Hollow Men 88 – One:

The History: This is my story and I’m sticking to it… for now.

I had a need to try these out on different surfaces. Before moving to paint, I had a bunch of yellow cardboards. So I used it. The lighting available when I took the photo was low and seemed to drive the colours out of the surface, so I went with it.

The Hollow Men were inspired from a poem of the same name by T.S. Elliot

There are perhaps other influences that rattled my subconscious when I drew these. The 80ies were full of contradictions… a battle between nihilism and hope. These images showed up in many other paintings, on many decorations and in many forms. They are truly left open for your interpretation… feel free to share your thoughts on these…

The Technique: How I did this awesomeness!

I started with the outline of the figures, drawing them with lighter colours, then smudging the lines inward to create some shading, then I coloured in the background and rubbed the drawing marks smooth with my fingers, before going to a darker colour to finish the outlines and smudging outwards to give a little halo effect.

The Influence: Confessions of a Plagiarist, sort of…

The main influences are the animation seen in Pink Floyd The Wall and possibly some of the animated work crated by Terry Gilliam in his Monty Python shorts. The literary inspiration was from an amazing poem by T.S. Elliot of the same name. I have a hard time pulling a single indicative line from The Hollow Men, because every line feeds this series of drawings in its own way. I strongly suggest you visit it.

I can’t speak for them, but It works for me When you buy The Artist’s Stuff: Prints, Mugs, T-Shirts, Pillow, Shower Curtains, and other awesome stuff.

What inspires an artist?

“All they see” is the first and most literal answer.

For me, that is literally hundreds of gallery & museum exhibits, thousands of books, and tens of thousands of images online. 

When asked where to start a book collections, I almost always recommend these art bibles: Janson’s “History of Art” OR Phaidon’s “The Art Book” Both give a nice overview with good pictures. Once you’ve discovered what you are attracted to there most, you can then dig deeper into that area.

If I had to pick only a few of my major influences, which is a very difficult task, it would be Modigliani, Picasso, Van Gogh, & Andrew Wyeth. Here are a few of the best books I recommend from them.

Modigliani

Modigliani: Drawings 102 Colour Plates

Picasso:Man & His Work Part 1

Picasso: The Man and His Work – Part 2

The Mystery of Picasso

Picasso Line Drawings and Prints 

Picasso Portraits

Picasso Sculpture

Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook:   

Van Gogh: Complete Works

Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In: 

Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic

Here are a few others from my personal library, I return to over and over again.

Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis

SHAG: The Collected Works:

Original Sin: The Visionary Art Of Joe Coleman

Matisse

Chaki

Vilallonga : les lieux du rêve =: Vilallonga : cloister of dreams

Bonnard

Soutine

Diego Rivera: Complete Murals 

If you have the time, you are free to visit my GoodReads library to see a fraction of the books I’ve read. The ones I remember, that is. Or you can visit the ever growing collection of images on my Pinterest account.

The Materials: Quick! Order this stuff right now, AND You too, can make masterpieces!

Crescent Cardboard Sheets: The Review: I’ve had leftover sheets from a variety of sources, including reused packaging materials, but the colours often get muted to the paper falls apart under the acrylic and water. So I splurged on some professional paper and got excellent colour retention and absorption.

Faber-Castell Creative Studio Non-Toxic Square Soft Pastel: The Review: I received this kit as a gift and used it sporadically until this project. The chalks are messy and not the easiest to make fast blends, and they are also very subtle in their diversity of tones and hues. One can make very strong colours with some rubbing and the blending is improved when you get your fingers dirty. The messy part allows one to reach for that Wabi Sabi beauty of making mistakes. These were a ball to get messy with. I had to supplement the kit with some additional Black & White sticks.

PRISMACOLOR Charcoal: The Review: Prismacolor has some of the best drawing pencils around, for colour and for durability of the pigments within the wood pencil. Unless you want to be working with crumbs and cracked bits, this is essential for charcoal products. This awesome kit gives you all the tools to smudge and finalize until your heart’s content.

Photoshop for Mac:  The Review: You could use the free “ MAC Photos” program or Picassa and possibly get the same results, but Photoshop offers you the flexibility of presenting yourself as a pro photographer, like no other program. There’s a reason it’s considered the best of the best, after all. So, this allows you the possibility of selling this service to others and funding more of your creativity

Apple MacBook Pro 15.4″ Laptop:The Review: You may choose to get an iMac for the bigger screen, and I couldn’t disagree with the beauty of working with the 24” screen. I picked the laptop, because of the need to be mobile and the flexibility of multi-purposing it to use for client demos. As an alternative to the weight of this model, I would suggest the MacBook Air 13”. Most of us have become accustomed to mobile device size screens and it is much easier to carry around.

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T6 DSLR: The Review: My first DSLR camera was the EOS Rebel T3. This one is vastly superior to the old model. Canon has a well deserved reputation of having top rated cameras. It requires a little play time to master it, and that time will be lessened by defining a clear idea of what you want to do with it, then jumping on YouTube for the multitude of How To videos. If you want a smaller camera to carry around, try Canon EOS M10 Mirrorless Digital Camera OR go small & powerful with the Canon PowerShot Digital Camera with 3-Inch LCD & built in wifi.

Canon PIXMA MX492 Inkjet Printer:The Review: For me this has been the easiest to us for cleaning and cartridge replacement. It works reasonably well with recycled inks and the wireless is easy to set-up. The Canon has worked best for me on ink usage. When purchasing printers, always consider the cost of ink replacement… for the most part, this is the big difference right now in printers. For big reproduction lines it is better to outsource. For scanning, they are as good as the camera in them… this is one reason I’m a fan of Canon products. It does do a nice job on printing photos on good photo paper, and the black print is crisp and clean, provided you do regular cleanings and keep it dust free.