New age of simple/minimal art.

THIS ART IS ALL ABOUT FINDING THINGS WHICH YOU LIKE and taking it to it's simplist form. The idea being you can take any subject and make it fun. I think as an illustrator this is possibly one of the most important things to think about, but that's not to say this is the only thing that makes art works appear 'top dogs'.

Meaning would help better this style of art, which is probably something I need to consider more. When this is achieved, art can be enjoyed on a mass scale so the question is: Can you make a design that has meaning with a balance of style and humour?

Candy Garden Party sign

This was constructed by carfuly analyzing the letters and remaking them with geometric shapes, also this keeps the same slection of shapes for each letter. but the letter sizing changes to help this design layout.

More to this image than it first appears. For example the letters A and R in the words garden and party have this strange parallel thing happening.

I find this most intresting that curved lines could react as a softening affect against harsh pointy lines.

Mega Cool.

symbles

This is a very unusual collaboration of images. The semantics within the circles are initially ambiguous. Whilst the outlines have clear representations – humans, speech marks, chairs, urinating and an anchor for example – they simply don’t make sense as single symbols or signs.

It could possibly be a short narrative of the day of an office worker – split-second images that contributed to an individual’s working day – this is a white-collar worker under pressure who’s woken up hungover, and is startled by his loud smoke alarm alerting his fight or flight senses. The next caption shows other tenants within his building grouping on the stairs and following the fire procedure. He uses the fire escape and rejoices that he is unaffected by the blaze. After a letter regarding the building’s safety he goes to the toilet. The next two symbols indicate that he has post-traumatic stress as he is slightly disorientated and the red symbol indicates a brief examination from an occupational health nurse where his ability to function properly and not take time off work is considered. He questions himself on his ability as he’s rather shaky with additional apprehension with his scheduled meeting with his boss.

The white speech mark represents the briefing from his boss and the clear speech marks that follow show the individual relaying the information to workers underneath him in the hierarchy of the company.

The minimum wage workers peruse the new direction of the company, whilst our middle-management individual privately stresses over the briefing, leaving him exhausted. He goes to the pub and gets intoxicated. He then vomits in the green oval loo seats and awakes hungover with the knowledge that there is no chance of promotion for him within this company and the anchor represents his lack of mobility.

Or something like that!

Darren Whittington

This is a postmodern selection of imagery from Darren Whittington who uses shapes to illustrate his vector drawings. He relies on semi-circles, circles and ovals and exaggerates them with heavy outlines. I think his artwork would benefit if he he used textures or patternation in his backgrounds.

Shoji Hamada – Bottle 1931

Hamada’s Anglo-Japanese style of pottery was innovative as he was influenced by Bernard Leach and set up his own pottery in St. Ives. I feel that colour is important here. Whilst my preference is usually for lighter colours I do like this vase’s earthy colours. The ‘slip’ is a lighter mix of clay, which is a fern colour which contrasts well against the darker brown glaze. I may use these colours in future as I find it paradoxical that ordinarily these colours are mixed together as camouflage in the army, yet in this instance they are used to bring forth the leafy Japanese motif.

Kandinsky

Kandinsky - Bow and Arrow 1927

Kandinsky was himself an accomplished musician and claimed that when he heard music he saw corresponding colours. The simplicity of this relationship for him, is evident here when he uses interlocking triangles and rectangles predominantly in warm red and yellow for the arc of the bow and creates a ‘heavenly’ blue circle as a cool subversive counterpoint to create tension. You can ‘hear’ the vibration of the bow through the wave shape.




Kandinsky – Klang (Sounds) 1907-12

I took information from ‘Kandinsky – The World’s Greatest Art’ (2006). Kandinsky considered this piece to be a gestamtkunstwerk as it is a universal and comprehensive synthesis of art, which combined picture, word and sound. This image is a clever construction which contrasts the yellow and black. Additionally, the shapes, trees, people and horse etc. are deliberately unambiguous and this is why the whole gestamtkunstwerk works as an ensemble.

(Artist unknown) Japanese Matchbox Design

This design is constructed out of six shapes that form hills and trees. The design uses texts which break up negative space. The design itself is unusual in that it only takes up quarter of the space. For me, this was particularly memorable as I researched it some time ago and have recently appropriated it subconsciously with obvious similarities.

Shipman

Its a space ship and a man in one. Idea came form henna beads and tanker tours image. I know its a bit crude but at least its getting in the thinking mind set.

Christoph Niemann

Christoph uses a graphic approach to his illustrations. This is evident in his grid formulated design. He is an american illustrator that thinks more about problem solving than on artistic expression. When he gets a job he focuses on a idea then pics a media he feels would best suit this. he uses all sort of media form drawings to very vetor based design.



This tanker tours image cleverly usesing the bottem of the boat shape as a bomb and also uses the sea to help emphasize this and helps line up the text. I find this layout useful to better my own graphic approach.



There is three elements in this image, Altough it is unclear what is happening here. One narrative might be the government taking advantages of loop holes in the expenses row. Anther people being forced to vote for a certern party/gambling scam.



This image is construced with shapes, so semi-circle,triangles and rectangles. The forground objects colour, is a bit dark for my taste looks different from the background contrast wize. This one reminds me of the dinosaw head i made in a project.

Ian Wright

This is an image made up of Hama Beads. Wright makes faces / portraits out of unusual media. Perhaps try to contact him and ask him some questions about his work. This way of working must be very time consuming - how would he get it done when he has a tight deadline? Here is link that shows you how to use Hama Beads - it looks like real fun. It would be nice to see some of your characters done in this way.

Got an idea form this thank jo i will post it soon in the my work section of this blog.

Mayan Sculpture

These Mayan sculptures really remind me of your drawings, they are made up of parts / shapes joined together to make a character. It would be good to do some drawings based on these - see if you can find a book on either Mayan, Mexican or Aztec influences.

Thankyou jo,

Yes this is defently similar to my resent drawings. I will defantly see what jems i can find and post both on my blog and side file them. [kwl]