The Study of Doodles.

Again this is on a very graphical, design related artist. Trenton Doyle Handcock grew up doodling and creating really interesting drawings expressing himself within them. The lifework and the colours he uses really jump off at the viewer and almost make you forget what you're looking at. Some of the images almost have a violent vibe to them without you even realizing it. Its easy to tell that Trenton uses his work to explore his own self and express himself through his work. Pretty interesting stuff. Check him out at: 

http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/trenton-doyle-hancock/

Keith Jones is another artist my teacher told me to look up due to his graphic cartoony nature in his work. He works with illustrations, comics, and is a self-proclaimed doodler. Jones is probably best known for his amazingly detailed cityscapes in which he creates. They are pretty amazing. I mean they are not overly realistic but the amount of detail just draws you eyes in and you just want to stay lost in this world he has created. His fun lifework works perfectly with his colour palettes he creates making his pieces that much more imaginative. In some gallery installations, Jones has even made some of his work come alive by creating 3D copies of his illustrations, which are equally awesome to see.

Jones is a Canadian artist living in Toronto who has published a couple different books as well as a graphic novel titled Catland Empire.

I can't remember how I found this artist as I just saw the name written down in my sketchbook and decided to look it up. But man am I glad I wrote that name down. Gregory Chiha is a french artist that mostly use oil paints. Like a few other artists I've looked up his main subject matter in his work is the human figure. What I love about his work though is how he uses the figure. He will create this realistic space for the figure to exist in and then to a certain extent distort the figure by adding fragments of colour. This creates movement or a motion blur in his piece almost like the movement you get in a picture with a longer exposure time. The ranges of colours his uses in the figure almost create a tornado of colour within the figure which sometimes results in a unrecognizable shape. Maybe he is turning the figure into something completely different? Even though the spaces in which these figures occupy are more realistic, the figures do not look out of place at all. I found his work the hardest to write about so far, meaning you should probably just check out his work.

http://www.gregory-chiha.com

Michael Reedy is an artist I found through Tumblr on one of the gallery blogs so I decided to creep his work a little bit. Instantly I was hooked. Reedy uses mostly figures as the subject in his paintings, prints and drawings which is something that drew me to the work. The way he uses them is what intrigues me though. He has a strong sense of realism in his work but then he goes and flips that inside out, literally. 

You can tell he enjoys working with the figure because he studies the entire anatomy from the skeleton, to veins, to muscle systems, to whats left on top, the skin. Reedy likes to mix and match everything in the figure he is portraying so you could end up looking at different layers of the anatomy in the same figure, almost like an x-ray. Reedy has a great sense of design in his work as he is able to include many different shapes and colours behind his figures to give his work a strong blend of design, realism and a sense of exploration. 

I am pretty stoked to have stumbled upon this artist because I find his work inspiring as I too like to use the human figure for the subjects in my work. Just seeing some of his pieces pushes me to draw more and maybe even explore in my work a little more.

Check out his work on his site:

http://www.michaelreedy.gallery

I found this painter in the summer in an artist book I bought. I was so excited for this book when I bought it mainly because it included two artists that really inspire my work. But as I looked through the book I got more excited discovering the several other artists I never heard of or seen before. That was the best part of the book. Brett Amory was one of those artists. His work made me that much more happy that I bought the book. 

Brett is an oil painter, a medium that I loved to use but haven't had time to use it in too long of a time. I find his work hard to explain because its just work that you have to see in order to appreciate it. Basically Brett paints spaces in which one or two figures may occupy. The way he uses his oils is just beautiful as he creates such beautiful compositions with almost mystifying contrasts that just draws the eye in and makes it never want to look a way. 

Anyways, I know there are very few people who read this particular blog but if you have had happened to stumble upon this post please check out this artist you won't be disappointed.

http://brettamory.com/?doing_wp_cron=1417318804.5178430080413818359375

Eko Nugroho is an artist with a name I will never be able to pronounce. That is just a fact. Anyways, Eko is an artist my drawing teacher gave to me to look up along with most of the artists I have been briefly writing about. Honestly I haven't seen a lot of his work yet, but from what I have seen I can tell why my teach wanted me to look him up. Again, he is very heavy on the graphic quality in his work, and while from what I've seen his work isn't my favourite from what I have looked up he does have some pretty cool work. The cool part about his work is that he works in a lot of 3D material on top of his drawing and the work still contains a lot of the graphicness which I adore so much. He works in ways I've never really considered so seeing his work and how he does it is refreshing for me. It makes me think that maybe I should open up and be a little more creative with my mediums and maybe try a new thing or two. I mean the guy creates puppets. How fun could that be?

Anyways I am going to end this the same way as the others, with a link to his site. Enjoy!

http://www.ekonugroho.or.id/index.php?page=agd

This is an artist I found out by looking for something to watch on netflix one night when I found a documentary about him. Unfortunately  at the time I was in the mood for something a little more action filled so I didn't end up watching it. Luckily enough I was smart enough to write down his name and at least look him up after and was I ever taken away. In ways his work reminds me a lot of Gary Panter's because they are both graphic and very line heavy. But both artists have a very different, and expressive line quality in their work.

So far I have just briefly read a little bit of Ralph's history and man does it sound like he has had quite the life. I'm hoping over the holiday break I have enough time to check out his documentary because I'm sure it is pretty inspiring. Anyways, Ralph has been producing quality work since the '60s and is still hard at it so just as I should do, check out his documentary.

http://www.ralphsteadman.com

Jon Shaw is a painter I stumbled upon through Facebook and ended up following some of his work recently. Like most of the artists I follow he has a very graphic style to his work as well as he uses many water colours and inks. Most of the work I have seen of his has been related to architecture in some form or another as he focuses on structure. As he says in his bio on his site he likes to focus on assemblage and disassembling his subjects. You can see this in his work whether his painting is of a house or portrait. He seems to find a nice balance between destruction and structure within his pieces. 

He also likes to use the same pens to sketch that I do so thats a bonus.

Check out his work!

http://www.jonshawpaintings.com/index.html

Gary Panter is an artist my drawing teacher introduced to me. When I started to check out his work I recognized the style as I have seen it in a few different mediums throughout my life. Gary is a pretty graphic illustrator which is probably why I’m so strongly drawn to his work. He has heavy line work and isn’t afraid to make a mark on his piece. He is more then just an illustrator though as he has worked with comics, painted, worked in documentaries, and even had a hand in designing the Pee-wee Herman set for the show. He is also known for being a strong influence on underground culture and ideas.  

The more I study this man’s work the more I enjoy the quality of it. Too much fun. Anyways, heres a link to his website:

http://www.garypanter.com/site/

Tara Donovan was given to me as a small research presentation I had to do for my print class. I'm not usually that interested in modern sculpture but when I saw here work it really interested me, probably due to the fact it has so many repetitive shapes and objects which relates back to my own work.

She takes the ordinary man made objects and creates astonishing, organic pieces. Some of her works include material such as various HB pencils, plastic cups, buttons, acrylics, adhesives, the list goes on. Tara creates interesting shapes and objects by simply repeating an objects natural shape and giving it a new perspective. 

Whether or not you're interested in sculpture check out her work because its pretty amazing what she does with such simple objects.

Here's a link to her work (its on the pace gallery website that represents her):

www.pacegallery.com/artists/111/tara-donovan/bio 

Check her out!

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