HAYLEY MERRINGTON: January 2012

Saturday 28 January 2012

Historical and Contemporary Artists and Techniques.

In order to develop and improve my work, I feel it is important to keep up to date with contemporary artists, whether it be for their personal or professional work. Studying the work of others helps to enrich my own work, as I can adapt the styles and techniques of others to suit my own.

From history, one of my the artists I admire most is Rembrandt. His use of colour, tone and chiaroscuro and the way he actually applied the paint to the canvas really brings his subjects to life.

Of course, the works of the great master Leonardo Da Vinci cannot go un-mentioned. His work, particularly his drawings and studies, has always been a great inspiration to me.

His soft lines and gentle highlights capture the life of his subjects beautifully. They seem to emerge from the page. I also admire the way in which he has depicted the fold of the fabric. Everything he draws and paints, he seems to have a deep understanding of, which means that each subject seems effortlessly captured.

In the contemporary world of art, I really admire the work of Luke Mancini, a concept artist working at the game company Blizzard's art studios. I admire his different techniques. From his confident, stylised pen work:

and his softer pencil sketches:

to his more impressive and dramatic finished work:

Each piece has a completely different feel due to the different techniques used. In the first image, the character is almost comical, with an exaggerated pose and quirky, confident pen-strokes. The second image has more emotion and character, with softer pencil lines accurately capturing the characters and textures within the piece. The last image is a digital painting of an eerie cave full of alien eggs. The dark atmosphere and sinister colour palette of greens and dark blues make the piece feel particularly ominous.

Another contemporary artist I admire is Paul Lasaine. He has worked on a number of films, and is currently a production designer for Dreamworks Animation.

I love his landscape pieces, mainly for his masterful use of colour and composition. These are a few examples of his work:

These pieces are not greatly detailed, the information in these paintings comes from colour, texture and brush-stroke rather than the meticulous reproducing of every little detail.

His black and white sketched are more detailed, whilst still retaining a feeling of freedom: