Artist Research & Self Directed Paintings Inspired by Chosen Artists:
1) Vincent van Gogh
I have chosen Vincent van Gogh as an inspiration for my work because he was a self taught artist and improved his skills by copying other people’s work and studying drawing books to improve his technique and find his own style. I feel that this is solid advice for any young artist not knowing where to start or how to become a professional artist. If you practice copying the work of great artists that you admire, you will hopefully gain confidence and find your own unique style. He believed that mastering drawing was the most important thing in creating a good painting and during this first term, I have come to realise that from attending the life drawing lessons on my course. I feel like I have made huge progress in drawing correct proportions and giving some impression of movement.
I also identify with Van Gogh because of his mental and physical problems. I was seriously ill for most of my childhood and with that came a lot of mental problems such as social anxiety, lack of confidence in my abilities, ocd tendencies in my art and life in general and problems about how I think other people perceive me. However I have often used my health problems and turned them into positive inspiration for my artwork in the past. Reading about how Van Gogh used a darker colour palette when his mental health was in a bad phase, leads me to realise that I have done the same kind of thing in my artwork.
What particularly attracts me to his artwork is the thick swirling brush strokes on his paintings. I feel like they help to guide the viewer’s eye into and around the paintings, for example in Starry Night the brush strokes lead my eye across and into the centre of the paint and his self portrait in tones of blue, the brush strokes direct my to his face. I also admire the colour palette he often uses which are rich, saturated tones of blue and golden yellow and other jewel-like colours. These are the influences I want to use in my work.
I plan to create a portrait of my brother using a similar colour palette and swirling brush strokes, for my first self directed study painting.
In this portrait of my brother, I tried to replicate Vincent van Gogh’s colour palette by blocking in a background of pale blue, then I over painted this with swirls of white, ultramarine, yellow and green, trying to achieve the look of brush strokes. On the face, I tried to use short strokes of different skin tones to reflect how the shading was done on Van Gogh’s self portrait. On the jumper, I used a palette of browns and white in swirls again like the portrait to try and show shading and the folds in the garment. This was partially successful but i found that my brush wasn’t bristly enough to really achieve the defined bristle strokes. Also I was using water colour paper and acrylic paint which I discovered didn’t give me the thickness of paint which I needed. However I think the problem was mainly due to the brush but as my brush was quite coarse I didn’t know what to do to solve the problem. I also found it much harder trying t draw a decent portrait on a bigger scale compared to my sketchbook which is small. I feel like this is an area I really need to practice in. Overall I quite liked the end result considering I have never tried this style before, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement.
2) Ralph McQuarrie
I have chosen conceptual designer and illustrator, Ralph McQuarrie as my personal choice for artist research. Since my childhood I have been a huge fan of Star Wars and since I discovered he was the genius behind all the concept artwork and film posters, he has been one of my art heroes. I think his greatest gift was taking fantasy visions, bringing it to life and making us believe it was truly a real world with real characters.
I am inspired by the way he could create different environments in different styles such as the planet Tatooine which a desert planet, the Death Star which is corridors, hallways and high tech equipment and the planet Yavin 4 which is a lush green jungle planet with Peruvian inspired temples. I think he was very talented in creating the ultimate, menacing villain with no mercy in Darth Vader but could also switch creating cute comedy characters like R2-D2 and C-3PO. I also love how he has knack of fitting characters into a scene where they complement each other well and create a believable atmosphere. I hope to improve my drawing and painting skills to be able to create convincing scenes and characters like Ralph McQuarrie and experiment to be able to use a wide variety of styles.
For my painting inspired by Ralph McQuarrie, I again used my brother as a life model to pose the figure, sitting down on a chair as I imagined my figure would be sat on an old spaceship turbine. I wanted to be influenced by the way Ralph sets the characters in an environment suited for them, so I tried to create a landscape reminiscent of Tatooine, which is the Star Wars influence and tried to clothe my figure in garments and colours suitable for the desert. I tried to replicate the warm, glowing and inviting tones that McQuarrie seems to achieve, to give the scene atmosphere and hopefully make it feel like a hot climate. I used an earthy, natural tone palette for he garments and buildings with grey and ultramarine in varying strengths and saturations for the turbine. I used hot oranges, reds and yellows for the sunset. I tried to use perspective to give depth to the painting which I think I achieved fairly well with the turbine and the sand dunes. What I also tried to paint a bit more loosely than my normal work using streaks of colour to try to add texture and shape. It was an experiment and I feel like I have challenged myself a bit, but I am really pleased with way it turned out.
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