In this blog I'll share what I have learned over the years about drawing and painting. My processes creating illustrations, visual development and concept art. I'll share thoughts, techniques and ideas that have worked for me in my career as an illustrator. I hope they inspire , and work for you too!

zaterdag 2 mei 2015

Portricature

From a young age I have been fascinated by the art of caricature. In art school caricatures were looked at as low art, and I wasn’t allowed to create caricatures there. 
After school I got paid to do caricatures for magazines and newspapers. 
Although I have always disagreed with the teachers who told me caricatures were not ‘real’ art, it is amazing how much impact their response had to how I looked at caricatures. After a while I even stopped drawing caricatures at all, because I felt I wouldn’t be taken seriously as an artist.

When I realised I started to have the same viewpoint on caricatures as the people who forbid me to draw them in art school, I realised something had gone very wrong. I started looking at the work of the people whose work had inspired me for so long. Caricaturists, like C.F.PaynePaul van der Steen , David Levine, Natalie Ascencios but also painters from long ago. Then I realised there is no such thing as high art and low art. A portrait artist looks at his subject and decides what he wants to express. he chooses what he wants to emphasise, wether it is shapes, colors, textures, attitude… A painter exaggerates. he makes you look at the subject like he does, by showing this to you with his painting. Over time painters have done many portraits in many different ways.
Some of the portraits that are considered ‘high art’ by some, are not much different than how I would have loved to paint a caricature in art school

X

I always like seeing the same subject painted by different artists. Very interesting to see what the artist chooses to focus on, and how he wants to tell his story. These are both portraits of Mme Pierre Gautreau. 
Left: John Singer Sargent, Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) (1883-1884), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, oil on canvas, 208.6 x 109.9cm
Right: Gustave Courtois, Madame Gautreau (1891), Musée d'Orsay, Paris, oil on canvas, 62.01 x 58.5cm

Dean Cornwell


James Gurney: Imaginative realism:http://www.amazon.com/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508

Norman Rockwell

High res verion of the painting can be found here:https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/fishing-trip-they-ll-be-coming-back-next-week/ZQGS3jWsjWsXqA?hl=nl&projectId=art-project

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit



I love looking at art, I love great stories. I thought it would be nice to share some art and show what it is I like about it. In this painting: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, by John Singer Sargent, we see a family portrait. Although the way the girls pose may look coincidental, it was all planned. If we look at the way Sargent places color accents, lines, light and color choices, it becomes clear that he is in charge of what he wants to show us. I love the way the girl on the left is framed, as if it is a picture within the picture. The White dresses stand out in the dark colors he used. A beautiful example of storytelling.