http://www.francoise-nielly.com/index.php/galerie
Artist: Francoise Neilly
Oil on canvas, palette knife technique
The work by Francoise Neilly is mesmerising. The bright vibrant colours look incredible in this figurative piece. I have used this technique at GCSE level and found it quite tricky. However I'm willing to work on it and build my skill base, if I chose to include this style in my exam. The reason I've chosen to look at Nielly is because its continuous with my colour theme. This originally would have been a normal portrait and the skill with the oil paints makes it so much more alive. I much prefer art that's different. If this was an ordinary portrait painting I wouldn't be interested in it at all. Its the colour and detailing of the paint that makes it was it is. The colour adds so much more character and theme to the painting, and really hope I can portray this amount of liveliness into my work.

http://www.dominicjoyce.co.uk/
Title: Graffiti Model
Artist: Dominic Joyce
Size: A1
Over my research in the summer holidays I found this artist/illustrator on another online blog. It took me a while to find the artists name, but when I did I wasn't disappointed. Through my GCSE art I focused on figurative art like this, but without the graffiti. I really enjoyed it then so I thought if I combined it together with the graffiti now, then I would be left to explore ideas I'm more interested in. I studied an artist call Joe Eula, who is very similar Joyce's work. What I love is how simplistic the image is. It almost looks like a template was used to create the painting, to make sure the shaping was kept correct of the model. The graffiti adds drama to the piece and gives of a different edge and style.  Again this is another image that shows off graffiti in a positive light. I looked at this artist mainly for the figurative pieces he does, but was pleasantly surprized to find he combined his fashion work with graffiti, and it looks great.

http://www.darrencullen.co.uk/

This artist Darren Cullen is an award winning graffiti artists. As you can see the theme of my artists is bright, bold and vibrant colours. The black and white contrasting with the colourful background really compliments each other and appeals to the eye. If I was walking down the street and seen this image on the wall, I wouldn't think of it as a mess, id find it interesting and inspirational. Graffiti is often perceived as an eye sore, and used to represent gangs and thug life. But here he's used the famous icon, Marilyn Monroe, to change this representation. She is beautiful and this contrasts with the idea people have about graffiti. But because it’s her people will see graffiti in a more beautiful way. I really want to study graffiti and explore its many options within it. I could look at calligraphy, figurative or maybe just an abstract piece. All in all I’m very excited to create my own designs that I can paint and play around with. I want my work to show graffiti in a positive way and not a negative.

Title: Banyan Tree
http://trishakeiman.com/n11.html
 I love this artist because her work shows expressionism through her abstract colours. I love how she can take a normal figurative piece, such as a tree, and make it this extraordinary through her amazing skills. Even though the colours she uses are very different, they all work well together to make the piece so great. I want to use the skill of making colours work together in my work. You can see every root and branch in this piece and none on it disappears and gets lost into the background, its still bold and stands out. Her influences are  Klimt, Escher, Dali, Fauvism and Expressionism. She especially loves art that transmits a spiritual presence such as australian aboriginal, native american, hindu art and sculptures, tibetan mandalas, icon painters and islamic calligraphy. When i look at this image i feel i could use her as inspirations of colours in my work, and give them graffiti twist. Like Maahy, she can use the pattern to create the shaping of the figure. It’s almost like an illusion this piece, the colours and twisting into one another. I find it so skillful how she does that.

Name of piece: Rhino 

Artist: Maahy

Medium: Gallery quality Giclée print on natural white, matte, ultra smooth, 100% cotton rag, acid and lignin free archival paper using Epson K3 archival inks. Custom trimmed with 1" border for framin

http://society6.com/rothmanagement/Rhino-Maahy

I am in love with the work by Maahy. He is a new artist that I first found on Instagram, aged 18. His work inspires me because I love the ‘doodle’ theme. Although his work is not abstract his unusual colours give his pieces an abstract twist which I love. Particularly in this piece I love how he has turned what could have a plain and simple figurative drawing of a rhino, into something different. He even uses the patterns/doodles to create the correct shaping of the rhino. If you look at the legs the pattern matches the shape of the leg as it twists into shape. Also if you look closely at the horn, he uses the same technique to almost make it look 3D. The doodle is very detailed and you’d be worried that the finer details would get lost within it all; however you can still see the minor things like the eyes of the rhino, which shows of his skills. I like his use of shading as well. The doodle itself has different shades of the dark black to add tone range to a simple black and white piece. I’m in love with the black and white theme, but I want to use this black and white theme but add abstract/unusual colours to liven my own work up

Welcome to my A2 Art blog! I plan to use this blog to showcase my research and ideas  for my personal investigation. Collecting images and drawings of my own and other artists to build a portfolio for my final exam.