Robyn O'Neil

Known for her graphite drawings is Robyn O'Neil, American artist from Nebraska. Her pieces range in the emotions they convey from hopeful, to straight up scary. Many of her drawings include men in black suits, reminding one of a cult.




The first drawing gives off an eerie and dark vibe. It may be the pile of humans (most likely dead), or the looming line of dark trees in the background. O'Neil does a good job of giving the viewer a sense of depth, making objects in the foreground bigger and farther apart.




The second drawing is interesting. It gives the viewer a sense of danger or hostility. It seems as if the people in this picture are fighting, but I'm not quite sure who is fighting who. You can also see a group of people in the background. The bare trees makes me believe that this takes place in the winter time. Maybe they are all seasonally depressed and that's why they're fighting each other (kidding).




I'm not sure I understand this picture. The drawing of the horse is well executed, including detail and shading. However, I'm not sure what is going on when we get to the horse's head. It seems to be in a cloud, more specifically, a rain cloud, or a cloud of a storm of some sort.

Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas, born in South Africa, is an artist whose art is focused on the real and surreal aspects of the human body. Although a painter, one can still appreciate the artistry of her pieces and relate it to aspects of our drawing class.




This picture really grabs the viewer's attention to the eyes. They are the lightest, and I think they have most detail in this painting. I like how Dumas used unconventional colors to create the face in this piece. Despite this, you are still able to see the different values in the hues she chose to use.




For this picture, Dumas again uses not the usual skin tones, but a greyish green and blue. I really like how she made the lips darker. This image reminds me of the exercise we did where, if the plane changed, we would draw it a different shade. The child's face seems to be like this.




I found this piece to be particularly interesting. The emotion I feel when looking at this is anger, sadness, resentment. I thought it was funny that I felt this and the title is "Intimate Relations". The red, orange, and yellow she chose really gives off those feelings. I also thought the grey face was an interesting touch.

Trenton Doyle Hancock

Trenon Doyle Hancock has a unique style to his art. His abstract creations incorporate different objects, colors, and drawing techniques to create the overall picture. At first glance, you may not notice some of the things hidden within the picture. Most of his drawings are rather abstract.




This drawing took me a while to realize what it is. Within the various shapes and colors, you can make out a human. To me, it seems as if the person is bound to the spotlight (spotlight could be refer to fame, attention in general, etc) and can't escape.



Within the mound of things on the top of this drawing, there seems to be body parts. I like how there isn't much color in the overall drawing, but Hancock choice to use it in certain places works well for the picture.



This picture is interesting. I tried to read everything at the bottom right side, but I couldn't read it all. Maybe it is in reference to a person's outwards appearance and how it isn't necessarily an accurate portrayal of the person. The image itself, again, contains body parts within other various objects. The color choice is really cool and gives off an interesting vibe.

Kerstin Kartscher

Kerstin Kartscher is an artist known for her pieces dealing with contemporary women. These women praise their femininity within the pictures. The drawings incorporate landscapes with shapes and other focal points, such as flowers and women. She her pictures are mostly a dull background color, but she adds contrasting colors to emphasize certain figures within the composition.




This picture seems to have an ocean like landscape. With the pink coloring, it looks as if parts of the picture were on fire. I'm not really sure why there is a monkey in the drawing. She does a lot of shading by using multiple lines, like in the ocean waves, or in the clouds in the sky.




I think this picture is really interesting. The background looks shaded in lines like the last drawing. I think the black fireplace and easel are a great contrast to the grey background.




In this picture, you can see the focus of femininity by Kartscher. She does this by focusing on that object in black, rather than a color that blends with the background, like the greyish-pink flower/plant thing.

Daniel Guzman

Daniel Guzman's work uses a lot of the techniques we have learned in class. His work contains a lot of different ways to shade the objects being drawn. Although abstract, I liked a lot of his pieces.



This piece has shading in the face to give it more detail. It doesn't have a lot of detailed lines to make out the planes of the face, but I think the way he shaded it did a good job to make it look more realistic. In the hair of the people there is a shape to portray shininess, kind of like what we did with the cartoon activity.




The shading in this picture has more of a cross hatching look to it. I like the contrast of the black background to the white objects in the middle. I kind of feel that the focus of the picture (the woman and thing underneath her) are not really in sync with the background, which seems more scribbled and not given as much attention.




I'm not at all sure what this is. The top of the picture reminds me of the activity we did when we made the whole page black and erased it away.

Simone Shubuck

Simone Shubuck, known for her flower arrangements, is also an artist known for her drawings. I believe that her work with floral arrangements, has inspired many of her drawings, which represent or symbolize flowers. Many of her pieces are somewhat abstract, but she does a good job of integrating all aspects of the drawing.




This drawing has many different shapes and lines. Despite the fact that all of the lines are not perfectly parallel, it adds to the character of the drawing. I'm not sure completely what this is a drawing of, but I like it.




I really like this picture. It has a lot of different shapes within the picture, but it works. I may like it because it is so colorful, but there is a lot of detail within the picture.




This picture is very detailed, but I'm not amazed by it. I'm kind of bored, but I believe it took a while to draw it. It goes back to the flower inspiration. Again, not really sure what Shubuck was trying to achieve, but is interesting.

Susan Turcot

Susan Turcot has a really interesting style of drawing, somewhat similar to what we did in class this week. Many of her drawings seem to have some sort of object or focus, but it done with scribbles, or at least the outside edges of it are. There is a lot of detail in the focus of the drawing.




This drawing has more detail than the others. The scribbling, flowing lines of the picture seem to be incorporated into the drawing. I don't believe the rest of it is scribbled.




This one is interesting. It seems as if she drew the picture, and then scribbled on top of it as an after thought. I'm not really sure what this drawing is supposed to be.




I thought this one was really cool. It is as if she drew the tree very detailed and the scribbling is shooting out of it. It is kind of abstract. I think it is really cool how she can make the drawing into two different drawing styles, yet still have them be connected.

Zak Smith

If Zak Smith was a musician, his work would be punk and grunge. Known for some of his erotic pieces of art, Smith has an edgy, dark side that is revealed through his pictures. It almost reminds me of an emo comic book. His work ranges from very basic shapes and shading to much more elaborate artwork.




I felt like this picture really has a lot of emotion. I'm sure anyone would be a little emotional if their arm was chopped off. Anyways, I feel this picture really exemplifies the comic idea stated earlier, although it is a lot more detailed. I think the spots Smith chose to shade really emphasize certain parts of the picture.




I really liked this picture. You can see where he re-drew parts to create the image he wanted, and also made those final lines darker. It is an interesting perspective for the picture to be drawn from, one not typically seen. I also like the contrasting black garments and lighter garments of the people in the drawing.




At first, I did not think this drawing contained a lot of detail. But at a closer glance, you realize all of the lines within the hair and the creation of shapes to form the eyes. I think this picture relates to the one exercise we did in class where we made shapes to create an image. This picture, however, does not make different shapes every time the plane shifts, just for certain aspects of the portrait.

Jockum Nordström

Jockum Nordström is an artist who is known for some of his folk art. He uses a lot of simple shapes to create the bigger picture. He does not include a lot of detail in his drawings. He takes advantage of shading to create the detail he does include in his pieces.




This pieces I found to be somewhat symmetrical and really focused on simple shapes. It is interesting how the black squares in the back of the room are much darker than the people in the front, drawing the viewer's attention to the back. You can even see some of the imperfections of this drawing where he started drawing people and maybe stopped. Or maybe they're ghosts..... probably not.




This piece, I thought, does a good job emphasizing main parts by shading the negative regions. The only white parts are the faces, which brings the viewer's attention to them. Again, the people do not consist of a lot of detail, but are simple drawings.




I felt that this drawing was the most detailed out of the three I chose. There is a lot of shading done in the picture that really brings out some of the finder details in the objects. The part at the top I felt was really cool and drawn well (flows well, evenly spaced, accurate circle, etc.), but it is kind of random with the rest of the picture. The whole piece seems to be out of proportion and floating in mid air.

Chloe Piene

Chloe Piene is an artist that has many line gesture drawings. Her pieces have a lot of detail, but focus on creating that detail with simple shapes. She emphasizes main points in her drawings by darkening them. All seem to have a very fluidness to them.


In this piece, it seems as if it could have been a continuous line drawing. She emphasizes the face in the picture by making it darker.


This is another piece that looks like it could have been a continuous line drawing. It is fluid and uses shapes to create a bigger picture.


This picture does a good job of darkening the parts that the viewer should focus. The detail is done really well and, again, uses the smaller shapes to create the overall picture.

Mrzyk

One word to describe Mrzyk: interesting. Most of the drawings I cam across were of the human anatomy or parts of it. I thought some of her pieces would fit well in a Shel Silverstein book. She is very simple in her drawing, with just outlines and occasional detail. Although her drawings are very basic, certain aspects stick out as exceptional work.




I really liked this drawing. I felt that the hair detail in this picture is very clean and neat. I don't know if Mrzyk intentionally did this, but the hair seems too detailed in contrast to the rest of the picture. I like how the artist uses circles in the hair and also in the beads of the bracelet, kind of connecting the picture. The red is also a nice touch.




I don't really understand the meaning of the picture, but the artist shows her capability of drawing outlines very well in this picture. Not much detail. Again, the lines are neatly drawn. Even some of the legs of the body parts (creepy) are drawn relatively parallel.




This drawing was probably the strangest to me, but it had a lot more detail than the other two I chose to look at. Both the right and left side have detailed hair, especially the lighting of the hair on the left. The shirt also has a lot of detail in the wrinkles and creases. It looks as if the person on the left is missing an arm. Maybe I'm just missing the "bigger picture"

Russell Crotty

Russell Crotty is a versatile artist. He is known for his astronomy inspired pieces. In contrast are his surf pieces. Observing the ocean, beach, and waves from sand dunes, he captures the pastime of many californians: surfing. I find that Russell Crotty's work corresponds a lot to the exercises we did in class on Thursday. In the first piece, the drawings are composed of many small gestural drawings. By choosing this style of drawing, Crotty displays the fluidness of the ocean and waves he observes.




In this next piece, Crotty shows us the next step of his gestural drawings. The viewer is able to see remnants of his initial drawing in the waves of the piece.




The third piece is another example of a more detailed version of a gestural drawing. Despite the addition of more detail, the simplicity of the piece allows the viewer to see the fluidness that Crotty was trying to posses.

Devendra Banhart

When first looking through the list of recommended artists, I was surprised to see Devendra Banhart. I soon found out that, although typically known for his music, Banhart is also an artist. After looking through some of his pieces I realized that I had difficulty understanding the underlying meaning. This did not deter me from admiring some of the basic elements of his work. In our most recent class, we did exercises that practiced drawing lines, making the lines parallel, drawing circles, and drawing lines with equal space between them, to name a few. The latter is demonstrated by Banhart in many of his pieces.



In this piece, the spacing between the lines is neat and equal. Although the lines are not parallel (like our class exercise), it is a good example of this technique and displays his talent.




This drawing also shows his ability to create evenly spaced, neat lines. I also felt that he did a good job of making the drawing symmetrical.




In addition to making neat, evenly spaced lines, he is able to effectively combine curved and straight lines together in one piece. I don't think this is a particularly difficult drawing, but the creativity of it is engaging.