on album covers, T-shirts and as part of marketing campaigns. 
He completed a personal project of an illustration a day for a year which you can find here: http://davidsdrawingaday.tumblr.com/

One of his recent projects that I like is one he's done for beano. On his blog he explains the process he goes through when doing a project like this. He creates several rough sketchy thumbnails. Then he begins drawing onto A3 or A4. Usually a bigger size than the actual image and draws each character on a separate piece of paper and colours. To avoid one thing going wrong and to make the whole piece more manageable. He then scans each character onto photoshop on different layers and sorts out the composition, cleans up the drawings a little bit and no doubt alters certain elements. 

These pictures of the piece below was taken from his blog, it's interesting to see that he drew the monkeys arms and body separate from one another!

Commenting on his drawings in general I really like his use of the traditional techniques. How he colours his drawings before altering them on photoshop I think is really interesting and looks really authentic. I think this technique is particularly good when doing children's illustrations. Kids love colouring and it is recognisable ... not in an untidy way, it still looks professional but there is a real kind of authenticity to it. On the illustration below I really love how vibrant the colours are. 

Illustration

 Deth P. Sun

When researching illustrators that appeal to me I had a look at a recent Now Then magazine that I picked up in town the other week. Now Then is a Sheffield magazine that features independent art, trade, music, writing and local news. It's written by members of the community not proffessionals and each issue picks an artist that is featured on the cover and throughout the pages, usually features an interview with the artist too which is great. Sometimes the artist is local others not but always it's someone pretty interesting (In my opinion).

The illustrator I found was Deth P Sun, whose illustrations are usually of cats in unusual adventures and scenarios. I got stuck actually picking which ones to feature on this blog, because all of them I find so cool. 

Simlar to Sara Fanelli I really like how Deth's illustrations have quite a limited colour palette. The colours are all really complementing to eachother and I like how he makes certain things just all one colour such as the one above the tree and the bellow plants are all in the grey colour yet the character, the leaves and other elements are in colour, emphasising these elements and ultimatly telling a story. 

Some of his drawings are generally just quite comical and others are really more engaging and get you wondering whats going on. Such as the one above the characters expression looks quite wary and he's carrying a lions head and has a sword. It gets you all suspicious, it's great. 

 I love this one above, the really exaggerated steam coming from the mug, the expression on the cats face and the big cuddley blanket. 

This one above seems to be one that's more simple and comical. I like how he keeps the character the same yet changes the colour slightly, such as this ones now in black and the previous ones were grey or teal. It's questionable whether these cats are all the same character or not actually. I'd love to see one of Deth P Sun's exebitions to see how these illustrations fit together sequencially actually and how they depict a full adventure.

Most of Deth P Suns illustrations are paintings, from reading his interview with Now Then I found out he uses high viscosity fluid acrylics, matte acrylics and medium viscosity acrylics. And with his drawings he uses a G Tec 4. I think it's really interesting to know what materials exactly certain artists use. Deth P Sun explains that he's really specific about the type paints, pens and brushes he uses and obviously most of his pieces have a similar finish and precision to them and the same materials are necessary to get the same outcomes and keep his work looking sequential.

Illustration

Ronald Searle

Another illustrator I really like the work of is Ronald Searle, who was as well a British Illustrator. Well known for his St Trinians illustrations. His work caught my eye straight away because of his use of what looks like pen/fine liner or some sort of ink nib drawings. They appear quite sketchy, he uses as well strong washes of ink. Which is a material I really like the look of, especially the combination of washes and pen. 

The image below is a great example of this. He's used a strong ink wash behind which emphasises nicely the pillar and the characters. He's also used the wash to pick out areas of shadow - not all areas just some, that I think really bring the drawing to life. I really like his variation of thick and thin lines too which makes his illustrations more lively. He has a very strong style which I also really like. You can see his almost all his characters follow this, such as the lady on the one below, his style is quite comical the emphasised nose with the small eyes and extremely exaggerated hat. His characterisation is great. 

  

When researching more about Robert Searle himself I really got quite engrossed. To find out he was a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese in world war II and documented his experience through drawings that he hid under mattresses of prisoners dying from cholera. Not only are these drawings that he would have quite probably been executed for if found but drawings that he no doubt was believing he wouldn't survive whilst drawing. He did survive luckily and so did astonishingly over 300 of his drawings. He used these drawings to depict what it was like living in the prison, to record history really. A quote on wikipedia by Searle said  "I desperately wanted to put down what was happening, because I thought if by any chance there was a record, even if I died, someone might find it and know what went on." 

The one above is a great example of the drawings he did. Even has the caption "These are the type of men who were responsible for the deaths of 13000 of our prisoners on the Thai-Burma Railway. Especially chosen for their brutality and worthlessness."
These drawings are great depiction's of character. When it comes to visual communication and observational drawing skills it's clear Ronald Searle excelled. These drawings are quite hard hitting really but really are great documentations of history. 

                                                                                                                                             The below drawing (left) I really like the use of the wash again, how he's picking out certain tones subltly. I really think it brings a simple line drawing to life.
Interestingly the one the the right below isn't ink washed. Now I don't know if this was Searles intention behind not adding a wash but really you could be interpreted on an allegorical level as the man depicted is struggling to live, lifeless, as if his life is being drained from him. So the lack of the colour wash could be because of his lack of life.

Illustration

Sara Fanelli

Sara Fanelli is an illustrator and artist from Florence. Her work is predominantly illustrations, children's illustrations, books and self-generated projects. 

What I really like about Sara Fanelli's work is colour palette. For most of her illustrations she uses a limited palette such as the one below is a mixture of the warm reds and oranges with the dark navy and cream colour all very complementing to one another. 

I also like her typography on the one below. How certain words are emphasised and not all the words are the same size.

The image above is from a book spread. What I like about this spread is how she's composed the page, it almost looks like a sketchbook with different ideas on. Her characters are very quirky and you can see how her work appeals to children, it's fun, colourful and unusual. What I also like about this one is the drawing of the pine cone, it shows she clearly has observational drawing skills. 

The above is a spread from her illustrations for the book Pinocchio, again I really like the limited colour palette used with just the browns and cream colour. I love how she's used opposing colour on each character as well, how the backdrop for the left one is the colour of the right one and vice versa. On the right hand side I love how the forest background is limited to just that little section and the rest is of the background is just a texture kind of thing. It really makes the character stand out and almost gives the impression of the characters both on a journey somehwere, they're not fully encorporated in the forest background because they're just passing so to speak. It's really quite clever.