Examples of Inspirational dry point prints

 This is a dry point print by Picasso who is well known for his distortion of faces, people, images etc and I couldn't have found a better example of print to use than this. It's beautiful, he's used scratchy cross hatching to create tone, shadow and face shape, circular shapes all come together to create the head and even though it's distorted the features are all recognisable. I really like the cross hatch effect and the detail in the lips, and also the change from the light at the top of the print to the dark shadows at the bottom, she looks very angelic and peaceful and there is a huge essence of Picasso about this print that is very familiar which is why I think this print is successful. The print is called "head of a woman" which is less elegant, created in 1933 and finally printed in 1961 by Jacques Frelaut. 

This is also a picasso print, I struggled to figure out what it was at first which personally, I don't think is a good thing! It reminds me of a spider web and I find it quite creepy but I appreciate the time and effort that has clearly gone into it as it's a very complex piece of work. It is a picture of two women sitting down- and is another distorted image. I have chosen it though because it is a beautiful piece of art (whether I like it or not) and has a very original and unique style... It is called "Two seated women",created in 1938 and printed in 1961 yet again by Jacques Frelaut.

This image is by Ribera who only made eighteen dry-points and etchings between 1620 and 1628 whilst working in Naples to boost his career. I really like this print not just because of it's beautiful detail but because it has a little story behind it. It is an image depicting the demi-god son of Pan, Silenus. Silenus was a poet, drinker and leader of the Satyrs (the half goat half men in the background). Silenus would roam the countryside with a crew of Satyrs & Fauns drinking and causing mischief and chasing Nymphs, the donkey in the image is significant as when Silenus was too drunk to walk he would ride on his back. <-- I think this is a fascinating piece of history and myth as well as a beautiful print. I love the way he has captured the simple broken- down background and surroundings and yet, Silenus has an aura of elegance and luxury about him. the small detail and the shadowing is amazing and the expression on Pan's face is so life-like, aggressive and evil... even though I'll not be able to re-create something of this standard it still remains an inspiration. This is an etching with drypoint and engraving, created in 1628 and the original size is 272x350mm.

scratchy cross- hatched effect is lovely! I'd like to use it in my print..

 This image (Rainy day Queens) is almost like a photograph because it is that detailed! It's absolutely beautiful! The tall characteristic buildings of Queens, New York the dark sky should look miserable... but Martin has left a huge chunk of light in the sky that is almost heavenly and makes the whole picture very idyllic, calm and quiet. I'm amazed at how perfect he has got the reflection of the light in the water and puddles, the woman at the front and the sleek lampposts make the image look classy and the cratchy rain is a really good effect to use.
By Martin Lewis

Angie Hoffman:
Angie has this incredible effect of doubling the image again underneath her original which is simply brilliant, her images are comic-like but are still very detailed. There isn't much shading but it is still a very effective image even more so because of the dark background against the pure white of the skin.

Angie Hoffmeister- drypoint prints

Angie Hoffmeister

At the moment in class we are about to start making dry point prints, but need to do some research beforehand for inspiration, tips and to get a basic idea of what other artists have done. I came across Angie Hoffmeister, an artist and freelance illustrator from Düsseldorf in Germany, she creates art using a wide range of materials such as watercolours, pencils, markers, graphite, acrylics, oil paints etc... but she specialises in dry-point prints. She varies on the type of images she creates from nature to humans to household objects, but I found some dry-points of people and their faces that I can link to our current project "self portraits". Here are some examples of her dry-point prints........                                        
             

I really like this print, it's like she's captured a moving picture in 2d like the car is still moving and her head is still bopping about, her face is miserable like her eyes and I love the detail in the hair- it's not too much and it's lifelike. As though I'm looking at that person. The doubling the image effect is amazing in my opinion.                                                                                                                                

I don't really like this image- it messes with my eyes! But I appreciate the work that's gone into it, the fine detail around the eyes is really good and the multiple eyes are confusing but at the same time your eyes get drawn to them- It's a really good idea and clearly really effective. The emotionless face and the dark dingy background has a cold, moody miserable atmosphere which must have been hard to create.




I feel as though the themes that are running through her images are moments captured in real life and possibly misery because in almost every single image of a face has a serious, sad or just below neutral expression and the backgrounds are always grey and cold with no or very little detail.  Also, these images, in my opinion, represent real life moments which I really admire.

Helenka's Art

I've been doing some research on different portrait artists and came across Helenka... an abstract artist from Argentina, her work is usually done in acrylic paint on cardboard, canvases and papers. I don't usually like abstract I prefer drawings/paintings created so detailed that they look photographed but for some reason I find Helenka's work fascinating. The colours she uses make the image detailed in a way I haven't seen before in abstract art and I really like it, she uses tone but with different colours to represent the light and dark areas and colour is reflected everywhere. Also, I find all of her images have an atmosphere of intimacy, heat and passion.

Here are some examples of her work.

These images are inspiring, and Have given me some ideas about creating self portraits in her style of abstract art.

Mick Armson Lino Prints

These are some examples of Lino prints by an artist who specialises in this area of art. His name is Mick Armson and creates prints themed around famous or well known places in the world, some of his work are huge and can be 9 feet tall. I have researched some of his work as inspiration whilst designing my own prints because I feel as though I need to add more small detail to make them look busy like Mick's.


I like this image because it's busy and Mick has made it appear more so by adding lots of black deta​il and using lots of colour..


 I really like this image because Mick has drawn all the attention to the two birds with big bold black print which is made more effective by adding loads of detail to everything around them. Also, he has only used 3 colours (black,whi​te and grey) which creates a dull, murky atmosphere and makes the whole picture feel cold and sharp. Only using these 3 dull colours is clearly effective and wouldn't be the same if it had lots of colour applied to it- I should bare this in mind when desig​ning my own print.







 I really like this image because of the colour he has used in it, faded black that isn't harsh adds to the pale, creamy yellow to make this image look aged like an old poster from the forties or something.. It's very detailed but my eyes are drawn to the clown, and the cowboy because of the big gaping holes of black he has left on the print which I think is also really good.

I really love how Mick can capture the essence of a place in his lino prints, like the cold, windy, busy and crowded atmospheres. He is clearly very talented and has given me some really good ideas for my prints.

Induction week: Bird skulls

Bird skulls
For most of our induction week we studied bird skulls and explored different ways of drawing them and the materials you can use. Also, we worked on creating 3d sculptures from real life bird skulls made with tightly rolled newspaper rolls. We were told to make them as though we were drawing them but with newspaper in a 3d way; which basically meant not to make full, solid sculptures and instead, leave the lines exposed, adding tone in the style of a drawing or a neat sketch. This was a really difficult process that I found really frustrating at first because the newspaper was so fiddly and difficult to roll tightly (it took me the best part of two hours to start myself off!) Also, I found it hard trying to keep everything in place especially since I wasn't making a solid sculpture- I really hated getting everything secure and making sure it could stand up sturdily etc.. 
It got easier to define the shape of our skull sculptures because we'd done lots of drawing and studying the skulls we'd been working on. I really enjoyed using various materials to draw with (ink, wood, pen and charcoal) because it was challenging and it helped me get used to the anatomy of our skulls.
By the end of the week I had finished my sculpture and it just about managed to look remotely close to the skull but i could have improved it by making it more sturdier, defining the top of the head and maybe adding more to it so it looks more detailed and possibly more lifelike. I enjoyed most of this little project but I felt like we had too much time to do it and it got rather boring; even though by the end I'd done some really good observational drawings and studies.

This is an example of the bird skulls we were observing... although there were many other various types of skulls with different shaped beaks, eye-sockets and different sizes as well.

This is an image of the bird skull I was observing.... The key features are the long skinny beak and the large eye sockets. The beak was hard to do because: 1. It wouldn't stay straight and curves round and 2. the eye sockets had to be perfect or it would mess up the whole head structure. 

This is my sculpture before painting, completely finished... In my opinion It's a good representation of a bird skull but doesn't fully look like the original.

This is my bird skull completely finished, painted and photographed. I think it is simple but effective and the shape is reasonably well shaped but there are quite afew improvements that could be made......

IMPROVEMENTS THAT MIGHT BE MADE

• make the beak thicker and find a way to get rid of the bend
• The head isn't detailed as much as it should be- It's too simple.
• The eye sockets are slightly different sizes

Portrait Research: Life drawing/portrait unit

Portrait Research

This is an image found on the deviant art website http://www.deviantart.com/ by an artist from the United states who has chosen to only display her website Id "Vdelray" and is currently selling her paintings on large canvas'. This self portrait has been painted onto canvas with acrylic paint, I really like this image because it really reflects the colours of the light against her pale skin and the untidy brush work is a really good effect. It is natural, original and shows real emotion in the face which I think is always really important whilst working on portraits in general.. and her eyes look very realistic. 
There is nothing written about this image (e.g size, price) other than techniques but I guess that's the downside of deviant art.








Artist: Adinugroho- A male artist from Indonesia who specialises in portraits and figures and sells them on deviant art.. http://www.deviantart.com/ 
The image is completely drawn in coloured pencil on paper and is a portrait of Christina Aguilara... Adinugroho has themed his entire collection (536 images) on famous people (singers, actresses, actors, action heroes e.t.c) and mainly done in coloured pencil, sometimes he uses digital programming to create his art but that is very rare... I like his style because he focuses on the main features of the face without face-shape, hair, ears e.t.c and it still looks near photographic quality! His tones and pencil work are soft and usually natural earth-tone colours with hints of bright bold colours so it stands out. I really like this image because of the quality of it... I love the bright red lips... he has chosen the perfect colours for everything and even though he hasn't dramatically changed the image of her the image still emits originality, beauty and a soft quality that I really like...






Artist: Helenka,
she was born in Argentina and has had a very rich education in art and studied with "the Argentine masters: Luis Barragan and Elio Eros Vitali" <-- I don't know who they are but apparently they are very well respected. She specialises in abstract paintings such as this one, mostly with acrylic paint on canvas, cardboard, paper e.t.c. and as you go through her images you can clearly see that she explores her natural abilities in every single piece of art and relies on beauty, poetics and seduction whilst doing so... I love this image because even though it may look simple and plain to some people, I can see the effort that has gone into the light to dark areas and the difference in skin ton where the light has hit it... the brush work looks almost messy but it really works well and the whole thing radiates emotion and intimacy. It's a beautiful painting and different from the others I have looked at- which is why It's one of my favourite.. her talent is effortless! Image is done with acrylic paint on canvas and is 50x60 cm...  Artist and image on paintingsilove http://www.paintingsilove.com


This is a photograph self portrait I found on deviant art by an artist called Justina... a young girl studying photography in Lithuania and has done many photographs of herself but I like this one because It's very natural, the lighting is good and she has softened her features using photoshop which makes the image look angelic in a way. It's not particularly interesting though and I'm sure there are many better self portrait photgraphs. 












Artist: Ivelin Trifonov from Bulgaria, Who specialises illustration and digital art. This image was done on a computer using digital art programmes. Unfortunately, there's no other information about this image other than it's for sale. really like the messy strokes of the brush and the dark, fiery atmosphere of the image. He's like a character off of an old japanese anime fighting film and I really like how he's imprinted the cracking effects over it and behind it on different layers, it makes it look like an old painting and looks as though it's glowing because of the light focused on his face. Ivelin is clearly talented and I found his work on deviant art.. 











This is a self portrait of Erikined, a digital artist from the Philippines. There isn't much said about his images but it looks as though he takes images of people or finds images of people and digitally edits them, changing the backgrounds, adding colours and changing it to suit his artistic tastes and posts them on deviant art. But this one has been hand drawn on a tablet and imported to his computer throught the tablet... then he has edited it, added a japanese looking background and added tattoo's shading and detail. I really like the tattoo detail and blotchy shading, it's very original and even the background is shaded and the line definition adds to the detail very well.. there isn't anything I would change about this image. 









I have chosen these images because they are a small collection of some of my favourite images from different areas of art... from photography and digital art to pencil- work to painting. Mostly they are from deviant art and are hard to find... but in my opinion some of the best art is made by undiscovered artists and usually they are very original and are extremely talented!