Artists I Follow
Seriously! Go check out some of these people!
Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairley is a silkscreen artist who uses bright colors and a comic book like art style to quite literally illustrate the faults of humankind.
Shepard Fairey describes his 2020 piece "Fan the Flames"
"It's a woman wearing a sort of military-style cap, holding a fan that has flames on it," he explained. "(She) is looking directly at the viewer, looking somewhat intense and focused, and maybe a little irritated at the lack of movement towards ecological responsibility.
"In the background are things like a ripped dollar bill, a flower being eclipsed by dark lines (and) text about the oil and gas companies' donations to members of Congress. It's both seductive and provocative." The message he hopes people take away with them? Strength in numbers. "Each one individual who might be frustrated with how things are going has very little power by themselves, but we all have power through democracy in numbers," he said. "So participation in elections and using every tool we have to engage civically is the only way to overcome traits of power."
My Interpretation (assignment)
The woman in this photo definitely looks focused. But instead of being intense or irritated, I see a more knowledgeable expression, like she sees what is really going on. Since this was a 2020 piece, the flames on the fan could represent the California fires, and the torn dollar bill could represent the recession of the pandemic.
The message behind this image is powerful, and extremely motivating to enviormentalists. I would someday love to be able to create art pieces that carry deep meaning; something more than just a pretty picture.
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhol was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished in the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture.
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Warhol's art taught me a lot about color theory. I also had a lot of fun manipulating color on photos, which was what Warhol would often do with photos of famous people such as Marylin Diptych (photo above).
Phil Hansen
TED video - "Embrace The Shake"
Hansen started out as a stipple artist in school, but the intense tightness of his grip that was needed to control the pen eventually led to a shake in his hand, which was the manifestation of nerve damage. Having his means to create his art essentially 'break' was devastating for him, and Hansen stopped creating art for many years. Eventually, however,Hansen learned to embrace his shake, and started first making line art from scribbles, then finding other means of create art such as writing people's stories in a cyclical motion, making a portrait of that person out of those words, and finding more and more creative ways to make art over time.
This was not Hansen's only limitation. He also lacked the money to buy art supplies. So when he got a stable job, the first thing he did was buy all the art supplies he could have dreamed of. But instead of going right into a creative explosion like anyone would expect, he went into an extensive writer's block due to being overwhelmed with all his choices. Hansen then decided to make art pieces using less than a dollar of supplies.
the well known concept of thinking outside the box was completely defied, and Hansen instead relied instead on thinking inside the box to allow his creativity to thrive. He also created art pieces that would be destroyed after their creation in order to promote detachment such as a portrait made of matches that would be burned after it's completion.
Joy Ang
I actually did a presentation about her for class.
Joy Ang is a freelance graphic artist who was born in Calgery, Canada, and graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design with a Bachelor's of Design. She is known mostly for her cover art and creature designs she does for Tui T. Sutherland's Wings of Fire series, but has also worked as a character designer for Adventure Time, in the gaming industry with Bioware and in the comics industry with Udon Comics.
Her Wings of Fire cover art tends to be very dramatic, and eye catching. Each cover typically sticks to one color scheme (Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, etc.), and provides some information about the book, like where a major part of it takes place, and even a scene straight from the story.
What I really love about Joy's artwork is her attention to detail, and the dramatic elements to her pieces. Notice how she bends the background around the main focus poin
Book 14
Book 4
Book 6
Wes Wilson
Wes Wilson was born in Sacramento, California, 1937, and died in 2020. He was an American artist and one of the leading designers in psychedelic posters. He lived in San Francisco, where he designed and published his own posters, one he did for the Beatle's final performance in Candlestick park. He invented a font around 1966 that made the letters look like they were moving or melting, and it became associated with the peace movement, the psychedelic era, and the 1960s.
Personally, I really like Wilson's art style. The way he designed his signature font, and how it can fill up any space like a liquid.
