Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer
Last week I had a chance to go see the Norman Rockwell Exhibit at the BYU museum of art. I went with friends from my critique group. It’s so much fun to go to things like this with other artists. We had a great time analyzing the paintings together. This post is about some of the things I learned by staring at the awesome art.
-
Norman Rockwell was great at using lost edges.
Triple Self-Portrait
For example if you look at this painting called Triple Self-Portrait you can see how the man’s trousers are the same color as the canvas. In the original painting there isn’t a line to distinguish the two elements. Your brain fills that line in all on it’s own. Pretty cool.
-
Norman Rockwell used color grouping. (and you can paint a white dress against a white background too.)
Christmas Homecoming
See in that image how the three jackets are all the same color. Tan, tan, and tan. They are three separate elements but since the value/tone and color are similar your brain can read them as one. This is a busy picture full of lots of people and things. The color grouping really helps lead your eye through the image.
Here is another example of color grouping.
After The Prom
Another thing Norman Rockwell did all the time is harder for me to explain, but this image illustrates it very well.
Brass Merchant
See how that lady has a white dress on. See how the background is white. If I was painting this painting I probably would have made her dress purple or blue. White would have been out of the question. I would have been too afraid of her blending into the background and the image being out of balance. But Norman did it here and I think it’s working. I’m excited to start trying to do more of this type of thing in my paintings.
-
Norman Rockwell painted a ridiculous amount of studies and took tons of photos.
Soda Jerk
To see more of his photos into paintings you can check out this blog post.
But it wasn’t just that he took a lot of photos. He did drawings and color studies and more drawings and more color studies until he got what he needed.
-
Norman Rockwell Painted big paintings.
Checkers
This is one of my all time Norman Rockwell Favorites. It is 35×39″, and is typical of many of the paintings I saw at the museum. It’s not a mural by any means but it’s much bigger than the sizes I usually work at. He was able to get a lot of detail into the art at this size. I’ve been working the size of my scanner. I think I’m going to try some larger stuff so I can get more of the effects that I want.
The post What I Learned from Norman Rockwell appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.
Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer
There is a common misconception that being an artist is either something you are born with or not. The general feeling in society pervades 
that artists are odd, and going into art is an unwise career choice because artists don’t make any money.
The reality is drawing realistically can be taught, and there are many many careers for artists. There are also many careers which aren’t considered art jobs but that can benefit immensely from people with the skill for thinking spatially. Learning to see the world in a non-verbal visual way is a beneficial thing for everyone to learn. In school there is a lot of emphasis on core subjects such as reading and math. Drawing and music tend to be overlooked because they aren’t considered valuable skills when preparing for careers such as doctors, lawyers, or engineers. But, not only are there plenty of careers in the arts (fashion, movies, video game, and amusement park industries all use artists) but the ability to picture something in your head would be useful for a doctor or engineer.
Part of the reason people don’t see the value of taking an art class is because drawing is not taught as it used to be. Many art classes as they are taught now teach students to express themselves but don’t give them the skills to do so. This would be similar to telling a piano student to play something that expresses himself without teaching him any notes.
When I was about 11 my love for drawing was clear and my parents enrolled me as a student to my amazing teacher Sydney Bowman taught me many drawing basics using the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.
I’m grateful for the lessons she taught me and I’m excited to teach students of my own many of the principles I learned from her.
If you or your children are interested in learning to draw I highly recommend getting the book and going through the exercises. Or if you live in in Salt Lake County Utah I still have spots available in my classes. Email me at illustration (at) manelleoliphant (dot) com for more information.
The post The Importance of Learning to Draw appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.
Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer
I used to love working with ink and watercolor. It was my go to medium for a long time. Gradually I’ve moved away from that but every once and a while I pull out my ink and draw. Then I remember I really enjoy drawing with that medium.
Inktober is (find out more about it by clicking here.) a good chance to remember how much fun ink drawing is. The last two days I’ve been working on this and I created these videos of me drawing characters with ink.
I won’t be doing 31 drawings. My plan is to do 24 drawings of the characters you’ll meet in my next year of Tales Fantastic Stories. I tried to do a lot of planning before Inktober began but now that it’s been a few days I’m learning I missed a few things. For one thing I think I drew these guys too small, and the details would work out better if their faces were a little larger. It’s also taken me a long time to draw each character before I start inking. So this morning I’m rethinking my plan a little. Maybe in a few days I’ll report back the changes I’ve made in the meantime you can follow my progress on Instagram.
The post Inktober appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.
Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer
This interview on one fantastic week with J.A.W. Cooper was really inspiring to me, and from what I’ve seen on the facebook group I wasn’t the only person inspired. They talked about being deliberate about choosing your influences. Even to the point of keeping a written record of who they are and why. I have many artists whose work I admire, and many who I choose to inspire my work but I’ve never thought about making deliberate choices about this.
Joseph Zbukvic
Lately I’ve been paying closer attention to how I draw hands and feet because Wylie Beckert does such an amazing job with this, and I’ve been trying to keep my watercolor looser like Joseph Zbukvic. I know I am doing this but I haven’t thought about where allowing these influence in would take me, and if I want to go there.
I think it’s time to focus on this a little bit more.
The post Choosing Who Influences Your Art appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.
