As an artist I have always loved to draw and a lot of the times I try to incorporate some element of hand drawn imagery into my artwork. A lot of hand drawn artwork and paintings have inspired me in many ways and one particular artist that has always been a favorite of mine is Norman Rockwell.
Rockwell is most famous for his covers of The Saturday Evening Post. He created paintings that portrayed his view of American and the people that shared his same spirit towards life and the country. I love how each image in itself can tell a whole story, and each dialogue is intriguing and relatable.
Besides the messages and stories that Rockwell portrays through his paintings, what first caught my attention and to this day I still love, is the quality and detail of his work. Some of his paintings are so intricate while in contrast his simple paintings look like they could be hand drawn. Also one thing that I admire about his work is how realistic the characters look. When I am drawing that is the one element that I have always tried to accomplish but it’s not as easy. His more simple works have actually influenced some of my work. Specifically last year I took one of his covers from The Saturday Evening Post, 1925 and recreated it using colored pencils.
Personally as an artist over the past few years I have become more and more interested in graphic design and one artist that has influenced that is David Carson. Being a prominent graphic designer in today’s design world, his process and work is based on typography. He was a large influence for the dirty-grunge movement in the 90s and redefined what is means to use typography to portray a certain message to the viewer.
Carson is inspiring in numerous ways. Not only do I love his work but as a designer he has inspired the idea of taking risks and thinking unconventionally. Design is always changing and as an artist we need to always be thinking one step ahead of the next guy and Carson is a perfect example of this.
Specifically with his work is he not only using typography in an unconventional way but I love how he creates, and transforms typefaces to portray a message. It is also interesting to see how he thinks about what he is designing. As an artist he tries to design, choosing typography and imagery that portrays a specific message even before the type is actually read by the viewer. His type of design is not only about pretty images and text but it takes into consideration how the viewer’s brain works. This concept is very intriguing to me.
Here is one example of how the brain works:
THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Here are some examples of his work:
Book of Probes
Marshall McLuhan & David Carson
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