Artist Inspiration Collages

A couple of years ago for an art class I had to create a collage made up of artists that inspired me. The first one I did for school was filled with some really cool art, but lots of different genres of artists. I then had the opportunity to teach an art class yesterday and thought I would do that activity with my student again, but this time I really tried to focus on the artists that inspired me as an illustrator.

I thought it might be really fun to share both of my collages with you and maybe some thoughts on why I like the artists I chose.

This first one is the most recent one I made:

1- Tomie DePaola- I loved his fun shapes for people and big noses. I also really love his color harmony.

2- Maurice Sendak- Everyone knows where the wild things are. He has incredible fun little details on every page. His monsters are delightfully fun and his colors are really well controlled as well.

3- Scottie Young- This artist was introduced to me in High School and was on the cutting edge of drawing superheroes at the time. The picture I have here for him is of Wolverine. He has recently done a wizard of oz book with a delightful lion. I love his curvy lines and fun twists on things that I have see before.

4- James Christensen*- This man is a master of paint. His paintings are so smooth well designed. He has an amazing ability to put straights with curves and fun colors that work with each other to create a story of some sort of thing from another world!

5- J. Kirk Richards*- Kirk has let me be his art assistant for over a year now and I just couldn't leave him out. He has definitely influenced me. I have loved learning about how he thinks and getting to even do some of his under paintings for him. I would have a huge list of things if I listed all the things I have learned from him: the importance of hard edges and soft edges, having detail and when not to have it, warms and cools and much much more.

6- Dr. Suess- What amazingly fun imaginative creations from pen and ink! I have always been mesmerized by his fun shapes and characters. His colors have always been really nice and although bright they are controlled and limited.

7- Quentin Blake- This is a favorite artist of mine that illustrated books like Matilda and the BFG. his style is loose, but with a sense of great anatomy. He knows how to make some quick lines look like a person and then with some water colors he brings them to life. 

8- Shel Silverstein- Amazing Man. Don't look at the pictures of him though. He looks kind of scary. (: I love how fun Shel was with his poetry. His loose pictures that look like they were just scribbled out on a napkin, maybe even the napkin he used to write the poem on the back of, are so fun to see and take in!

9- Jake Parker*- Jake is a more recent addition to my lists of inspirations. He has a comic book style of doing art and has inspired me with his amazing caricature design as well as use of pen and ink. 

*For fun I put the stars in to show the ones I have actually met in person.

Below is the first one I did for my class:

Matt Wisniewski- I think I may have found this artist on Pinterest. I really love his stuff though. He is a photographer that takes pictures of people and then of mountains and other things and mashes them together. I love the details you can get in a photograph as well as this carefully and brilliantly placement of to pictures together to make one.

Gustav Klimt- "The Kiss". Klimt was an amazing painter that used really cool shapes, patterns, and color together.

Andy Warhol- This guy was kind of crazy, but kind or really awesome. I love the processes he used. Screen printing and other things. He was an artists really interested in getting people to think. I really like that about him.

Andrew Beck- Andrew was actually a friend of mine from High School and has gone on to be a graphic designer in Amsterdam. I really admire his fun style. He has great use of curves mixed with straights. He was wonderful textures and colors. I also really love how his images tell a story.

James Christensen! He made it on both lists. When I made this second collage I was looking at some of his more realistic work, but I still love him because he knows how to really paint!

James Nachtwey- James is a photographer that travels to distant lands and takes pictures that really move you. A lot of his work is done where there has been a war and sometimes right there in the gun fire. I really admire him for his work, but I could never do it because I value being with my wife and living more.

Zander Olsen- I think I may have found this guy on Pinterest too. He is an artist that makes installations out in nature. Doing this takes time, patience, planning and a really good eye for artistic things. He does it really well.

Bottocelli- This artist is an oldie but a goodie. He has some really fun repeating patterns in his paintings and was really good at controlling his colors and lines. I really admired his art when I learned about him in art history.

Ansel Adams- What a photographer! Great black and white images that are simply put, epic!

Andy Goldsworthy- Antoher Nature installation creator. This guy is based out of England I think and just puts tons of time, thought and planning into his images. I really like his stuff.

Jonathan Harris- Is a photographer I learned about while in collage. He travels to far away lands and takes some really cool pictures that tell some awesome stories.

Levi Jackson- Another High School friend. He is doing the installation projects with nature and it is really cool to see someone I know doing that sort of thing.

JC Leyendecker- I love this guys straight strokes! An incredible illustrator that I also learned about while in school. He painted at the same time as Norman Rockwell and even inspired Norman to become who he was. JC always painted from life and did an amazing job.


If you have read all of this I am super proud of you! I hope you enjoyed this post! I am sorry I have been missing this blog. I have been working on my final show for BYU and had some other projects come up as well. I will be posting my Senior project as well as hopefully getting back to posting twice a week. I am thinking that posts will go up every Tuesday and Thursday. So if it is Tuesday you should check the blog for something new and if it is Thursday there will be something new as well.
If you check on Saturday there might not be anything new... Unless you haven't checked since Thursday.

Thanks for Reading.