Honours Workshop Diary 4 – Artist Inspiration Part 1

Meeting Agenda

Search for artists with appealing styles to me. The idea is that this search will trigger my own search for an aesthetic style by indicating attributes and artistic features. By combining different features and aspects I will gain my individual and original artistic expression. 

Progress Report

I subdivided the artists into to main categories. The digital artists and the traditional artists. There is a short description to each artist describing what makes the artwork stand out for me.


Inspirational Traditional Artists


Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. Wikipedia

• Great storytelling ability through his paintings
• Immense detail on facial features and expressions
• later on strong experimentation with brush strokes and colour thickness to fit the topic, object or emotions of the painting

Rembrandt is also the first artist to abolish the difference between a sketch and a painting.

A Woman Bathing in a Stream

Brush Strokes: The skin tones are painted liquidly and the low neckline and high skirt line are painted very thick.

While Rembrandt's paintings get darker, the Dutch mood is getting brighter do to times of peace with Spain. 

I also watched the episode on Rembrandt of the "Power of Art" series by Simon Schama. The episode explains Rembrandt's thought process and life struggle very well. It is a touching story and very interestingly filmed. Therefore I scanned in two pages documenting the story. 

Pino Daeni
Pino Daeni was an Italian Impressionist book illustrator and artist. He is known for his unique style of feminine, romantic women and strong men painted with his loose but accurate brushwork.


The way he uses loose brush strokes so accurately is stunning. I enjoy how his foreground dissolves into its environment through these carefully spaced brush strokes.

Additionally the bright colours and detailed lighting effects create depth in his paintings and add a surrealistic touch. 

I especially like this last painting with it's bright red colours and very loose style on the right side, yet very detailed facial and body features.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.

I want to showcase some of his observational anatomy studies that are very impressive. One can never stop improving craftsmanship skills and Michelangelo is a great inspiration in that respect.

If he is unsure how to draw something he will practices the position and perspective of the object/body until it is correct and first then did he go on to his paintings to apply his gained knowledge.

The next Honours Workshop Diary Report will contain some inspirational digital artists. (Diary 5)

"The Moorpath" - Creating Concept Art from Random Shapes

"The Moorpath", a path crossing the high planes through the endless moor area.

It is often difficult to get started with a painting if one is unsure what to paint. Therefore I wanted to try out a new method Feng Zhu introduces/talks about in one of his tutorials. I generally recommend anyone who want to enter the entertainment industry, especially those attempting to become concept artists, to have a look at his free tutorials. Here is a link to his website: http://www.fengzhudesign.com/tutorials.htm

For today's  approach one starts with an empty canvas and randomly starts blocking in colours and shapes. After a while one now has to try to see something in these random shapes and further design them to create something that makes sense.   

Painting Process

After reaching the point that I could tell I was creating some kind of environment I began to add details to the scene. The two lumps as hills were surrounding a lot of empty space at this point. So I began to design some sort of religious place one could travel too. The main thing about this process is to be quick and to keep changing the concept, if necessary completely should the image not work for you. 

This sacred gathering point surrounded by pointy rocks and moor then evolved to a path, "the Moorpath". This path is the only way to travel across the endless moor covering the high planes of the area.

Pitch Reflection

In this post I will go over some of the feedback I received in my recent pitch presentation to drive the project forward.

Believability

The key word "Believability" was picked out of my presentation and could be an important starting point to lead the project on to its next stages. In this context believability refers to the illusion of reality or at least create the connection to something the viewer can relate to so that the image makes sense. The design of the picture must be understood by the viewer to emanate its full emotional or informational effect.  

Power of Art by Simon Schama

I was also advised to watch Simon Schama's "Power of Art" series that observes and follows some of the greatest artists in history through their life and describes their aesthetic view and choices (as well as possible at least). The show might clarify my own artistic vision and help me guide the direction of the project.

Master Studies

Additionally master studies were mentioned. Master studies or studies and practical practice/exercises in general will help improve my craftsmanship skills. I must train my observational skills and recognize features that help paintings stand out from others? How do some artists portray emotions so well, others guide the eye to the centre of attention so accurately and again others achieve such high detail and skill in their paintings? These are all subjects in which research and studies can be undertaken.

Self Learning Documentation

As a general research project advice I was told that a "self learning documentation" to help others would be a possible honours project direction which sounds quite appealing to me. 

Pitch Presentation

The other day I held my first honours project presentation of the year. At this stage the project is still very broad. My interest in digital art and especially environment art at least set the basis for my practical endeavour.

I listed some first ideas on the project aim and objectives as well as a short overview of literature I am looking into at the moment followed by the skills I want to improve over the year.

The feedback was very useful and settled my worries of not yet having a concrete research project for my dissertation, by informing me that a strong practice based research project is possible in which I continue to look into different aspects and theories before narrowing down my search. But more on this in the next post which will review and discuss some of the advice given during the Pitch presentation.

Digital Portrait Study No. 2

Reflection

The proportions of the face and the perspective are a bit off in this portrait despite trying to redraw it over and over again. The face in general does not look very 3-Dimensional and is quite flat. I might come back to this one some time in the future to correct it, but as it's just a study I'll leave it for now. 

A few Sketches

Honours Workshop Diary 3 – Research into the Key Aspects of Craftsmanship

Progress Report

As my project is developing towards a form of digital painting one should also possess solid background knowledge on craftsmanship. Therefore I will have a look into several important aspects such as composition, staging, lighting, value and colour theory. The mastering of tools and skills will lead to the possibility of more meaningful visual imagery as I will be less constricted by my skills and abilities. Tools and technology will hereby help express myself. Along the road the project will of course evolve, as will my decisions change to which craftsmanship area to study more thoroughly. The intent of expression will guide the artistic evolution. As McLuhan states: “We shape our tools, and our tools shape us.” (McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill)

Also experimentation with unusual structure and methodology will lead to unexpected outcomes. This is possible in digital painting because the viewer has unlimited time to examine the artwork. Other media like animation and cinematography relies on clarity of the composition to guide the viewer properly.

Agreed Action Points

So here are a few things I possibly want to have a closer look at in the next weeks: 

• Composition, staging, concept design, technical design

• Colour theory, colour schemes, colour symbolism -> cultural background information, 

• Value, saturation, contrast 

• Lighting, artificial lighting, multiple light sources and their behaviour, atmospheres created through lighting

Anatomy Study - The Female Figure

1 hour Sketch - Pencil. Back and body proportion study.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

40 min Sketch - Pencil. Focus on form, shape and defined outlines.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

45 min Sketch - Pencil. Interactive and dynamic pose. 

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum

30 min Sketch - Pencil. Interactive and dynamic pose.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

35 min Sketch (left) and 25 min Sketch (right) - Pencil. Interactive and dynamic pose.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

15 min Sketch - Pencil. Interactive and dynamic pose.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

Quick Sketches - Pencil.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

Quick Sketches - Pencil.

Reference photography by Marcus J. Ranum.

Honours Workshop Diary 2 – The Jellyfish of Questions and Craftsmanship Research

Meeting Agenda -> The Jellyfish of Questions

The aim of this activity is to help to identify themes and key research interests to lead my honours project activities. At the end of this session I hope to have a defined research domain and be able to attach appropriate activities in terms of drawn experiments, practical work/media tests, literature research and media critique which will help clarify my project aim.

Progress Report

Here are the questions I gathered and beneath I selected core elements and tried to define themes and research topics. It is still very broad. This is partly because I want to improve my craftsmanship skills in many directions and not just one. For my final honours project it might be wise to choose a certain category though.

Digital Portrait Study No. 1

I painted this portrait in Photoshop with special focus on soft shadows and skin colours. Furthermore the painting has only little contrast and a limited colour choice. To portray the material of the partly see-through top of hers was also a challenge. The digital medium allows layering and painting in different opacities that are very handy for such a task though. 

I particularly like how her eyes turned out. They enrich the portrait by adding expression and personality. This is a realism attempt and should be seen as a study to improve my digital craftsmanship skills. All together the piece took me around 2-3 hours to complete.