OUIL402 PPP1: Inspiration

Currently, my favourite illustrator has to be Minni Havas because her work, both finished and sketches, are constant inspiration to me. I love her style and choice of colour palettes and that her work focuses on portraiture. I love her realistic yet imaginative style, which combines her skill and creativity to capture the personality of the individual and the atmosphere of the piece.

She describes her work as existing 'somewhere in the borderlands of the real and the imaginary.' 

A reasonably recent inspirational artist to me has been Hattie Stewart, a self confessed 'professional doodler'. I love the playfulness and feeling of fun within her work, she takes the serious subject matter and uses her artwork to allow us to breathe; to realise it is okay not to be perfect. Her work heavily influenced my final major project in my foundation course and I love how free her style is yet how carefully planned and designed the 'doodles' are.

I also love the old school style of the Australian illustrator Minna Gilligan.

 I absolutely love passionate colour in all her images and although I don't use much collage in my work I really appreciate how Minna uses it and the narrative the combination of images conveys. She manages to create one powerful image using many contrasting components. Personally, I don't think all her work is the most technically great but I love the fact that it can evoke such emotion within such simple images, and by managing this she is definitely one of my five!

Another one of my favourites is Marcel Vertes. Not only do I love the way he depicts clothing and movement but also his depiction of society and individuals. His talent in colour and line fascinate me and it amazes me how with the simplest sweep of line he can create an emotion, expression, even an entire narrative. I love how David Downtown described his work in his book 'Masters of Fashion Illustration'; 

'Of course, humour had always been a part of the fashion artist's repertoire...but Vertes went further; his drawings of the beau monde shimmer with gleeful malice, while his dancing line and joyful Dufyesque colours diverted the eye and soothed the very egos they ruffled...what he sought, and frequently found, was enchantment.'

'Like Sisters Really! Vertes could be delightfully malicious, as here, sending up the 'distinct recent phenomenon, the perpetually adolescent mother and her daughter' in 1936'.- Downtown.

'Straighten Your Tie! Vertes could never resist sending up fashionable society. This illustration appeared in Vogue in 1936.' -Downtown.


It is the satire and humour within Nigel Buchanan's work which makes him my fifth inspiration.
However work such as Bikini; with its ridiculous image reflecting the ridiculous lifestyle of some in society, is also juxtaposed with Philanthropist which conveys a more serious message in the mirror image of the woman at the window of a house and the woman living out of the cardboard box; this piece forces the viewer to interact with the art and think. 

Philanthropist, 2010, Good Weekend Magazine; pencil and digital.