Tuesday, 28 April 2015

An Interview with Craww


Craww is an amazing artist who's work I have admired for years and is a constant inspiration to me. I was lucky enough to grab a quick interview with him and feed my curiosities. His art is an amalgamation of the mythical, with recurring beautiful women, skulls and crows. He describes his work as a stream of consciousness that takes us through his journey through his own dark untangible world.
 

http://www.craww.com/2014/


How often do you venture out of your comfort zone when creating your art?

The only time I am ever really comfortable is drawing. Paintings, whatever the medium are much more of a battle. I never really know how they are going to turn out until the end, so the process usually involves a lot of angst!

Having said that, the rewards from pushing yourself are much greater, even when it all goes wrong. At least you learn something.



During your process, what do you find is the hardest step? 

Starting. Those first steps...



Do you feel like you've gotten to know your characters? And have they created a life of their own? 

I think so yes, I’ve found they have written their own mythology over the years they have featured in my work. It’s an ongoing story, i look forward to seeing where it goes!



What advice has had the most impact on your work?

All the “advice” clients gave me as a graphic designer! Dealing with clients made me quit and start painting.



Do you have a motto? 

I dont, sorry!



http://www.craww.com/2013/http://www.craww.com/2013/
 

 

Craww links 






Monday, 27 April 2015

Demons


Recently in my work I've been exploring working with sin, pleasures and questioning morality. We all have weird little things that make us tick, or ones that make us want to look away, so wheres the limit? So I've been working loose, going by instinct and playing around with mark making. With these images I took inspiration from the Rorschach test, playing on your psych and finding your demons. So what do you see?












Friday, 10 April 2015

Consciousness


A moment of serendipity... I was just spell checking the word conciousness and google came up with a wealth of psycadelic awesome images, and it would also appear that our minds are blue. Here are a few and click for the links.

Z x 

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580394,00.html
 

http://theunboundedspirit.com/consciousness-and-krishnamurti/


http://www.rabbitholenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Consciousness.jpg

Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Anatomy and Textures


I'm currently working on some comic book covers and wanted to move away from the classic hero line art. So what better way then indulge in some gritty freehand drawing. The comic has themes of death, demons and sin, so I wanted to reflect this on the cover. The characters are complex and well developed through the story so I thought creating more textures and layers on the cover felt right. So normally I create a full piece and don't actually do rough sketches or just practice my technique, so the below drawings are drawn from books I have. 

It was really fun to just focus on minor details instead of considering the whole image as it's already there. I now definitely recommend using references! The books I used are Cabinets of Wonder and Visceral Pleasures which contains Vaughan Oliver's art. These books are great to use as a visual reference, perfect for when you hit an art block and need to get inspired (I also recommend going for a walk!).

Cabinets of Wonder
























Visceral Pleasures