Tim Shaw

Tim Shaw's pieces alone are chilling and give a haunting atmosphere. But also the way he uses mundane backgrounds, often dark and almost thriller inspired backgrounds adds greater mood to the politically targeting pieces. I was have seen one of his pieces in last years Summer Arts Exhibition, this was presented again with the sculpture being in a dark colouring the piece kept to the same nature of the one above. All the pieces he exhibits are of the same nature which creates a constant house-style which can be seen on his website: http://www.timshawsculptor.com/ . The constant atmosphere and atmospheric display between the pieces also show how he has seen that one way it was displayed worked (the violent appearance standing out above the virgin white) and kept to the same technique replicating this years down the line. Not only this but he uses light to darken and cape he pieces in even more darkness creating shadowing extending the real life scale of the piece, so that the area in takes up is greater and more intimidating. A brilliant technique.

Concept Art

I adore concept art, I think that original concept art allows you to see the stand out features of a character. Once concept art has developed into final processing for films, games etc I think sometimes thecharm of the orginal dfesign can be lost. In my eye the orginal sketchy apperance, using just pencil or pen allows my mind to visualy animate a sequence in my mind. The series of concept are which could be used to create a mini storyboard creates a frame by frame maping which showcases the prominet features. Concept art shows the posture, expression, scale and overall form of the design which I think is a neccasity and I enjoy drawing in this from. When I have participated in Life Drawing, and on the rare occasions I have enjoyed it, I do so when I draw in this style. I eremember the first Life Drawing Class I completed, I drew a moving figure and my style was reminicent to the body mapping of concept drawings. This is a feature I think I will use frequently in futture work and development.
The concept art can vary from basic drawigns or detailed illustrations. The concept art which was seen for the Pixar film Toy Story is specifically beautiful and rich in colour in my opinion, the images can be seen in teh Hardback book, The Art of Toy Story 3. The book is veryd etailed and showcases storyboards, charaxcter designs, background designs etc. This is the kind of work I would love to be developing one day for my own animations. I like the painted concept art created digitaly, with water colour or acrylic.

Ludovico Einaudi

This song is a piece composed by an Italian contemporary music composer and pianist, Ludovico Einaudi. I stumbled across the piece while listening to the album Islands: Essential Einaudi. My brother told me the album was a great album to revise too. Although I wasn't doing revision, I often listen to slow music and orchestral music to complete most of my work for college, especially sketchbook work, drawing and evaluations. This song helps me to create vivid imagery in my mind, the tranquility of the soft music often creates a recurring image of a large lake, with icelandic mountains and scenery bordering the lake as far as the eye could see, as the music develops I can imagine nature within the lake such as the ripples created from diving fish or landing birds. I think I often draw this image is because I find water very calming and beautiful along with breath taking landscapes. Another song which I find highly influential on this album is Nefeli which also is a piece which continuously creates vivid scenes in my mind.
The music is helpful with my work as I previously stated, I find a slow song allows my brain to concentrate deeper and also allow my mind to reach a form of mind where I am able to deeply evaluate my work and annotate my thoughts. Not only this but I feel when listening to pieces like these I am able to sit for longer periods of time and work, for example intricate pen work.

Lucian Freud: Painted Life

The Lucian Freud Documentary that was shown on BBC, was a very in depth look into Freud's works that showed his personality and intense work style. I found the documentary interesting and compelling, I think this was because  I had never seen such an in depth critique into an artists life before or personality which was then reflected into their work. I enjoyed the way in which the documentary gave feelings from sitters of Freud's alongside friends and family as well as other artists. The main reason I felt so strongly to the documentary was the rare insight that was shown from the opinions and recollections from the sitters. It was intense to hear the sitters recall their time with Freud alongside there sexual relationships with him also. I found the way in which he had an intimate relationship with the sitters to be odd at first but on further viewing of the documentary I began to understand within the highly personal relationship of life drawing, especially when the pieces are on a large scale and completed over a long period of time, the artist and the sitter can create an over heightened personal relationship. A view within the documentary was that Freud was able to better his piece when he had this bond with a sitter, this could be shown with analysis of the length of the pieces reflected by the length of the sexual relations. This physiological side of his life has allowed me to enjoy the works of Freud on another level, instead of interpreting the work myself I can see and hear his story which allows me to look deeper into his work. 

The nudity of his pieces I don't find pornographic as others do, when I view the pieces I see an artist who loves the form of the body, every aspect and detail of the form along with the colour pigments in the skin. The detail is so defined it almost intimidates me how accurate he has created the expressions and mode of the sitter. The shaping and blends of the colour used have captured beautifully the bone definition and formation on areas such as the eye sockets, nose and upper lip, which are clear favourite aspects of Freud's, on the body. 

I recently participated in a series of life drawing classes, I wasn't able to gather motivation and excitement within these classes, I only wish I had seen this documentary before to see how a great detail of concentration and patients can create a beautiful outcome, in all honest I wish I had seen Freud's work before because I regret to say I had never heard of the wonderful artist until I viewed the documentary. 

I would use Freud's work in my future works and draw areas of his life such as the strong love for painting he has or the intense patience and concentration he gathers when working on a piece. I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary and I would recommend to any student, budding artist, painter or any artistic lover out there to get to BBC iPlayer and watch:

Lucian Freud: Painted Life 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cdhs5/Lucian_Freud_Painted_Life/