Rediculously Huge-Ass Post of Artists You May Not Know But Should

Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville is a personal favorite of mine. Her work is very much concerned with the ways in which women--particularly plus-sized women--view their bodies and, as a result, their self-worth. She has an uncanny ability to capture flesh in paint that rivals that of the great masters of old.

Claes Oldenburg (Drawings)

You may know Claes Oldenburg already as the famous Pop-era craftsman of large-scale sculptures of everyday items constructed out of soft materials. What you may be less familiar with are his drawings, which are superb. This man was a master draftsman whose drawings (most of which were illustrations accompanying proposals for sculptures) are deceptively simple.

Chuck Close

Chuck close was an early pioneer of the Photorealism movement. After a tragic accident in the early 80s which left him mostly paralyzed, his attention shifted to large scale portraits that focus on the use of the grid and take advantage of the limited motion he has in his hand. All of his work, even to this day, is mainly concerned with the ways in which photography, though perceived as a reproduction of "reality," are actually a means of abstraction.

Fernando Bryce

Fernando Bryce is a Brazilian artist whose small-scale drawings are all based on photographs, pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines from by-gone eras. Through his particular process of translating these images into ink drawings, Bryce attempts to bring to the forefront the issues of racism, nationalism, and political division that plagued the world in the past and still do in the present.

Eric Fischl

Eric Fischl is an interesting guy. His paintings are enigmatic. His subject, for the most part, seems to be white, suburban, middle-class Americans doing things in private that they would never admit to in public. I've never actually read an artist's statement by Fischl, so I'm not entirely certain what his goal is with these paintings, but their sense of humor and moral ambiguities fascinate me.

Examples Of Finished-To-Unfinished

These are some examples of working finished-to-unfinished from past Drawing 1 students taught by a friend of mine at Oklahoma Christian University. She calls this assignment "Giacometti Drawings" and in each case, the students began with a nice, clean, finished drawing of a skull and then worked on top of it with more gestural, less controlled line-work. Now, you have the option of adding LIMITED value--using it as a means to give you more of a push-and-pull of space--but you'll notice that in these drawings, value is nearly non-existent. Yet, for the most part, these drawings work. Therefore, if I see that we continue to overly lean on that nice crutch of "value" in our drawings, I will either take it out of your arsenal, or I'll give you a specific number of times you can use it within each drawing.

Just For The Fun Of It: Vik Muniz

If you are unfamiliar with the work of Vik Muniz, get ready for a treat. All of the recent activity amongst you guys learning to master different and new materials and techniques put me in mind of Muniz. This man makes drawings working with materials that one generally would never use to make drawings. Particularly, he has created series of drawings using wire, sugar, dirt, garbage, and (the work he is most famous for) chocalate. In each case he makes the drawing than then photographs it. Since he is using materials that are not archival and sometimes even perishable, the photograph becomes the only evidence of the work. Essentially, the photograph IS the artwork. Below I have examples of a few of his "Pictures of Chocolate" and a video in which he talks about his work. However, since most of Muniz's work is difficult to find online anywhere other that his own website, you should also visit vikmuniz.net and specifically check out his "Pictures of Wire" and "Pictures of String". Those series are particularly appropriate, since you will essentially see drawings very reminicent to what we do in class, only done with very odd materials. Have fun checking him out. His websit is particularly fun to navigate.

Homework Due On Monday, November 9, And A Reminder

Outside Assignment
Plant or Flowers
* Line only
* Work to the edge of the page
Materials
* 18"x24" White Bond Paper
* Charcoal pencil, drawing pencil, or black conte
* Hard eraser

Reminder:
For the in-class assignments, we will be working with black conte on 22"x30" good quality white paper. Come to class with one sheet each day.