Blog Inspiration Assignment.
Let me start this off by saying that I would have loved to spruce up my blog here with some images from the following artists. But even with giving credit, and links under the photos, copyright infringement is still a complicated issue and I didn’t want to step on toes. No pics this time folks, but there are plenty of links to click on! Click away Clicky Clickers!
This weekend’s assignment was to dig into some blogs around the web that we found interesting. Ms. Waldvogel encouraged us to seek out artists in a related field to each of our studies. That was cool with me, my favorite artists are comic illustrators! I knew exactly where to head first: my friends list on Deviantart.com. Queue the shameless self endorsement: My page.
The first artist I was hoping to find a blog by was my absolute favorite artist, for now, Greg Capullo. I first found out about Mr. Capullo through his work in the Spawn comics. The man is an outstanding penciler, inker, and painter. His digital paintings, in my opinion, are reminiscent of the work of Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta. He now does pencils for Scott Snyder’s stories in DC’s Batman. But alas, I was unable to find a blog by Mr. Capullo. I’ll just have to settle with seeing his work in his Deviantart gallery(The Greg Capullo) and comics.
Next stop: my other favorite artist, and former SCAD student, Mr. Sean Murphy. Murphy has done work in comics such as Hellblazer, American Vampire, and Joe the Barbarian. He’s recently finished writing and illustrating his own personal comic entitled Punk Rock Jesus. Fortunately for me, he had a link straight from his DA page to his blog site: seangordonmurphy.com.
What I love about Mr. Murphy’s blog is that he gives genuine advice to other aspiring artists. In his blog he uncovers some of the struggles he’s had along the way and the lessons he’s learned in order to push through them. He gives real insight into the complexities of the comic industry and helpful hints on how to become successful. I couldn’t ask for more in a blog.
After being thoroughly satisfied with Sean Murphy’s blog I basically just picked through some other DA pages in search of links to blogs that stuck out to me. One artist that I’ve been interested in for a while, one who has a style all of his own, is Mexico based artist Hector Sevilla Lujan: elsevilla.net.
Mr. Lujan’s blog is an interesting read because, despite him being wildly talented in both pencils and digital painting, he comes across as just another average artist dealing with the same struggles that all of us encounter. He’s very real and speaks to those of us who haven’t quite made it yet. His topics often deal with subjects like art blocks and medium exploration. He gives an energy that inspires you to become a better artist. He’s working hard, so why don’t I? Lately he hasn’t posted much, but I’m sure it’s because he’s busy drawing comics.
After roaming around from one blog to another, it occurred to me that I’m very easily satisfied when it comes to blogs. As long as a writing has something that I can take away from it to better myself, I’m satisfied. And I always find something to take away. So then I tried to take it in a new direction. Instead of reading blogs by comic artists, I kind of felt like exploring street/graffiti artists. And of course the first name that came to mind was Banksy. Banksy is indisputably the most famous graffiti artist in the world, and one of the most talented. Unfortunately, I only found galleries and fan sites dedicated to him. Still, I’d encourage you to check out his website, banksy.co.uk, or watch his movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Then I remembered a street artist that I’d followed online in the past by the name of Poster Child. He had a blog set up entitled PosterChild’s Blade Diary. In his blog he would post pictures and stories of his night-time adventures beautifying the streets of Toronto, Ontario and New York City. He was a graffiti artist who specialized in poster art. He’d make posters with stenciled paintings and stick them on walls using a special homemade paste, also experimenting in layers. He also did random good deeds around the cities he visited, like fixing umbrellas and building bridges over icy runoffs from leaking pipes, in order to call attention to the problem and have it professionally repaired. Sort of a vigilante in a way. He got even more attention with his “guerrilla gardening,” in which he’d build special wooden boxes, often painted like Super Mario Blocks, plant flowers in them, and place them throughout the cities. A quirky, fun fellow to read about I can assure you. Sadly his blog has since been taken down, and you can only catch his work through past interviews(torontoist.com) and old galleries(us.fotolog.com). Disappearance seems to be a trend with many bloggers.
So yeah, I’m pretty well satisfied with blogs in general. They can be inspirational, helpful, and flat out entertaining! I’d say that my one complaint is how easy they are to just vanish. Like anything on the internet, no matter how big, they can abruptly disappear without a hint that they had ever existed. But for those that do still exist, I will continue to read, admire, and grow, as long as you continue to post.
