Hi fellow art nerds!
This week, with a busy weekend behind us and a public holiday weekend coming up, we’re deviating from our usual scheduling to bring you some good old fashioned art admiration—A delicious selection of fuel for the fires of inspiration!
I (Olivia) always find it so interesting to chat with other artists about their interests. Sometimes, the inspirations are obvious! (A digital painter looking at painting, how surprising.)
But sometimes, it can be more unexpected.
It’s always good to keep yourself open to new inspirations, especially ones from other disciplines. For example, I love looking at high fashion photography as inspiration for image composition and costume design.
So, please enjoy this week’s inspiration fuel from us here at Art Nerds! And feel free to share your own in the comments! We are always on the hunt for more inspiring goodness. Enjoy!
Grace Cheung
Kate: I've been looking to Grace Cheung in particular as inspiration on my draw armour better quest. The way she renders armour is so immaculate AND she has such a good balance between fantasy and practicality/believability in her designs.
Image source: 1
Jin Jia Ji
Olivia: Jin Jia Ji is a fashion photographer whose use of colour, focus, and negative space is always so inspiring to me. He works between China and London23, with the examples below coming from Vogue China. You can also see his work on his Instagram.
I particularly love the colour scheme and textures from the following image, which reminds me of James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold - The Falling Rocket (1875).
Fiona Staples
Xena: I recently reread the backlog of Saga, which has rekindled my obsession with Fiona Staples. Wish she had social media presence at all (Instagram most frequently updated) but the way she manages to balance form and function is incredible. Her art is so loose and yet so structured- every line thrown down seems completely loose and yet everything is in the right place. The way she uses colour to convey weight and movment along with her linework! And on top of all that she’s such an endlessly creative designer!?!
Sir Alfred Munnings
Naomi: I’ve been looking at Alfred Munnings (1878-1959), who was a prolific English painter of horses. As fairly typical of pre-Impressionist equestrian art, he does the classic very posed representational commissioned paintings but also has lovely loose observational work. In particular where he’s painting the horse and figure in their environment - his market and horse sales scenes are excellent. One of my favourites is a simple scene of some donkeys and a pony in a field. It’s so simple but the light and forms are captured so well.
And that’s all from us this week! Thank you for reading Art Nerds! If you want to stay tuned for more art musings and inspiration fuel, you can subscribe for free: