Artist Research

The artists that I research for inspiration and technique are predominantly fine artists (realist, fantastic, expressionist and surrealist) illustrators (comic books and graphic novels) and artists that specifically work between the two, such as JKB Fletcher and Jason Oakes.

Fine Art:
Cosmo Sarson:
Cosmo was a visiting lecturer we had who produces a lot of commercial artwork such as advertising and work on films. Cosmo's general theme to his own artwork is influenced by [...] and his pieces display a flair of drama and action in his work. His charcoal drawings remind me of the pencil sketches of comic book artist Alex Ross in his portrayal of figures and use of lighting and composition.

Cosmo creates these pieces using charcoal and working from images he creates himself, much like how I produce my work. He uses himself and others as models for his artwork and using props he creates dynamic images, in the case of these going to the routes of Greek mythology. Mythology isn't a whole lot different to comic book fantasy which links into my basis of work, but creating scenes like these never occured to me before. I should consider this year spreading my focus on more than the one model and produced some images using multiple models in a dynamic scene.

Another thing I'd like to try is that he created this interactive mural which when scanned with a smart phone plays a video. This could be useful to me creating a real life comic book world around me and perhaps use locations from my artwork to create an interactive augmented reality.


Edward Hopper:
Edward Hopper is a painter of the 1940's and his work represents this time period a lot. His themes generally revolve around the things he sees in life at the time. The information the paintings tell us is a reflection of the time period Hopper was living in and his focus on nightlife I think tells you about himself as a person.

'Nighthawks'
1942

This is Hopper's most recognized painting and it depicts a New York café at night with customers eating inside. Hopper made detailed notes on his paintings to enforce what he planned to produce such as 'light on metal tanks at rear right; brilliant streak of jade green tiles 3/4 cross canvas at base of glass of window curving at corner.' clearly thinking everything through and planning out his painting process before working on it. This where the painting gets it's name from as 'Nighthawks' refers to his not about the man in the dark suit calling him a 'Night Hawk'.

'New York Movie'
1939

 This piece represents a common past time of 1940's New York which was the old cinemas. I like the vintage feel to the piece and how the attention is drawn not to the cinema screen which is the realistic case, but to the usher instead. The use of colour as with all his pieces are brilliant and vibrant, well mixed strong colours which burst from the contrasting darkness in the piece. The use of lighting is really well also, how in the left darker section the brightest areas are the lights and highlights, whilst on the opposing side the woman's face is darkened due to the bright lights on her side.

Salvadore Dali:

The Hand

Soft Self-Portrait

Gala looking into the Mediterranean sea

Exploded Head

Salvadore Dali is the most well known of the surrealist artists. he is best known for his piece 'The persistence of memory'.
His work implores blank desert like landscapes, bright colours, smooth blending and abnormal shapes. His work is based on strange, dream-like scenes and tricks of perception. I think he has really nice paint quality and it's interesting how he makes surreal objects look real through his representation of light bouncing off objects.


Glenn Brown:
Brown is a controversial artist for his use of appropriation in his work, often being refereed to as plagiarism. To cover this point before getting into the artwork I like, I agree with this notion.

I believe there's a difference between this and most other appropriation artists that I have looked into. To use someone else's art to support you own is acceptable in my view, but in this instance it's more so a carbon copy with some improvement, rather than his own work. I wouldn't be happy if someone continued to work on one of my paintings and take credit for the outcome. Regardless it's his own work that I'm interested in.

These pieces I like, they have an eerie sinister look to them and are very monster-like. The colours are generally dark with bursts of neon-like colours and the brush strokes are really thickly applied. The shapes in his pieces are very expressionistic and have a great fluid motion to them.


Illustrator:

Mark Djurdjevic:
Djurdjevic's work is mostly digital, he is an illustrator who has worked as a concept artist on books, films and video games. His Comicbook Covers are what I like most.

I really quite like this piece. Firstly the placing of the composition is ground level, as if a camera is placed on the floor. I think straight away this takes the viewer into a closer relationship with the action as it's more a case of being involved in the piece itself rather than viewing it from a distance. I also really like the use of rain, how it looks like a sea scape on the floor based on the heavy down pour of rain, it seems surreal but it works really dynamically.

I like these two pieces because they relate to my meaning of work. They are both comic book illustrations and also historical illustrations. They tell the story of a young Magneto from the X-Men series, who was a survivor of the holocaust. The two pieces reflect on the boy's future whilst at the same time providing a historical piece about the concentration camps. The composition is very grim and empathy provoking and it border lines on what is perceived as superhero comic books and factual history based comic books.

I like these two Djudjevic pieces for their use of strong colors. He has two other pieces that go along with these but I feel these are the stronger of the two. The colors balance each other well and I think I've discovered I like artwork with strong vibrant colors.

I found this piece through primary research where I have this comic book, and what drew me to researching the artist is the styling and effects on the piece. Most of the background is blocked out by a vibrant red which suggests something of blood or violence (especially when supported with the character image) there are they scratches drawn over the top of the piece which gives it at first I thought a vintage theme, but after it now reminds me of broken glass. The piece as a whole I like because it is striking but there's not a lot more to say about the piece.

Tim Bradstreet:

Tim Bradstreet's art is very similar to Jae Lee's work in that it has a high contrasting darkness to the piece. Facial features have heavy lighting on them to create a sense of tension I think. The two characters I looked at which Bradsteet is credited for illustrating (John Constantine and The Punisher) are both dark controversial characters and anti-heroes in their own rights. I think the constantine ones reflect well as they express the Kitchen Sink era of angry young men in Britain, whilst with The Punisher it's more like a combination between imagery from crime film and old westerns. I like the photorealist and comic book art combination in his work and how it looks like both at the same time. I think the themes and dynamics he explores in his work, like the pulp noir kind of vibe are really interesting and I really like the style to them.

Michael Del Mundo: 
There isn't much work by Del Mundo that I like but here are a few examples with annotation to support this.

This was the first piece I came across. The painterly quality is what drew me to the piece as I really like the motion effect the piece has. The brush strokes are a great representation of movement and expressionism.

This is another piece I found that I liked. The image is very dramatic despite there not being much subject in the piece. I also like how the rain breaks up the image as if it's scratched into the piece. The stone background has great texture behind it also.

This isn't exactly a piece that I like, but I collected it because it reminds me of John Stazinka's work where he finished a face portrait by using a building. This idea could prove useful in coming up with some future compositions.

 John Buscema & Ruby Nebres, painting by Rick Vietch.
This piece of research is specific to one piece in particular. These 3 artists generally have traditional comic book illustrations but for working on the book Epic Illustrated #1: The Answer. I found these images in a book I booked out from the library called 'Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels', which delves into the artwork of the comic book medium. The Epic Illustrated series lasted 34 issues before being canceled and was released in the 1980s as an early attempt at creating comics for adults, and pulling influence from music of the time.

I think the colours in these illustrations are really striking and eye catching. It reminds me of 60's lsd influenced artwork which works well in this sci-fi scenario. The basis behind my thinking is nobody know what outer space looks like or other galaxy's and this is a really nice interpretation in my opinion. The poses of the characters are really dramatic and I like how the piece looks between a painting and a comic book.


Gabriele Dell'otto
Dell'otto is an Italian illustrator who has a painterly quality to his work.

 I like the textures for each of these pieces. The characters themselves show a great sense of tension in their movements, like the hands. The colours are mostly dull except for the Phoenix piece which has a bright, vibrant fiery background. The images themselves are quite dark and gritty, and the colours remind me of Edward Hoppers work in the Spider-man piece. The issue with these artworks, like with most others I have found is that they are just poster/cover artwork. Although I can take influence and style from these pieces, I plan to put deeper meaning behind my work.

Simon Bisley:
Bisley is most well known for his work on Brittish comic book character, Judge Dredd.
His work, like Dell'Otto's is of a painterly quality but much more vibrant and strong in the yellows and greens and heavy in the blues.

His figures have great force and drama behind them, like for example the comic book panel of Batman punching Judge Dredd, the pose and impact created is informed with such great force. The backgrounds are nice painted surfaces and his use of drybrush works nicely in blending colours

Both:

John Aslarona:
Aslarona is a digital artist who draws with a graphics tablet so create visually dynamic images. In most cases I don't like digital art because it's easy to simply trace from a photograph by working over the top of a layer in photoshop, but Aslarona works both painterly and compositionally which is what I mainly like about the work. I think digital art is an easier tool to create more vibrant colors and smoother blending than with paint, which in some cases discredits the work as I think more effort goes into painting than digital work. The style of Aslarona's artwork does however have a painterly quality to his work and you can see paint techniques explored in his work, such as dry brush and over painting so I can use some of these techniques in my own work. I think he has a range of both good and bad work, his weaker stuff you can tell has less thought and time put into the work, but he has more stronger work and his use of colour interacting with the subject are some of his best pieces.

I really like this piece for the bold colors and the overpowering yellow. Looking at this I can't tell if it's a digital piece or traditional media. I'm inclined to think the former because of the even spread of the yellow, but that's why I like this kind of art when digital art looks like traditional art.

This was the first piece I came across which started me on the research path,  his artwork is like a mix between Alex Ross's  photorealistic style but with Jason Oakes' take on digital art looking visually like traditional media.

Like with the Wolverine piece, I like how colour and background work in this piece. The block colour acts as a mood colour, not only enforcing the colours of the character but it also has a sense of subtlety that wouldn't work with any other colour because it would stand out too much.