Contexts
Egon Schiele
The artist Egon Schiele has had a profound impact on me. The characters in his paintings have a sense of tension yet relaxation, and his line drawings fascinate me. His lines summarize the contours of the human body and emphasize some of its joints. The randomly interspersed lines unexpectedly blend harmoniously, making the picture tense and relaxed.
Schiele's Wife with Her Little Nephew
The work "Schiele's Wife with Her Little Nephew" aligns with my earlier theme of "hugging". The reason I like this work is that it does not deliberately depict the expressions of the characters, but I can feel the relationship between the characters based on their embrace movements. Similar works include "The Embrace", which mainly depicts the human body. The two people embracing each other, combined with Schiele's expression of lines, made me feel that the two people in the picture are inseparable. In these two hugging-themed scenes, my gaze is always involuntarily drawn to the "hands.". I believe that hand movements can effectively express human emotions. The detailed depiction of hand movements in the embrace once again emphasizes the emotions of the characters.
The Embrace
The painting "Man and Woman" also uses lines to summarize the close and inseparable feelings of two people, emphasizing the relationship between these two people. When I first saw this painting, I thought that he expressed his feelings in a very concise and clear way, which was a part of my inspiration. My image gradually transformed into two people, consciously emphasizing the hands or contact parts, trying to discover more ways of expressing emotions from different perspectives.
Man and Woman
lovers
I think I can always feel "logic" in his image processing—not that the image has been carefully calculated, but that the image is unified as if it is a result of not overthinking from the first stroke to the last stroke. And with the preserved brushstrokes in his visuals, he also emphasizes that the visuals are very unified and smooth. For example, in "Lovers", he has a very thorough understanding of the structure of the human body. Although the human body in the picture is deformed, he can still find features that emphasize the structure of the human body. This work gave me inspiration for the image of "Soul to Soul". Using unconventional forms to depict the two people embracing each other is also a method of emphasizing the emotions in the picture.
Egon Schiele's works have inspired me from various perspectives, and I believe this is the tail of inspiration that I need to seize and find my own style.
Soul to Soul
David Bailey Ross
The works of artist David Bailey Ross gave me a different visual experience, and his "Head" series of works are very exciting. He portrayed each unique character in different ways, and I can strongly feel the personalities of the characters in the picture. Whether in terms of expression or color matching, I can feel the personality traits of the characters. And he unleashed the unpredictability of watercolor, filling the picture with infinite possibilities. I personally also greatly enjoy the characteristics of watercolor and believe that anything is possible. Artist David Bailey Ross also suggested that one should not always try to surface things but rather seek out more layers or develop an interest in the inner workings of the head, imagining oneself as a machine that can capture someone's inner thoughts. These words have inspired me, as I am always drawn to the details or structures in photos, resulting in a feeling that is not what I imagined after drawing. He allowed me to observe people from a different perspective or taught me how to imagine the emotions and emotions hidden in characters.
In addition, the colors in his paintings are also very unique, mostly solid colors, using different techniques to create different effects through the diffusion of watercolor. One of the reasons watercolor is unpredictable is that different pigments react differently when painted together, which is another reason why I personally like using solid colors for painting. Furthermore, I believe that different emotions are symbolized by solid colors. Different colors represent different emotions, and people's emotions when making emotional responses are usually not singular, but for different reasons. Consequently, I believe that the majority of solid colors work better to portray people's emotions.
Graham Dean
When I first saw his paintings, I was amazed. He skillfully applied the freedom and diffusion of watercolor, making the picture full of rhythm. His The Dirty Yellow series uses watercolor texture to depict the feeling of the film, full of memories and old emotions. He did not strictly separate the two in the processing of the two-person scene, but cleverly distinguished them with colors and associated the characters based on the diffusion of watercolor, making the scene complete. For example, this work is also about embracing, without emphasizing the human body with lines. Instead, it portrays people with colors and water patterns, further demonstrating the emotional fusion between characters, just like water, which has no specific shape but influences each other. His works have been very helpful for my theme, to the extent that they have the desired effect on my theme and have given me great inspiration.
And his other two paintings, he uses different watercolor techniques to express different emotions. Watercolor has the characteristic of diffusion, and these two paintings precisely express different ways of diffusion. Coupled with different colors, they bring different visual experiences and emotions to the picture. The comparison between these two paintings further confirmed my use of watercolor to express emotions and emotions. Through his works combined with my own analysis, I found that what I lacked was the freedom and diffusion of watercolor. I need to make the picture more free and not limit it too much. I believe that in my future creations, I will be closer to my ideal image.
