I began looking at the work of artists whom I admire and writing down the essence of what their work embodied or what I really liked the most. I would not copy work, but studying it like this enables me to sharpen my thinking. If my end result can be placed next to my source material and I can hold my head high, that's fine. Anyway, I'll move onto the life model.
Here is my list:
Carroll Boyes: This is a range of functional cutlery and here are some drawings I made of some of the handles, with notes.
I'm sure Burgert looked at Greek drapery and also medieval drapery because his figures definitely have that sort of feeling to them. I love the way he seems to start his faces.
I'm going to show one more study, because I didn't get much further. I felt that I needed to get a move on with the model.
Ben Shahn: I've studied and analysed Ben Shahn's work quite extensively in my courses: "The Art of Ben Shahn", drawing with a kebab stick and ink, and using a combination of blind contour drawing with looking at the model / object. See the Workshop Gallery for what my students did..
Egyptian Murals: I think so many artists have been influenced by these wonderful murals. I have often borrowed their colour palette as well!
Chagall's floating bodies: Don't you just love the spatial ambiguities in Chagall's floating and semi-floating figures. And their bendy elbows!
Margaret Mackintosh: Klimt and Margaret Mackintosh were contemporaries - their figures have a lot in common, although the execution is very different.
Picasso's Guernica: The Picasso profile of the forhead running straight into the nose can be seen in lots of stylised figures. The bent head of that anguished screaming figure also occurs often.
The angels in the glass window in Coventry Cathedral: These look like scratched drawings of medieaval sculpture and yet...
Medieaval figures on buildings: Heads on pillars with stylised simplified bodies.
Aubrey Beardsley: He's quite naughty at times, but my goodness, his lovely fluid lines show such an understanding of the Japanese print. He's definitely made the style his own. (Japanese prints can be pretty risqué as well!)
Matisse: I'll come back to him...
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