Colleen Doran (@ColleenDoran) | |
"Contessa Carolina Sommaruga Matteini" by Vittorio Corcos pic.twitter.com/LIBQdqdcoU |
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Colleen Doran (@ColleenDoran) | |
"Contessa Carolina Sommaruga Matteini" by Vittorio Corcos pic.twitter.com/LIBQdqdcoU |
Eileen Goodman is painter well known over her long career here in Philadelphia for her naturalistic watercolors of fruit, flowers and gardens.
Whet's not obvious in images of her work is that she often works at a somewhat larger scale than is usually associated with watercolors, sometimes 4×3 ft (122x92cm) or larger.
Goodman explores the subtle cast of light on her subjects, often keeping her colors subdued in favor of studying delicate value changes.
I can't find a dedicated website for her work, but she is represented by the Gross McCleaf Gallery.
There is a nicely done short video by John Thornton about Godman's work and inspiration, with close-ups of her paintings, on YouTube.
Eileen Goodman's watercolors are currently on display in a show at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill: "The Weight of Watercolor: The Art of Eileen Goodman", that runs until March 14, 2016.
With clashing fluoro colours and bold line work, Nadine Kolodziey's images are a beguiling blend of in-yer-face hues and nuanced mastery of her media. Nadine is based in Berlin and Offenbach, and has produced a glorious portfolio of graphic design and illustration in her burgeoning career. The project we're focussing on today though is Salto magazine, now in its second issue. According to Nadine, the mag sees "fragments of daily life and stories layered in a colourful mix of shapes." It looks superb – if only daily life were really so bold and cheerful.
Queen of Demons Book cover 1997 Guest appearances by Dorian Vallejo, Steve Ellis, Steve Youll and myself. |
Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1993 Michael Mrak model (and roommate at the time) and now Design Director at Scientific American |
Psychohistorical Crisis, book cover, artist Dan Dos Santos (posing twice) and Carey Johnson (my wife) as models, 1999 |
Saint Crispin's Day - Right panel for the Battle of Agincourt triptych 2007 |
Red Sonya - Lover's Quarrel artist Kelley Hensing model 2011 |
The Night's Watch , artist Tony DiTerlizzi, writer George R.R. Martin and a host of others as players in a Game of Thrones , 2014 |
Fortune and Fate , book cover, artist Kristina Carroll model , 2007 |
Alien Crimes, book cover, artists Owen Weber, Rebecca Solow and Scott Murphy models, 2007 |
Reader and Raelynx, book cover, artist Scott Murphy model, 2007 |
Cartographer from Magic: The Gathering artist Claudia Rodriguez model 1999 |
Joan of Arc - On the Field art director Irene Gallo model 2010 |
The Vintage Festival, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Link is to zoomable version on Google Art Project; downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the National Gallery of Victoria.
This is another of Alma-Tadema's stunning evocations of life in classical Italy, in this case, a festival in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Vesuvius. The enlarged versions show Alma-Tadema's technique, more textural and painterly than one might assume.
ALma-Tadema painted two versions of the painting at the same time, a larger one, now in the Kunsthalle Hamburg (image on Wikimedia Commons) was placed on display; and this one was used by engraver Auguste-Thomas-Marie Blanchard to create a popular engraving.
Steve Barbaro (@iLLepitaph) | |
@Oniropolis 101 years later, Juan Gris's necessarily Parisian "Man at the Café" still seems hyper-futuristic, no? pic.twitter.com/yyd6NCr8cL |
Experimenting with plain shapes and shadows is illustrator and designer Richard Keeling, in his series of experimental posters. Richard was previously head of creative for All Star Lanes, the London-based chain of American-style bowling alleys. Finding his feet as a freelancer, Shadows Shapes is just one of many self-initiated projects the creative is working on to find his style and interests. Simple and playfully put together, these compositions are full of delicious-looking colours and feel as though I'm walking through an abstract version of the Sesame Street pinball countdown.
Coloring Skin with Watercolor by Laovaan
Odysseus and Polyphemus, Arnold Böcklin
Link is to zoomable file on Google Art Project; downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The file on Wikimedia, though originally from the Sotheby's sale to the museum in 2012, seems over-saturated in reds. Not having had the pleasure of seeing the original, I've adjusted a copy of that file to bring it more in line with the color on the museum's site.
Arnold Böcklin is an artist whose best known painting, Isle of the Dead, is so famous it makes him seem a one-hit-wonder, and his other work is often overlooked. Here he takes on a mythical scene, but his heart is obviously in his love of dramatic rocky landscape.
The figure of Polyphemus, the giant son of Poseidon as portrayed in Homer's Odyssey, is rendered in a sketchy, gestural forms almost as textural as the rocks on which he stands. His face is essentially a blur of madness and motion.
The rocks themselves, however, are painted in wonderful lavish detail, rich with subtle variations of color and texture, as is the sea and foam that washes around them .
The PaintBerri team is excited to officially announce that the site is now in open beta! During our 4 month closed beta, we added a ton of new features and fixes, including a lite painter for older computers & mobile devices, fun games for socializing, and a block feature for avoiding drama and having a nicer time!
PaintBerri is a free oekaki-style social art site where users communicate via drawings created on the spot with the built-in browser painter.
Join us!
Some feature highlights:
The Full Painter: This painter is packed full of features including pen pressure support, a highly customizable brush, and hotkeys!
The Lite Painter: This simple painter is usable on mobile devices! Draw on the go from your phone or tablet, and then finish up your piece at home with the Full Painter!
Games: Art games are a fun thing to do when hanging out with artist buds - now you can play them online, too! PaintBerri's first game "MixUp" allows you and two other users to create a fun and weird creature together by blindly drawing the top, middle, and bottom sections separately before releasing your fused monstrosity on the world!
Join the community!
oh that explains that
hee my bird (head) is featured there
Aś (@purenonsens) | |
Here's the comparison: Left: original (A3) colored digitally, right: traditional copy (A4) pic.twitter.com/R7EHGaO1iq |
During our recent conversation at the Boston Book Festival, the wise and wonderful Amanda Palmer spoke about the harrowing experience of watching her best friend die and reflected: "Everyone in this room is going to be gone pretty quickly — and we will have either made something or not made something. The artists that inspire me are the ones that I look at and go, 'Oh my god — you didn't have to go there. It would'v been safer not to — but, for whatever reason, you did.' And every time death happens, I'm reminded that it's stupid to be safe… Usually, whatever that is — wherever you don't want to go, whatever that risk is, wherever the unsafe place is — that really is the gift that you have to give."
As the words poured out of Amanda's mouth, I saw a kindred hand reach across space and time to catch them. A century and a half earlier, Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853–July 29, 1890) had articulated the same sentiment in a beautiful letter to his brother Theo, found in Ever Yours: The Essential Letters (public library) — the same treasure trove that gave us the beloved artist on talking vs. doing and the story of how he found his purpose.
In a particularly impassioned letter to Theo from October 2, 1884, Van Gogh writes:
If one wants to be active, one mustn't be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good — many people think that they'll achieve it by doing no harm — and that's a lie… That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity. Just slap something on it when you see a blank canvas staring at you with a sort of imbecility.
You don't know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can't do anything. The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerizes some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves.
Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas IS AFRAID of the truly passionate painter who dares — and who has once broken the spell of "you can't."
Life itself likewise always turns towards one an infinitely meaningless, discouraging, dispiriting blank side on which there is nothing, any more than on a blank canvas.
But however meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn't let himself be fobbed off like that. He steps in and does something, and hangs on to that, in short, breaks, "violates"…
Ever Yours is an infinitely enlivening read in its totality. Complement it with Van Gogh on art and the power of love, depression, and his little-known sketchbooks, then revisit the great social science writer John W. Gardner on what children can teach us about taking risks.
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Ross Tran is a concept artist and illustrator based in Southern California. He studied at the Art Center College of Design, and his credits include work for Walt Disney Studios, Psyop and Tyler West Studio.
Tran's lively, energetic digital painting technique combines areas of detail with passages that are gesturally suggested.
In addition to the professional work on his website and blog, there are a number of personal pieces, many of which were done for tutorials. His YouTube channel contains a number of short instructional videos, also available on his blog.
A number of his images are reproduced as prints, available from InPrint.
John Bauer was a Swedish illustrator and painter, active around the turn of the 20th century, who I first wrote about back in 2006.
Since then, I'm happy to report, resources for images of his charming, wonderfully realized illustrations have become more widely available.
Though not as well known outside of Sweden as some of his Golden Age English, French and American contemporaries, Bauer was an influential and much beloved illustrator, known primarily for his fantasy illustrations for the popular Swedish fairy tale annual, Bland Tomtar och Troll (Among Elves and Trolls).
Bauer combined a delightful, personal drawing style with renderings in muted, textural watercolor. Though his trademark trolls — which influenced both contemporary and generations of subsequent illustrators — were portrayed with a dose of humor, his forest landscapes were dark and open to suggestion, leaving much to the imagination of the reader as to who or what might lurk in the receding darkness.
I particularly love his stylized tree forms, the way he used reflections in dark water, and the magical glowing light effect he achieved for his princesses by using contrast against his dark backgrounds.
Bauer was particularly influential on his successor at Bland Tomtar och Troll, Gustaf Tenggren, who is actually better known here in the U.S.
Among the resources I've found, the highest quality images on Bauer's work are on Animation Resources and The Golden Age Site; the most numerous are on Artsy Craftsy and Art Passions. I've listed other image resources below.
The Jönköpings Läns Museum near his home ha a large collection of his work, though only a few images online.
There is a translated collection of Swedish Folk Tales from Bland Tomtar och Troll that features Bauer's illustrations.
1. Paintings from limited palettes are automatically harmonious, but they're very often eye-catching and memorable too.
2. Old masters used limited palettes by default because they just couldn't get the range of pigments we have now. Using older, quieter colors can give a much wanted mellowness.
3. A limited palette forces you out of color-mixing habits. If you don't have that standard "grass green" color, you'll have to mix it from scratch, and you're more likely to get the right green that way.
4. Limited palettes are compact, portable, and sufficient for almost any subject. In fact you can paint almost anything in nature with just four or five colors.
Smithsonian (@smithsonian) | |
Ready for lunch? "Three Sandwiches" by Wayne Thiebaud, @americanart s.si.edu/1OlKcTy #NationalSandwichDay pic.twitter.com/y7CQOwhoIW |
I know it's not exactly winter, but doesn't this illustration by Natsu Wakabayashi put you in the mood? Snow, skiing, hot chocolate…doesn't sound so bad! This was the first image I saw by the Japanese illustrator, but it's not the last. Natsu's enthralling portfolio is full of busy scenes that are fascinating in the amount of detail. Using pen and colored pencil, she draws tiny patterns, architectural details, lettering on sinage. It's impressive—make sure you spend time really looking at each piece. You won't be disappointed.
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