Ink Deep

Roy Lichtenstein is one of my all time favourite artists, and one of my biggest influences from the field of modern and fine art.  His style has affected my work in a large way, and it felt on natural to look at his printmaking for this assignment.  The American Pop artist was born October 27th 1923 and worked on art throughout his life before dying in 1997.  His work created a great deal of controversy as it broke new ground in the art scene. Sandwich and a Soda , from 1964 is an image that I feel all of us are familiar with.  The colour choice, style and imagery makes us all think of fast food chains and large brands, such as Pepsi and KFC.  A comment on consumerism and capitalism, this was not uncommon territory for Lichtenstein.  A simple graphic design using Screenprint, I always love clean clear lines and design.  Something Lichtenstein excels in. Brushstrokes  from 1967 is also a screenprint.  This one is a further developmen...

For our latest assignment, we were tasked with recreating a portrait.  The portrait had to be a painting, and had to be from a known portrait artist.  I chose Gustave Courbet's The Desperate Man.  Courbet is an artist I was unfamiliar with, but the portrait immediately caught my eye. I donned a white shirt and found a blue scarf, set up some lights and tried my best to mimic the conditions. I found the facial expression incredibly difficult.  Over 30 photographs were taken, some of the better ones are shown below. I tried several different styles of lighting, opting for a duller, less bright light, which made it seem less artificial.  In truth, I found mimicking the expression, and the final one isn't great.  But I think the lighting is reasonably close, as is the composition.  I'm quite happy with the final image.

During class, we were given an hour to take an image inspired by every letter of the alphabet.  An interesting challenge given the time.  Some images I was quite proud of, others not so much.   A is for Alex.  So, I didn't start of seriously.  I tried just to take a nice plain picture, subject centre of the image, etc.  He did say cheese, for which I am grateful. B is for Bricks.  Simple brickwork on a college wall, I liked the patterns and dull palette.   C is for Couch.  Again, pretty plain image, just tried to make it look nice, central, low down.  D is for Drinks.  I loved the repeating nature of this image.  Especially how the colour of the bottles reflects the pattern of the rainbow.  Whoever did this in the shop has a keen eye.  E is for Exit.  Pretty literal here, as with most of them so far.  Again, I just wanted simple clean images, focused on a sim...

English Stanley William Hayter was born December 22th in 1901, and became a well known and celebrated artist and printmaker.  He died in 1988, leaving behind a wealth of colourful and inspirational art.  Focusing on surrealism and then later abstract expressionism, Hayter injected a vast amount of colour into his work.  Firstly, wow.  This piece blew my mind.  I've never seen such a bright and awe inspiring use of colour before.  1974's Pillars is an etching on paper, using aquatint to achieve the varying tones of colour.  The clean swirling patterns are so crisp and pleasing to look at, whilst the split complimentary blues and yellows/oranges really just draw you in.  It's like looking up at the sun and being blinded on a warm day.  Everything about this image just feels satisfying. From a little later in his career, Hang Glider from 1979 is a little less abstract.  The name and shapes really help to paint a clear image in my...

Robert Rauschenberg, or more precisely, Milton Ernest Rauschenberg was born 1925 (Oct. 22nd).  Most of his life was centered around his art, for which he received great critical acclaim up until his death in 2008.  Rauschenberg worked in a great deal of mediums, exploring paint, sculpture, and for the purposes of this report, printmaking.  From 1965 this print entitled Lawn shows a collection of photographic imagery combined with a lithograph print.  It shows multiple images that all allude to an American theme, the flag in the bottom left, an (American) Footballer to the right and (what I think) is supposed to be a faded skyline in the background.  It feels very 'New York', which is where Rauschenberg grew up.  That in itself makes me think 'Lawn' is derived from his own front lawn.  With images like these, I find it very hard to home in on the artist's intent.  Though I find the composition curious, it feels more loose and experimental tha...

For this week's assignment, we needed to delve into the theme of 'Abandonment'.  I sometimes feel like these assignments are designed to get us injured or arrested.  Birds Eye View making me want to get high up and peer over dangerous things, Street Photography making me want to ambush people at the risk of being punched in the face, even Reflections had me hanging over a river.  Abandonment was no different, creating a desire to break into old buildings.  But... that didn't happen.  Due to lack of fence climbing abilities. Unfortunately, that left a lot of these images with another theme... Compromise.  The first one, pictured above, is an old weathered sign that I assume formerly read 'No Ball Games'.  But, neglected and abandoned, it's now in a poor state, it's message since forgotten and twisted.  This is probably my least favourite of the photos I took.  I found this car on my travels, I could tell right away it hadn't moved in...