Progress/ Artist Inspiration

This past week was somewhat productive though I still have much to do. I like to use reference material for my work so I spent my spare time this week looking through photos online and in magazines looking for ones that would best fit my vision for this first piece and have chosen a couple to use for my main figure. Ive started sketching and am still going back and forth about what I want to do for a background. Once I figure this out then I will head to Jerrys to choose a canvas size and pick up some more paint so that I can get started.

My favorite artist is Josh Keyes and is probably the biggest inspiration on my work. He holds a BFA from the Art Institue of Chicago and a MFA from Yale University. He paints animals and places them mostly in settings outside of their natural habitats and in sort of fantastical situations.

Michael Dumas is another one of my inspirations. He is a painter and creates realistic depictions of wildlife. Though I am trying to get away from being too traditional with my work and do some different things to make it more interesting, I still want to make my animals look realistic and that is what I love about his work.

I came across Alexis Rockmans work on the Whitney Collection site and found it intriguing. He also paints somewhat realistic wildlife with a nontraditional theme and I saw similarities in his work and the work of Josh Keyes. I was instantly attracted to it and look forward to spending more time studying his work.

Another one of my favorite artists is Mike Moses. He is an artist and tattooer out of Columbus, Ohio and is famous mostly for his unique wildlife tattoos and paintings that also incorporate some science fiction elements. Though he is not a traditional gallery artist, he does have a national reputation and his work is a large inspiration to my work as far as stepping outside of the box and creating some interesting compositions.