Artist Research

Artist Research:

Sally Matthews:

                                           Red Deer Drawing - 2013

Sally Matthews, an animal drawing/sculpting artist, originally inspired by her father being a veterinary doctor. Ever since she has been drawing and sculpting many different animals, even helping out many festivals with her art, she wants to show the world how important animals are to humans and wants to keep their life on a piece of paper/in a piece of sculpture. She uses many different materials, including but not limiting to coire, fibre, cow muck, steel, copper and wood

               Bronze Dog Sculpture -Colva Church - 2012

Heleina Sharpley:

                     The Grand, Scarborough
Helaina started her journey studying a BA in Design Crafts at Hereford College of Art and Design. Tea became an obsession there and she particularly loved the elegance of Edwardian Architecture. It was here, where her love of tea and the Edwardian way of life connected, this became the main feature in her work.

Helaina creates 2d and 3d wirework pieces for galleries, shops and personal commission, in the UK and internationally.

                                           Up!

Laura Antebi:

                                    

Laura Antebi is quite a famous wire sculpture artist. Using mainly recycled wire she aims to: 'retrace the life and emotions within her pieces of art', she creates quite big pieces of wire art and is very good at it.

'Whether I work in three dimensions or two dimensions my creative process is preoccupied with finding an original and authentic experience of what it means to be alive.

Drawing is integral to my artistic expression as a way of engaging with the essence of spirit and the powers of memory, intuition, instinct and emotion. To be alive means we are, in reality, always in motion yet we are simultaneously hypnotised by the illusion of stillness.' - Laura Antebi

                                    

Joe MacGown:

                                     Zebra Swallowtail

Joe A. MacGown is an artist that mostly creates his art in a neogothic surrealism, a combination of fantasy, surrealism and visionary art. He does also create other types of art however, such as entomological illustration, plant and insect illustrations, pen and ink structures as well as many others.

Joe A. MacGown was interested in art ever since he was 7, he would go out and study the nature and try to draw from it, after finishing his high school he attended the Memphis College of Art in Mississippi, USA. He loves drawing different images, but especially the ones that show the interrelationship of the environment and all forms of the animate and inanimate.

                                           Romalia microptera (Acrididae)

Geoffrey Dashwood:

                                      

Geoffrey Dashwood was born in Hampshire, England in 1947. At the age of fifteen he won a scholarship to study fine art at Southampton College of Art, but left after a brief period, preferring to study directly from nature.He worked in varied occupations to support himself and experimented in various art mediums and techniques in his spare time.

In the 1980′s Dashwood discovered a gift and a passion for sculpture. His earliest works were small, highly realistic studies in the mainstream of traditional English wildlife art and comparable in style to the famous 19th century French Animalier School of Sculpture. Although these early works brought him commercial success, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the constraints of realism and the lack of personal expression the genre afforded him.

                               

Max Ernst:

                               

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.

He had some effect on some modern American rock groups, that used his art as promotional material and covers for albums. He is also featured in some books and even had a film made about him in 2001.

                                

Franz Marc:

                                       

Born February 8th 1880, Franz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter, a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it.

He specialised in woodcut and litography art, as well as using many different colours to somewhat create an early type of animal abstract art. He is considered a very important artist in the history. Unfortunately he was killed in 1916, during the Great War, ironically, he was 2 days away from being withdrawn from the front because of being an important figure.

                                  

Tessa Farmer:

                              The Insectary

Tessa Farmer, born in 1978 in Birmingham, UK, currently an artist based in London. She received her BA in 2000 and her MA in 2003 from the Ruskin, Oxford. Subsequent awards include the Vivien Leigh Prize, a sculpture residency in King's Wood, Challock, Kent, and a Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award. In 2007 she was nominated for The Times/ The South Bank Show Breakthrough Award.

Tessa's miniscule sculptures reinvigorate a belief in fairies: not the sweet Tinkerbell image in popular conscience, but a biological, entomological, macabre species translating pastoral fable into nightmarish lore. Constructed from bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects, each of Tessa's figures stand barely 1 cm tall, their painstakingly intricate detail visible only through a magnifying glass.

                                Little Savages

Magnus Muhr:

                                

Magnus Muhr is a photographer/artist which is famously known and has been spoken a lot about in the British media about his somewhat strange art form, and that is using dead flies to mimic human behaviour, such as riding a horse, sleeping in a bed or many other activities. His work is considered very creative by some and very strange but yet beautiful by others.

                                 

Fabian Pena:

                                 

Fabian Pena, a Cuban born in 1976 is another somewhat controversial artist, in his work, he uses dead carcasses of bugs to create many different forms of imagery, he mainly uses dead cockroaches, but also uses things like flies from time to time.

                                                 

Jennifer Angus:

                                  

Jennifer Angus is a professor in the Design Studies department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  She received her education at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA) and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). She has been the recipient of numerous awards including Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Wisconsin Arts Board grants.

Jennifer specialises in using insects to create various interesting shapes. She uses a variation of insects and uses here vast knowledge on them to know exactly when to use what.

                                  

Elizabeth Berrien:

    Year of the Horse - Elizabeth Berrien

Elizabeth Berrien is an internationally recognized wire sculptor.

Berrien's striking BBC series, "Cables, Guns, Food", generated top international awards: Clio, Cannes Gold Lion, leading to the Big Won's "Best Innovative/Alternative Media"... worldwide.

Elizabeth Berrien, born in 1950, through all of her life had an intuitive affinity towards animals. Even when she was a child, she would lay stretched on the grass, admiring all the insects working away in the grass. Ever since, she became a very well known and famous wire sculpturer.

       Bald Eagle with Trout.

Rupert Till:                         

Rupert Till  has been creating wire sculptures for twenty years and has been fortunate to have worked on over 760 commissions worldwide.


Originally working in wire netting and galvanized steel wire, he now works uniquely in bronze and copper wire. In 2012 he was awarded The British Sporting Art Trust Prize for Sculpture by the Society of Equestrian Artists. He is represented by Collier & Dobson and shows annually at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

                         

Gary Tiplady:
                                          

Gary, a local celebrity and artist born and bred in Newcastle Upon Tyne, started his working life as a top chef, he even cooked for the Queen of England and a lot more widely recognised celebrities.

As well as chef work, he has adorned many a banquet with his lard sculptures, to which people placed orders, only to be told they did not have a long life span.

He has had commissions from Rolls Royce, Newcastle Race course and Newcastle United Football club to name but few.

His has done lots of charity work, the main of which has been the “Pudsey Bear” for the well know charity Children in Need.

It is from this, his humble beginnings that Gary has built up a local up and coming reputation as a wire sculpture extraordinaire, which is expanding at a rapid pace day after day.

                               
John Banovich:

                             

John Banovich (b.1964) is an American oil painter known internationally for his large, dramatic portrayals of iconic wildlife. Today, Banovich’s work can be found in museum, corporate and private collections.

While Banovich is most closely associated with African species, namely elephants, lions, leopards, cape buffalo and rhinoceros—he’s been to Africa three dozen times on research trips—he has also won accolades for his realistic interpretations of Siberian tigers, Chinese pandas, and North American megafauna (such as grizzly and polar bears, bison, and puma).

Born in Butte, Montana, Banovich emerged as a talent to watch two decades ago when his paintings were selected “Best of Show” two consecutive years at the Pacific Rim Art Expo, then the premier showcase for wildlife art in the world.  Since then, Banovich’s work has appeared in many prestigious venues, including the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum’s Birds in Art show, the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum, the Salmagundi Club, traveling exhibitions sponsored by the Society of Animal Artists and showcases hosted by Safari Club International and Dallas Safari Club.

                              

Donna Crawshaw:

                               

Donna Crawshaw SEA SWA was born in Woking, Surrey, England in 1960 – and perhaps it was inevitable that she became an artist with her father being the established painter, author and broadcaster Alwyn Crawshaw.

The foundation of learning for her art came from her father who encouraged her from a very early age and later at school where she excelled in art related subjects and sold her first painting. Later she attended the West Surrey College of Art & Design at Farnham but decided instead to leave after her foundation year to concentrate on her paintings which were already in great demand.

So, at the age of only seventeen, Donna became a professional artist and her paintings were soon snapped up by galleries as well as private and corporate buyers. Her talent and potential was recognised by many and soon her distinctive paintings of animals and rural scenes became well known.

                             

Rachel Ducker:

                                        

British contemporary artist, Rachel Ducker was originally trained as a jeweller. With an insatiable desire to create she turned her attention to sculpting the human form in wire, concentrating on the expressive and emotional dynamics of human nature. Price determined by size and complexity of the piece.

                                       

Animators:

Computer Animations:

Carbot:

           

Carbot Animations is an artist that creates short animations about games created by a specific games development company, and that is Blizzard. He begun with doing some simple animations for the game: 'Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty' but his fan base quickly grew, his style of animation is very much enjoyed by thousands of fans around the world. Nowadays he creates animations for all Blizzard related games and is deeply involved with the company, producing material for them.

           

Salad Fingers:

           

David Firth, is one of the most controversial artists the internet has to offer, he has made a name for himself by doing very surreal, very creepy, strange and sometimes outright scary animation series called 'Salad Fingers' where many different characters engage in very weird actions in a very weird world. Many people has criticized the series as to being too weird and that it can have negative impact on some people's health.

Hunters Production:
         
          

Hunters production is another youtube channel, this artist creates animations of a popular web-comic called 'Polandball'. This web comic shows off all the different countries on our planet, it shows them in their stereotypes to create comedy, it sends the characters off on different journeys. Many people enjoy Polandball web comics, this animations series is also very much loved.

          

Flashdeck Animations:

                                       

Flashdeck Animations is a Chinese artist creating 'stick-man' animations for various games, mainly however for the Counter Strike franchise. He focuses on many different characters to represent the types of players found within that certain game, using that, he creates a quite an interesting story.

SC Legacy:

         

SC Legacy is a fan of the Starcraft franchise, made by Blizzard, and produces many high quality animations that explain the many stories found in Starcraft further, as well as create entirely new ones. The animations are done in a CGI style and are very well made, they have a lot of story behind them and they almost look like an entire professional team made them when in fact it was a single fan.

Game Producers (League of Legends/Valve):

         

Many big game producers create many CGI animations of their games to promote them and produce hype so that it sells more. For this purpose, a lot of production is put in different animation software, sometimes the animation is created based on a real person movement, where a special suit is put on that copies the movement of a person into the software, other times it is done manually within the software.
These animations are usually quite lenghty, and are of very high quality.
The following clips are the trailer for Valve's Corporation new First Person Shooter game - Counter Strike Global Offensive and one of the CGI's done by Riot for their - League of Legends MOBA game.

          

Glen Keane:

Glen Keane, born in 1954, is an American animator and illustrator. Keane is best known for his character animation at Walt Disney Animation Studios for feature films including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, and Tangled. Keane received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation, the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation and in 2013 was named a Disney Legend.

         

Ben Heine:

Ben Heine (born 12 June 1983 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist. Starting as a painter and political cartoonist, he became more widely known in 2011 for his "Pencil vs Camera" and "Digital Circlism" projects. Heine has a degree in journalism (Brussels – Belgium) and made his Masters' final assignment on the "limits of freedom of speech in political cartoons" (2007). As a political cartoonist, Heine received some criticism for his views on the Middle Eastern political situation and specifically some images about Israel and Zionism. Heine has stopped doing political art since 2009. Heine has briefly studied painting and sculpture in Hastings, England, but considers himself a self-taught artist in drawing and photography (The D-Photo). Heine's "Pencil vs Camera" artwork is so far his most widely published work.

          

Game Concept Artists:

Ryan Church:

                           

Ryan Church is a very famous concept artist when it comes to filmography and video game production. Born in 1971 in Long Beach, California. He has done multiple concept arts and animations, for films, at the beginning, he was a concept artist lead for Lucas Art and helped produce content for Star Wars episode II and III. He also had his share in other films, such as designing the tripods in Steven Spielberg War of the Worlds, helped in production of Avatar, and then recreated the USS Enterprise for Star Trek in a more modern way.

In terms of video games, his portfolio is also quite wide, His first involvement with video games was when he created some concept art for an upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth 2 game. Then he moved onto creating some concept art for Command and Conquer RTS series. After that, in 2008 he moved onto Dead Space.

Currently, Ryan Church is developing concept art for an upcoming AAA Space combat, trading and exploring game - Star Citizen, as well as concept art for films like Tommorowland.

                              

Josh Atack:

                           

Josh Atack is a concept artists and illustrator, mainly working within the games industry but also doing work for the film industry, born in Northampton, grewing up in South Oxfordshire, before settling down in central London to do concept art and illustration he also had multiple of other jobs and traveled a bit around the world.

Currently based in Central Lodnon, Josh has joined Frontier (Space Ape Games), to produce their newest game, Elite:Dangerous Josh worked on IPs and projects for Doctor Who, Bethesda, Irrational Games, Square Enix, EA, Tiger Aspect and Sumo Digital, to name a few.

                           

Matt Rhodes:

                          

Matt Rhodes, a Canadian born in Calgary, Alberta, is the lead concept designer at Bioware, working on games such as the Mass Effect, Jade Empire and Dragon Age series. Lately, he does a lot of intensive work on the latest game in the Dragon Age franchise, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Ever since he's been working on this game, his rank was changed to Associate Art Director. He's been working for Bioware for 6 years now.

Piero Macgowan:

                         

Piero Macgowan is a Mexican-born Illustrator, Fine Artist and College Professor based in Baltimore, USA. He works full-time as a Senior Concept Artist at Firaxis Games, located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, where he has contributed to the XCOM and Civilization franchises. He obtained his B.F.A. in Illustration with Honors from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he has returned to teach in the Illustration department.

                          

Glenn Rane:

                              

Glenn Rane is a Blizzard employee. His work consists of art for the company and its products, ranging from concept art for the Burning Crusade to many of the pictures in the WoW TCG, and even to the covers for several Blizzard novels. He has also done work for other MMORPGs and video games, such as Dark Age of Camelot and designing the cover for Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.
                              

Isaac Orloff:

                                                 

Isaac Orloff is a visual development artist living in the San Francisco Bay area, where he works at the game company Storm8. Isaac is originally from the New York area but attended school at Maryland institute College of Art where he graduated with a BFA in Illustration in 2009. In addition to working full time, Isaac manages the @Sketch_Dailies website and freelances for animation studios internationally.

                                  

Animal Research

In this first assignment, we were first asked to collect secondary source images of Reptiles, Birds and Insects so that later we would have material to draw from.