Debbie Adele Cooper/ Sue Blackwell.

I discovered her work when visiting the Quad and seeing the exhibition "Never Let Me Go". The thing that appealed to me most about this work is that the book she was interpreting, she had decided to carve hollow and create a little scene based around imagery in the book within it, with a peeping hole to view inside when slightly opened. The trees on top were also made from pages of the book. This was a newish form of art that I had seen which reminded me of my work I did for my body project at college; however that project was inspired by the work of Sue Blackwell (2nd image). Below Sue Blackwell's work is also an image of the work I created for the body project and a similar idea of using pages within a book to create artwork.

Eleanor Bowley "Watching/Waiting"

This piece in particular stood out to me from her work which is shown in the book Illustration Play: Craving for the extraordinary. I feel this piece stood out to me the most as it is so delicate and pretty, and the detail on the bird is very contradictory to just the shapes and patterns in the background. The use of mixed media and material to composite most of it appeals to me as I like textile work myself. I feel it all works very well to give a natural feel and a very delicate, feminine piece of work. I'm hoping to try this style more over the summer with personal projects.

Propaganda Posters

I have been doing research into these as it fits in nicely with the work I am creating for Visual Problem Solving with people trying to manipulate peoples thoughts etc.
I like the simplistic compositions and imagery within this posters which are far from complex so the message is clear and to the point. I also like the use of a colour palette and this not ranging too much, often with 4 colours being the maximum amount. I am hoping to incorporate similar qualities within my own work, and possibly create one piece very like this.

Jenny Saville

I was first introduced to Jenny Saville's work in college as well. I love her work has she takes controversial issues of gender or weight and these are the main focus within her work. The colours she uses as well within her work are often to portray dead bodies or look like rotting flesh, however the reason why I love her work is for the respect I have for the skill of painting. These pieces are known to be fairly big and yet the whilst the marks look really precise to create the skin, they are very expressive.

Dave Mckean

Dave Mckean is a major inspiration in my artwork and has been since I was first introduced to him in my final year of school (2008). I absolutely love his wide range of work and find him such an inspiring artist as he has tried many forms of different ways to communicate messages and be creative. For this reason I have included my 3 main types of work I love that he has done. The first is of his drawings, my parents recently brought me his book Squink, too many times I can just sit looking through that book for inspiration to just pick up a paintbrush (or whatever medium) and just make markings to try and represent what's in front of me. In this book the only use of medium is black ink. I find this alone incredible as the images still vary quite significantly, as in they have different mark making techniques applied, different styles, and it appears them spontaneous marks. The second image is of his photo manipulation and heavy mixed media images that he creates. This is the first work I discovered by him and it was definitely what has helped to inspire me to be more creative with media etc. The other amazing thing about the piece below is it's sheer size that it was painted at so that it could be used in an a4 comic. The final thing that I have linked is of his movie work that he has done. Mirrormask is by far one of my favourite movies for it's artistic qualities and it amazes me that Dave Mckean just tries his hand at everything, as this is how I like to work, and I hope to have skills in many aspects of creativity.

Natalie Shau

Natalie Shau has been an inspiration to me for a while now since I discovered her work at college. I love the use of photography combined with subtle photography. It helps to create a realistic looking image that is still blatantly drawn. I would like to work in a similar style to this one day or at least try combining photography and drawn images as I like the techniques it produces.

Apologies

Firstly I would like to apologise for the lack of posts in the last month, hopefully all the influences from those days will be uploaded in the next 24 hours.