DOLK Lundgren

Perhaps it is just the Norwegian air getting to me, but today we are featuring something fairly different. I heard about Dolk before, and then was reminded on my trip to Europe in 2011. Martin and I went to go visit his mother in Bergen, and it was there we saw his “Spray” piece in person. I really liked the subject matter, after my euphoria of thinking it was a Bansky wore off. The two are often confused, Banksy was a large inspiration for Dolk to begin stencil work, and they are both aware of it and have made several mock pieces to further this mayhem. I have featured his outdoor work here, because it is the one I identify with the most. The graphic flat shapes against the backdrop of the candid Norwegian mountains is something truly moving.

So, I took most of these images straight from Dolk’s website, but they were such wonderfully large, hi-res images I couldn’t resist.

http://www.dolk.no/

Tom Thomson

My husband and I were browsing the art book racks when I came across the book “Group of Seven….and Tom Thomson”. I thought it was sad for poor Tom Thomson to be excluded like that, but after reading up on him I now understand that he was the direct influence for the group, but died before it was officially formed. Thomson was probably was on Canada’s most influential painters, and it is interesting that he never began painting until he was well into his thirties (let that be  a lesson to everyone who says they are “too old” to try something new!). He was incredibly influential to many landscape painters, and without his work, the artistic world would be very different, I believe. His use of colors and textures within a landscape are simply unmatched.

Though, many would talk about his mysterious death, he simply disappeared during a canoe trip, I personally just want to shower you with images. Maybe let his work speak for itself.

 

 

No “official” page, but here is one that is fairly extensive.

http://tomthomsonart.ca/

Mary Blair

Mary Blair is best known for her inspirational work with Disney back in the 50s., being the driving visual force behind such family favorites as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan; not to mention advertising works that drove the market wild. I, personally, find her personal works and traditional watercolors my favorite, though most people would disagree as her stylized and simpler works were much more popular (though, don’t think for one second that it is as easy as it looks!).

I also find it interesting, that most people don’t really think about the other Blairs, such as her husband Lee Blair or her brother-in-law Preston Blair. Both were also incredibly well awarded artists, who shared many of Mary’s abilities, but were far less achieved somehow. Oh well, I guess that is the lottery of life. These works are all from Mary, though I do recommend looking up both Lee (for beautiful watercolors) or Preston (for spot-on animation sketches).

 

 

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Vaughn Bode

I had hesitations about adding Bode today, mainly because I figured everyone already knew about him. (And, those who didn’t I thought would maybe have their own reasons for not being interested) But then I got to thinking that even if you DO know who he is, there is no reason to not celebrate him some more, and still get inspired. Sometimes artists have a way of getting off our radar, and its nice to be reunited with their imagery every now and then. And if you don’t know his work (or his personality itself, as he was as much a character as his drawings were) then you can thank me later….!

Bode is the father of underground comics, beginning early on with very little artistic reference and drawing as a fuel for his liberal views. He was known to create comics that were both crude and serious, having both getting-kicked-in-the-balls humor and Vietnam references in one strip. My first experience with Bode was through the movie Wizards, created by Ralph Bakshi in the mid 70s, which was heavily inspired aesthetically by Bode’s work (though  nearly a decade after Bode began making comics, it came during the highlight of his career.) If you haven’t seen the movie, I really recommend it. It also has one of my favorite background artists, John Vita (who had very little internet presence. I’ll had to add some movie stills later to show you all!)

 

You can find out more about him through his son’s (who has continued his father’s legacy amazingly) site:

http://www.markbode.com/site/vaughnbode.html

It has more info on his tattoo work, murals, etc.,

 

Leonid Enin

What? You like concept art? HUH? You like video games?!

What a weirdo.

You’re lucky I cater to such losers like you, and post STUPID, RIDICULOUS things to support your inane interests.

I’m just kidding. We all love fantastic art like this. I remember a time (back when I had to walk through 6 feet of snow for weeks to get to school every day) when digital art was still something people didn’t know what to do with, much less make it look so effortless. The role in video games, specifically, to digital art has truly shaped and molded the medium into something much more streamlined and efficient – since the changes are so rapid and deadlines often incredibly fast-paced (they put the DEAD in deadline), styles that look like they have more work done than they do have become the Darwinism of the artistic style. As such, digital art has made deadlines often MUCH faster for even traditional mediums, as people do not realize an oil painting doesn’t take 2 hours to produce at the same level. Its an interesting conundrum we artists have on our hands (and, those responsible for our sanity such as editors and directors…!)

Either way, Leonid makes it all look easy. His designs are perfectly spot on, with the right amount of ingenuity and familiarity that is so crucial in most vis dev stages.  Not even taking into account draftsmanship (which would truly be a waste), his designs alone are enough to go gaga over.

 

http://leopardsnow.daportfolio.com/

Vivianite – Alex Kanevsky Interview

Since I am no where near talented enough to interview someone as amazing as Alex Kanevsky, whom we featured here quite a ways back before, it seems, he really got super famous. Since his explosion into the popular art world, he has a lot to say now, which is brilliantly interviewed by the blog Vivianite.  I’ve taken some tidbits here and there and posted them, all credit going to the people at Vivianite of course, and to read the full interview click here or follow the link at the end.

 

”

Vivianite: Your use of motion, light and color is truly stunning, how did you invent or learn your technique?
Alex Kanevsky: I didn’t really invent or learn it as a technique. I am a slow learner, so it developed over a long time. I am also fairly slow when it comes to actual painting. Slow but impatient. That can be a problem, but over time I figured out how to turn this contradiction into my own way of working. I can’t do slow and methodical accumulation painting: I get bored with careful, planned sort of activity. I also depend on freshness of perception, what zen-buddists call “beginner’s mind”. That is difficult to sustain over a long period. After a while you are just not a beginner. So I work fast, trying to hit the right note every time. That is nearly impossible, so I constantly fail. But I keep coming back to a painting. It accumulates layers, each one – more or lass a complete painting. Complete but failed. The layers are sort of like Swiss cheese – they have holes through which in right places you can see the previous layers. Eventually there are enough of “good holes” and also, because of all the repeated attempts, I manage to do a good top layer. And then I have a painting that has enough intensity in every passage to satisfy me. Then it is done.

You have said, “Everything is in motion. Fast motion”; could you go into detail about how you are thinking?
Well, everything IS in motion. “Fast” is a relative thing, of course. You know, glass in a window is actually a form of liquid. It is very slowly cascading down the window frame. That is why, you often see glass with slight wrinkles in very old window panes. People, whom I paint, are never still. They want to move, they are built for motion. It is actually painful for models to be still longer than 20 minutes. I like them, I find them endlessly fascinating, how they are built, the way they grow and shrink over time, how they move, act, express their emotions, etc. So I want to paint them the way they are, and to me they are defined by their motion. A brick is defined by its shape and people are defined by their motion.

“

 

http://www.vivianite.net/alex-kanevsky