Drawring from the mind experimentation (inspired by Artist Stephen Wiltshere)

 

Artist Reasearch: Stephen Wiltshire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen Wiltshire is a British architectural artist. He is known for his ability to draw from memory a landscape after seeing it just once. His work has gained worldwide popularity. Stephen Wiltshire was born in London, England, in 1974 to Caribbean parents, His father, Colvin, was a native of Barbados, and his mother, Geneva is a native of St. Lucia. He grew up in Little Venice, Maida Vale, and London. Wiltshire was mute when young and at the age of three, he was diagnosed as autistic. The same year, his father died in a motorbike accident.

At the age of five, Wiltshire was sent to Queensmill School in London where he expressed interest in drawing. His early illustrations depicted animals and cars; he is still extremely interested in American cars and is said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of them. When he was about seven, Wiltshire became fascinated with sketching landmark London buildings. After being shown a book of photos depicting the devastation wrought by earthquakes, he began to create detailed architectural drawings of imaginary cityscapes. Soon, He began to communicate through his art. The instructors at Queensmill School would deal with his lack of verbal communication skills by temporarily taking away his art supplies so that he would be forced to learn to ask for them. Stephen responded by making sounds and eventually uttered his first word—"paper." His teachers encouraged his drawing, and with their aid Wiltshire learned to speak fully at the age of nine.

Soon people outside the school started noticing Stephen's gift and aged eight he landed his first commission - a sketch of Salisbury Cathedral for the former Prime Minister. Wiltshire can look at a subject once and then draw an accurate and detailed picture of it. He frequently draws entire cities from memory, based on single, brief helicopter rides. For example, he produced a detailed drawing of four square miles of London after a single helicopter ride above that city. Also, his nineteen-foot-long drawing of 305 square miles of New York City is based on a single twenty-minute helicopter ride.

This is one of Stephen Wiltshire’s art pieces. He drew this black and white piece from memory. In this piece you can see many roads, buildings, trees, cars and more. This piece is a great example of my influences as I am drawing buildings with a lot of detail for my skyline. Stephen focuses on the material objects rather than others like the sky. The detail he includes is so precise that the slightest line is drawn on. Most of the buildings are square and there are many roads. I like this piece because even though the artist only has two colours on the page, because of the different tones and objects the place still manages to look lively and new instead of dull and old.

The source is drawn IN 3D and in ink. The source is exactly life like and realistic. The artist marks out the trees and a few buildings harder than others to show which parts are darker than the other. Furthermore, the different tones showed where the sun is shining so the shades had to be precise.

This piece if viewed from the side and looks like the typical city life with traffic and different paths to take. The piece could be special to Stephan because it could show how he is always travelling from city to city and the different paths he chooses and makes in his career. Furthermore, I will make sure to work on tones to create different moods and ideas of aspects affecting my everyday life. Stephen looks at intricate details that most people wouldn’t even recognize so my aim is to look from different perspectives before doing anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture has a clearer skyline and a more detailed sky. Again, this picture has contrasting shades to show where light reflects off it or where light is. This drawing is based in London at the Big Ben and River Nile. The sky is painted purple, pink, orange and yellow to show probably sunset. The river is dark blue but then along the edge of the piece of paper the river is light blue to effectively show light and that it is water. To show that lights are on, light sources are painted bright yellow or white. There is a bus and a taxi present in the art piece and the angle the drawing is at is from the stairs. Everything is grey other than the sky, bus, taxi, lights, and the river.

This piece of work is drawn in 3D and secondary colours are used too. This piece may have been created because of the view and also this is the time when London is not very busy so the true beauty of it can be seen. This piece influenced me to think about the sky and how it could change the time of day the piece is set in. Furthermore, adding colours work better in creating strong emotions than just black and white does.

Lastly, Stephen Wiltshire uses a lot of detail that would be useful for my buildings; his use of tone and form changes the way his pieces are viewed. To evaluate my work, I will variate my tone and the way I emphasize different sections of a piece. Changing what is emphasized in a piece can change the whole meaning of that piece.

NYC: Museum

I went to the museum of modern art in New York City and this is the first picture I took from inside the museum when I arrived. This piece was amazing and so I endeavoured to create a similar piece on my own. The piece is 3D and circular shapes are used to create the piece’s main effect. In my opinion, the best factor in this art work is clearly the colours. The wide range and shades of colours used are spectacular. Furthermore, the main colours involved in this piece are blue, yellow, red, orange and green- including various different shades of those colours. The colours in this piece connote happiness and joy; this could be because analogous colours are involved. When an artist paints using analogous colors, a sense of harmony is conveyed. Beauty is also easiest to attain, working with analogous colors, because there is no discord; all of the immediate colors share a similarity. This could inspire my abstract pieces as I would focus more on colour. Also, the 3D effect is quite interesting as it brings the piece to life; the curved lines makes the piece look even more interesting as they are quite random and they look as if something exploded.

 

Unlike the previous piece, this artist chose to use a limited amount of colour to create this outstanding result. This then allows me to focus more on technique than colour. What seems to continuously intrigue me is how different artists have different perspectives on how a piece can be quite effective; they believe different materials and techniques can create different emotions. The composition of this piece is particular- the artist uses the colour black to create an effective background that would allow all extra details to be seen clearly. The colour scheme is quite dark, however the neutral colours white and black alongside each other create a strong effect. The colour white still enables there to be a gloomy, depressed effect or emotion. I found the lines that demarcate the piece quite interesting as it makes the piece look like a puzzle and like it had just been fixed. Linking back to emotions, the colours look trapped and the small specks of blue seem to be spreading or standing out. This could symbolise someone feeling depressed and how they felt trapped. The blue could act as something redeeming a person from melancholies or peace being overcome by disturbance and creating a whirlwind of depressed feelings. I enjoyed the strong emotions this piece could bring forward and the detail of maybe someone’s life. On the other hand, this piece slightly reminded me of a zoomed out map of buildings in a particular location. The blue colour could then be the lights on in a city or developed technology; a city at night. This piece inspired me to focus on creating several different emotions, detail and buildings which would relate to my topic,’ skyline’.

I took this picture on one of the top floors. The reason for why I took this picture is because I wanted to look at a different perspective which is basically above everyone else. This picture is basically from the perspective of someone who is ‘high in authority’. This is because I am essentially looking down on everyone and if they were to look up, they would be looking up to me. This perspective was different to the perspective I would normally take when painting. This picture is made up of architectural features and people. The picture looks peaceful and calm but then when viewers focus on the picture, the ground floor seems to look very busy. This inspired me to create abstract pieces that were a deception to the eye but when there was a change of perspective, the elements of the piece were seen. A few shadows can also be seen which creates the liveliness of the picture.

Furthermore, this is a similar picture to the previous one but instead people are spread out across the floors. Again, this creates a similar mood to the previous piece which is authority and vigour. Also, the lighting creates a happy effect which further encouraged me to think about colour and more particularly, shade.

This is a book that was written by the artist Francis Picabia in 2016. This only really inspired me to think about developing my skills and to continue experimenting. Also, it surprisingly reminded me to develop the simple shapes I have been using to complex ones because of the title referring to the shape of our heads. This was originally organized by The Museum of Modern Art.

Again, I took another picture relating to perspective but this time you could see more detail in the picture. The shape of the couch looked like a number five which could relate to how shapes are very important. The wrong shape put in the wrong position could change the whole interpretation of a piece. This picture, however, was not as interesting as it is simple and basic in its’ shape and its colour.

This is some background information on the background of Francis Picabia from the years 1905-1911. He is an important artist who focused deeply on shape, line and colour out of all the elements of art.

 

Back to paintings! This is a basic example of a skyline, referring back to my topic. The colours green, beige, brown, blue and pink are the main components of the piece. In the piece there are land- trees, and grass-, a building- castle-, and the sky. However, the artist uses the typical colours for each object which does not create a great effect in the piece. The painting is not altered much to the way actual buildings would look like. This limits the emotion that could be seen from this piece. What I like instead is that the buildings is the main subject  of the piece and blocks the sky out linking to what I think about perspective and how it can change how you look at something. Light tones are used near the top half of the painting to exactly show the reflection of light onto the building. What I like about the artist is how he emphasizes his brush strokes allowing them to look smooth and as if they are fading away. This helps to create a rough texture which works well with nature and a strong building.

This painting relates to nature again, the colours blue and green represent nature and life. There are a few trees that are quite curved in the way they stand. Again this encourages me to work on shape and what different colours can symbolise; this means that I would be careful and think about which colours or shapes to use so that the art piece is not interpreted wrongly. In this piece, there is an excessive use of different tones. Also, what I find interesting is that the woods initially create a negative expression but then the viewer looks at the sea and is calmed. This again relates to viewers taking a path when they first look at a piece. The focal point of the piece is definitely the darker parts of mud.

Looking at the colour of this art work, in my opinion, this piece symbolises danger. Red, black and grey all tend to be negative colours. This again encourages me to look at a wider range of different colours and focus on maybe only one strong emotion I want the viewer to recognise.

This is a really good example of different shapes and how I can create interesting experiments using irregular shapes.

Different shapes are used to almost create an illusion as the black lines become thicker. Furthermore, the circles on top of the lines have circles inside of it too and come in red, green, and orange, purple, yellow, etcetera. Also, the small circles inside the other circles go up in a consecutive number order from zero to seven. The significance of this could be that seven is seen as a lucky number and colour being added on top of darkness symbolises the darkness being overruled by light. The contrast in colours in this piece also works really well together to create an effective emotion.

The following are more pictures I took of art pieces

As you can see, from a far perspective this art piece looks quite basic. I decided to look closely at this piece. It suddenly all made sense and so I thought that I would love to create an abstract piece that makes the viewers think. The hue green and blue were the main colours present in this piece- there was also some pink, orange, yellow, brown and black used(and more). The painting is of a man kissing a woman- but when looked at from closer perspective buildings can be seen. Because of this, the man’s hair is the dark shy and his green face is the grass and other plants. The buildings are painted with bright colours which enable them to stand out. What I found quite interesting is how the artist would draw one thing several times to create a beautiful piece. The lady had four eyes and two lips whilst the outline of the man’s face is repeated several times. The obscurity of the piece induces viewers to look closely at the painting and notice the small details. The buildings relate to my final piece because they are an obvious element of skylines.

This was very simple and basic but overall quite relevant to me. Colour is clearly limited and the background has been left blank but the most fascinating thing was the detail in this piece. The different shades of the building reflected the sunlight. However, this piece is hard to relate too emotionally because of the lack of colour, different shapes and more.

 

The following pictures are again of more paintings I found interesting:

This is to do with Picabia and other artists and a theatre show they endeavoured to put on.

This is a three dimensional art piece that I found very interesting due to the different materials used.

This close up demonstrates the beautiful materials that were used in order to create this piece of work. Real wood, palm leaves and other materials were used in the making of this. The reason I like this piece is because of the simplistic shapes and colours that were used. Most artists focus on shape or colour but this artist used the real material of what she was drawing. Unlike one of the past pieces, the artist has added in some paint too. This means that the emotions that can be created are not limited because of the colour added unto the painting. Also, the material that the artist has used obviously adds a different texture to the piece. The use of different tones and mediums create a beautiful atmosphere and contrast between the materials.

More artwork that inspires me:

 

 

The artwork above absolutely inspired my abstract work as it is an abstract piece. The main colour used is blue and then pink. This was really intriguing because there was an actual balance of colour and shape meaning that the effectiveness of the emotion in this piece was probably at its peak. All, colours used have light shades and connote peace which makes the piece either look like the sea or the sky. This is very important for me as this is probably how the basis of my background (from experiments) will be.

This is one of Pablo Picasso’s most famous pieces. The Girl before the Mirror was painted in March 1932; the painting was produced in the style Picasso was using at the time and evoked an image of Vanity. This piece let out so many controversial views all around the point that a woman is standing in front of a mirror. This is clearly what I endeavour to achieve. Pablo’s background is absolutely dissimilar to mine as my background will not consist of a regular pattern.  Pablo Picasso also uses irregular shapes even when drawing a human. Unlike other artists, Pablo did not just copy out a realistic object but altered it so that the piece would be more affective.

I really liked this image because of the clouds that formed part of the eye. For my topic I will be looking at clouds from many different perspectives and so the painting of clouds could be the basic guideline of my abstract.

 

The following pictures relate to my experiment ideas or an artist’s research:

This is a picture I took after I had left the museum. This picture is of a lake, trees, the sky and several buildings. I took this picture for inspiration as this is an obvious example of a skyline. Firstly, what I really liked was how all the buildings towered above me and the amount of windows in the buildings. This is quite helpful as I can now focus on the details of the building much more as there is more to draw unto the building. In this painting a lot of cold colours like blue and green are used; the colour blue essentially makes you to feel peaceful and calm whilst green is more of a warm and cool colour. Light hits the right side of the lake so the colours are brighter on that side of the picture- this side of the image captures the attention of viewers as the contrast in shades is obvious and quite interesting. Furthermore, there is an even greater contrast in scenery as the bottom half of the photo is of nature whilst the top half is of buildings. Finally, the centre building also stands out because it looks pink and is the tallest building in the picture. This has inspired me to focus on detail, shade, colour and how I can add contrast to my piece. Furthermore, the calming mood the picture creates is very interesting and makes me want to create something like it.