Russ Mills

British artist born in 1971 in Exeter, Devon. He graduated from Met university in 1995- completing a BA in graphic art and design. He has spent almost 20 years crafting skills, absorbing influences of visual culture. His current work is a clash of styles from classical to pop art surrealism focusing on the human form. He was originally interested in working in film, and animation however, it wasn’t until more recently in his career that he realized his true potential lied in work with the computer, pencil, and paper. His work is based on urban fine art and contemporary graphics. A collision of real digital media, illustration based on firm drawing. He focuses mainly on the human form particularly on the face. Russ Mill’s figures are both striking, and a bit chaotic. They’re feminine, while alluding a sense of masculine power. His work is powerful, it uncovers the human emotion that lies underneath the beautiful girls faces, and allows their mind to be spoken in an unforgiving light.

The process he uses to create his work consists of many steps. Mills first collects sources he feels would be suitable to the portrait he is working on. Such as random stripes of pencil marks, textured paper, and even toned paper. He simply draws the photograph he is working from and scans that in as well. He then delves into his chaotic experimentation with coloured inks, adding or subtracting pieces as needed. His works all convey a sense of chaos, and motion. The portraits have a dark, almost eerie look to them. His figures are seemingly translucent. Their harsh outlines, and quick pulses of shading and, highlights only illuminate a hollow figure. It’s almost as though these figures are ghosts of various people. 

In my opinion I like the way he uses ink a specific way to express the emotion in his work. The direction of the ink being spread across the human figures to create a sense of meaning. the limitation of colours lets the picture itself create a strong emotion. For example: This image of a girl it seems like she is trapped and wanting to escape what shows this feeling is the use of the red ink being spread across the top of her head and how the rest of her body is not visible. the emotion such as feeling lost, feeling of suffering.

 

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born on August 6^th 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was an American painter, printmaker, occasional sculptor and film maker who was famous for the visual art movement- Pop art. His work explores the relationship between artistic expressions, celebrity, culture/advertisement which was popular by the 1960s. As a teenager his intentions were to study art education- to become a art teacher. However this then changed when he enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology where he studied commercial art. In 1949 he moved to New York to being a career in magazine illustration. Warhol began to use mechanical techniques to mass produce his images. His interest in popular culture expanded as he began to depict celebrities/newspaper dippings into prints.

One of his famous screen printing stencils was of Marilyn Monroe the reason why he repeated the image was because she was known as an 'icon' which meant everyone knew who she was. For example Michael Jackson is still an icon because he was and still is known as the 'King of Pop' the first person who created the moon walk. The more he repeated the Marilyn Monroe image the more 'iconic' she became. Also since screen printing involves using the stencil more then once using this method helped him create his stencils easily. Warhol wasn't only known for his celebrity stencils but also painting everyday objects and creating continuous stencils with them.

In my opinion I like the way Andy Warhol uses bright colours and makes his work look cartoonic the lines and shapes he uses I guess that's what pop art is about it doesn't have to be real or make sense as long as it relates to something. The way his stencils send out the 'iconic' meaning to people.

Lotte Reiniger

Among the great figures in animated film, Lotte Reiniger stands alone- the fact that she was taken a specific animation technique and made it into her own. She was born in Berlin and from an early showed an exceptional and, it seems, self-taught ability to cut free-handed paper silhouettes. From a young age she was attracted to timeless fairy-tale stories for her animations. Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty (1922) were from her earliest subjects. The delicacy and the fantasy of fairy-tales suited her intricate, imaginative technique.

Cinderella was one of Lotte Reiniger’s first films - it starts off with a pair of scissors cutting out the character Cinderella from a black piece of card which makes it look intricate. The fast hand movements instead of having the puppets already cut out using the hands makes it look different and creates a sense of delicacy. This draws the audience in by showing how the main character came  to life. The finery and elaborate patterns throughout the film, brings a sense of femininity into the narrative. Every design from the set to the characters has a delicate extravagance to it. The space between the images allows the audience to use their imagination to what they think is going to happen next. The detail done on Cinderella’s step sisters refers them to how its written in the book “ugly” using the different shapes and lines helps create it. When Cinderella is combing one of her stepsister’s hair the delicacy within that the strands of hair start of short and with the emphasis of movement on the comb creates the strands longer within seconds.

In my opinion I like Lotte Reinigner's work because of the way she turned her passion for fairy tales into films, the way she expresses emotions of the characters within the puppets. Her technique of intricate and delicacy really brings a change/feeling of something new when watching her work.

Chuck Close

Chuck Close was born on July 5, 1940, in Monroe, Washington. Suffering from severe dyslexia, Close did poorly in school but found solace in making art. After earning his MFA from Yale in 1964, Close took his place atop the American art world by creating large-scale, photo-realist portraits that have creatively blurred the distinction between photography and painting. Close deepened his love for painting and art in general. At the age of 14, he saw an exhibition of Jackson Pollack paintings. Pollack's style and flair had a great impact on Close, and, as he later recounted, it made him determined to become an artist. The art movement he uses is Superrealism.

Chuck close begins his painting by firstly dividing his photograph which is going to paint from into a grid, he then creates a corresponding grid on the canvas. Then he transcribes the image onto the canvas square by square, proceeding from the top left to the bottom right. He then starts to paint each square. All of Chuck Closes work have been done by hand.

In my opinion i like/dislike his art work because in a way i like the way he uses bold colours on top of each other and always makes the circles on top of each square stand out, also the way he still manages to keep the facial features easy to spot. On the other hand i dislike his art work because when we had to do a task based on his art work i found it tricky due to the amount of colours we had to use and the style of his work which i find challenging. Whilst looking at the colour wheel i identified the primary colours, the complimentry colours( opposite a primary colour eg: yellow-purple, red-green, blue-orange) the spilt complimentry colours ( two colours that make up the complimentry colour so opposite red is green and two colours to each other will be blue and yellow. I used some parts of the colour wheel but didnt pay much attention to it.

Graphics Evaluation

Graphics Evaluation

 

In this project our theme was ‘street style’ meaning everyday clothes; we investigated different types of street style clothing from blogs and used drawing techniques such as outline, not taking the pencil of the paper, continuous line to copy a image. We then created a mood board of our everyday clothes such as shoes, jumpers, tops, jeans etc this was in a way to show the types of clothes/shoes I wear. Our next task was to choose four blogs; within them blogs we had to choose four images

We then had to choose four different set of images from Chictopia we had a choice on what images we wanted to choose but it had to have a category such as dresses, jeans, trainers etc. After we had to trace or draw the images straight in to our book these would be our thumbnail sketches. We then had to use a set of images that we chose and pick one image from there and do different technique samples such as ink, watercolour, colour pencils etc. This then helped me to choose which technique I liked the most; which was the colour pencils. I choose this technique in particular because I like the way the artist Agnes Decourchelle uses this art material in her work to show people it isn’t a dull/boring material to use. I really like the way she expresses the use of colour pencils like the direction of the way she colours/ the way she can also blends the colours.

After choosing to use colour pencils I then measured 13cm across and 18cm down I did this 3 times, this is where I traced my images on to from the tracing paper. I did have a problem well using colouring pencils due to the fact I wasn’t feeling well so my concentration wasn’t 100%. This then affected how my work looked in the end. If I were to change anything I would have either used colour pencils/watercolours or watercolours only because watercolours the colours are strong which will make the image look much brighter in a way.  Also the layout of the images I would have putted the two best ones I liked first.

 

 

De Stijl Evaluation

De Stijl Evaluation

After looking at the art movement ‘De Stijl’ and finding out about the Artist Gerrit Rietveld and his red and blue chair. We then were asked to make a copy of his chair. We had to decide we wanted to do a 1:3 or 1:4 chair. A 1:3 is one third of the actual size and 1:4 is a scale model. We had to be aware of the size/measurements otherwise the chair would look weird. I used a pencil and a ruler to measure out the different parts of the chair I had to be aware the legs and the arms to the chair has to be the same size. I did find this tricky because it did involve a lot of thinking and maths since it was a geometric chair. I’d say for the first lesson doing this I was finding it hard especially since we all had to do it independently. After I had drawn out my pieces I had to cut them out using a cutting knife I had to be aware of where I was cutting and how I was using the knife. I used a ruler to help me cut out the different pieces. I’d say measuring the seat and the top/back of the chair was easy because the top/back has to be a lot thinner than the seat cause the seat had to be thicker.

When it came to assembling the chair this was also another aspect I found tricky because this involved the hot glue gun. When I was gluing each part I was looking at the person sitting next me and how they were putting their chair together.  This then helped me put my chair together, the fiddly bits were putting the legs/arms together considering there was more than one of them and they all looked identical. Having said this it did cause a problem when I was gluing one of the legs to the chair I accidently spread the glue and it came onto my fingers now since the hot glue gone was really hot it did hurt my finger this made me a little paranoid. I then had the urge to just get it done.

When painting the chair I found this part the easiest/ in some way tricky because referring back to the artist Gerrit Rietveld he only used four colours (red, blue, black and yellow). I used two brushes to paint my chair a thick brush for the top/back and for the seat and a small brush for the legs. It was quite hard because the chair had so many parts to it so I had to be careful of where and what part of the chair I put the chair on. I did manage to paint my chair successfully however I didn’t put the yellow parts which were at the ends of the arms to the chair and the parts which made up the legs. I know myself if I took time/ more care when making this chair I could have made a better replica of the chair which had straight edges.

 

 

 

 

Art Nouveau Evaluation

Art Nouveau Chair

When I first received the assignment brief my thoughts were that it’s going to be tricky considering the many aspect we had to look into whilst making a chairs such as the measurements, ergonomics and the theme Art Nouveau. I first found out what it was about whilst looking at images from the internet I found out it consisted of stylised flowers, leaves, roots. I decided to look for Art Nouveau pattern especially looking at the flowers/curvy shapes and particularly the flower pattern which was a heart shape containing two daffodils combined together. In my mind I knew I wanted my chair to have a heart shape but I also thought I wouldn’t be able to make a complicated chair with too many tricky bits that I will have to cut out.

 

When I started making my chair it was hard to cut out the heart shapes especially to make sure I cut through the thick cardboard and not make my lines look rigid. After I cut one side of the heart I then traced it again on cardboard so it would look identical and cut it out. I then used a glue gun to fix the two pieces together I found this to be tricky because I had to be aware of where I was putting the glue. I then decided the heart needed support so I cut two strips of cardboard and glued it on to the back of the heart. I decided to use modrock because since it wasn’t my first time using it I knew it was a strong material to work with. I cut different strips of modrock dipped them into warm water one by one; took the excess water out making sure it wasn’t too soggy, then applied it to the heart. I knew I had to make this strong so I added two layers of modrock.

 

Next I made the seat this consisted of two piece of thick cardboard which I cut into rectangles and glued together I then wanted a rim around it so I cut two long pieces with fitted the width of the rectangle and two short pieces with fitted the length of the rectangle. I glued them onto the seat, in my mind I knew since the top part of my chair was heavy the seat has to be equally as heavy so I applied the mudrock in the same way as I did to the heart, combining the two strips supporting the heart to the seat. I decided to take my chair home so I could finish making the legs and modrocking it, then painting my chair. When it came to what colour I wanted to paint my chair I had a lot of colour ideas first I was thinking of doing my chair dark green/light green but then I thought most people will do this so I decided to paint my chair a dark pink with shades of pink. The next day I changed my mind again and decided to paint it a dark purple with a lighter purple on the heart to make it stand out. I was pleased with the way it looked but I felt the whole process of making my chair was rushed, if I took time making my chair then I know for sure I could have came up with a better design.

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland on March 30, 1853. The son of a pastor bought up in a religious and culturedatmosphere. Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence, between 1860 and 1880 when he finally decided to become an artist.

My favourite painting is The Starry Night, Van Gogh painted Starry Night while in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in 1889.The reason why I like this painting is because it has so many different elements of art put in to one picture. The composition firstly the way it has 3 plans to it the cypress in the first plan, the village in the second plan and the sky in the 3rd plan. The use of swirls and lines used for the sky makes it look really moving. The shades of colours such as the blues merged together to represent spirit and the white/yellow used to slowly express the sun, considering the fact yellow is a hot colour so referring to temperature. Also if you refer to the colour wheel the colours create a sense of harmony between cold colours and a contrast between the complimentary colours. The focus on the light within the picture the moon and stars create light across the sky but it doesnt spread the light across the ground.

 

I found Vincent Van Gogh's portrait paintings interesting aswell espically this painting Self-Protrait in Front of the Easel (Paris early 1888.)The use of different brushstrokes and different shades of colour used to give the face a sense of feeling. The brushstrokes on the beard using different shades of brown/brown and painting in different directions really makes it look realistic.The tonal areas such as the eyelids, side bottom part of the nose, inner parts of his ear really made then stands out. The white highlight used on the lips, forhead and parts of his beard.