Political Cartoonists

To begin with I'm going to look at Steve Bell, and his use of visual metaphors. Steve Bell is a very well known political cartoonist who is know to work a lot along side the guardian. One of the most iconic visual metaphors that he has created is George Bush as a chimp. (1)

Bell likes to strip back the politicians to something to do with their image, he always draws John Major with his dull grey underpants and David Cameron frequently dressed in a condom, which adds a certain humour to his work. Bell enjoys doing this as he says;” They’re so careful about their image, which is good for a cartoonist, because you can rip their image to shreds,' he says with a smile.” (2)

So for this methodology I decided to draw Boris Johnson, Mayor of London as a fool. I think a lot of people see Johnson as a joke, and not a serious Mayor at all, I also think that a lot of this time he almost comes across as drunk in his public events. He's been known to often say random strange quotes and embarrasses himself. 

And so i drew him looking a mess and drunk, with his eyes crossed. I did this to strip back his serious title of being a Mayor, and showing him in a way that conveys how serious people actually take him as well as adding humour.

For the second methodology, I’m going to look at Steve Bells use of anthropomorphism.  Bell anthropomorphises certain politicians with animals they look like/ is relevant in current news. He turned Ed Miliband into a crazy panda for a visual metaphor using the animal as a source. He used the source of the panda as it was big in the news at that time that Edinburgh zoo’s pandas were failing to mate.

For this methodology, I decided to anthropomorphise Ed Miliband again, but this time into a chicken. I thought this was very fitting as not only does he look like the famous chicken characters from ‘Chicken Run’, but he also quit his  role in Labour when they didn't do so well. I thought this was very cowardly- and cowardliness always has connotations with being called ‘a chicken’. (3)

Ralph Steadman uses a lot of quick and free flowing ink line work in contrast to some specific sharp lines and ink splatters. This creates a very powerful and bold image that emphasises some power in the point he's making. In this piece (4) the obvious evil character of the picture is very darkly coloured in compared to the statue of liberty, it is almost completely black compared to something almost completely white. By doing this Steadman is able to represent the meaning of bad against good straight away in colour alone.  

I chose to draw David Cameron sitting on a bomb wearing a cowboy hat, to represent his eagerness with the recent news that he's won Syria airstrikes votes (5). And so I drew the bomb with the rough black ink, and gave Cameron the creepy concentric circle eyes that Steadman gives his bad characters a lot. I also used his technique of the ink splatters around the page and the overall roughness of his style.

For the last methodology, I'm going to look at pastiche in Steve Bells work, like this piece he did with Star Wars (6). Bell uses pastiche of both famous paintings, artworks and even films within his own work to add a familiar reference to the joke and to also mock the characters further. By doing this he adds even more humour to his already humorous cartoons.

So again, I used the Syrian airstrikes as the basis of my work. I decided i wanted to use the ‘Harry Potter’ films for my pastiche, and so drew Cameron as the evil character of the film, Voldemort. In Harry Potter, Voldemort tried to kill the baby Harry Potter and so I linked that with the news of Cameron bombing Syria and peoples views that he shouldn't be wanting to kill innocent people.

I drew it in Bells similar comic strip style, and like him, tried to make the characters look a lot like their film characters, (Voldermort and Snape) with little distinctive features of the politicians of (Cameron and John Baron). To distinguish it was them I added their hair and glasses, for Baron. 

By doing this, the reader can immediately see the pastiche connection with Harry Potter. 

References 

(1) Steve Bell, George Bush (2012)

(2) Steve Bell, (2011)

(3) Winter and Mason, (2015)

(4) Ralph Steadman, satirical cartoon of Ronald Reagon, (March 1990)

(5) Sparrow and Perraudin, (2015)

(6) Steve Bell, on Jeremy Corbyn, Labours Jedi knight, (2015)

Bibliography

Bell, S. (2012) The guardian. Available at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2012/apr/06/steve-bell-cartoon-ed-milliband-giant-panda (Accessed: 3 December 2015).

Bell, S. (2015) Steve Bell’s if ... On Jeremy Corbyn, labour's Jedi knight. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2015/sep/16/steve-bells-if-on-jeremy-corbyn-labours-jedi-knight (Accessed: 12 March 2015).

Fund, A. (2006) Ralph Steadman: A retrospective. Available at: http://www.artfund.org/what-to-see/exhibitions/2014/12/06/ralph-steadman-a-retrospective-exhibition (Accessed: 3 December 2015).

Sparrow, A. and Perraudin, F. (2015) Cameron wins Syria airstrikes vote by majority of 174 – as it happened. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2015/dec/02/syria-airstrikes-mps-debate-vote-cameron-action-against-isis-live (Accessed: 3 December 2015).

Steve Bell (2011) Available at: http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/reviews/visual-arts/steve-bell (Accessed: 1 December 2015).

Wintour, P. and Mason, R. (2015) Ed milliband resigns as labour leader. Available at: www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/ed-milliband-to-resign-as-labour-leader (Accessed: 3 December 2015).

Concept art

 For my first methodology I looked at the technique. This is where you spread thick paint onto paper or canvas, then apply some paper or a material to leave texture and marks within the paint, and this then becomes the base of the painting. 

“Decalcomania images are often produced in rapid succession without any forethought. The most beautiful ones - those that suggest more than mere stampings - can offer the artist unique textures obtainable in no other way.” (1)

Similar to this image of the detail of Max Ernst’s painting (2),  I tried to create an image which gives greater and abstract detail to the landscape than a usual painting.

I used this technique with green and yellow paint and I  thought that it looked like a forest, with the pathway in the middle and trees towering above. I added detail with leaves  to the     top of the trees to make it appear more like how I wanted. I think I’ve created something that is very expressive and flows well, something that is less easily created when painting with an image in mind.

For my second methodology I looked into Frottage, this is where you take a drawing tool and make rubbings over various textured surfaces. This may be the ending of the drawing but it can also be used to interpret various pictures within the rubbings to create a further illustration. This technique was developed in drawings from 1925 by Max Ernst (3) when he noticed strange images in the patterns within the wooden floor. 

This is one of the pieces created by Max Ernst’s rubbings, a common theme for his art is the use of trees.(4) The rustic  and free flowing look of this is created by overlapping various rubbings he has collected.

I rubbed my paper on some various textured things around the studio and immediately saw a few buildings being some bushy landscape. So i drew into this a little bit to make what i saw in it more obvious.

For the third methodology, I wanted to look at Creature concept art. I found this artist, Aaron Blaise (5) who favours creating different unique creatures by merging aspects of animals together. He sometimes merges so many aspects that you cant even tell what animals he took parts from anymore, but this example shows one that is very obvious for an example. 

For this, I wanted to just do a very simple experiment and so I played the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ game with a couple of friends. This is where you fold the pages and each person draws an aspect of a creature without seeing the other folded over parts. 

I think this is a great way of showing how easy and simple it is to create an abstract creature. It doesn't fit together but it would be a great starting point to expand on and to gain ideas for your random creature. 

For the last methodology, I looked into H R Gigers biomechanical art.  He is well known for designing humans and machines linked together within a strange relationship to create a whole new form. Giger was heavily influenced by surrealism, and used this to expand on his own work. He calls this style of work ‘biomechanical’ and described it as “biomechanical aesthetic, a dialectic between man and machine, representing a universe at once disturbing and sublime.” (6)

I looked at his work and found this piece, which was the cover for the book, “Gigers Alien”. This is a very iconic image that is well known for being in the film ‘Alien’. I thought this represents well, the dark imagery of nightmares that he creates.

I then found this piece (7), which i thought really represented his biomechanical art well, as it shows the creepy dark side, but also the sexual aspect to it that he uses within his work. And so this is what inspired me to create my own biomechanical creature. 

I used the sexualised nature of his work, to get the starting point of the posing girl. I then added mechanical like features to torso and legs. The small mask to hide her face was to make her appear even less human like, and I used big bold hair which features in his own work a lot. I think i have created the same relationship of humans and machines that H R Giger does. 

References 

(1) Decalcomania-Art techniques, (2004)

(2) Phillipe, (2014)

(3) Tate, Frottage

(4) Max Ernst, The forest

(5) Aaron Blaise, The art of Aaron Blaise

(6) Holmes, (2012)

(7) H. R Giger

Bibliography

Blaise, A. (no date) The art of Aaron Blaise. Available at: https://creatureartteacher.com/conceptcharacter-art-gallery/ (Accessed: 30 November 2015).

Collection online | Max Ernst. The forest (la forêt). 1927–28 - Guggenheim museum (2015) Available at: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/1133 (Accessed: 30 November 2015).

Coolvibe (2010) Surreal art by H.R Giger, creator of ‘alien’. Available at: Coolvibe.com/2010/surreal-art-by-h-r-Giger-creator-of-alien-2/ (Accessed: 30 November 2015).

Decalcomania - Art Techniques (2004) Available at: http://www.arttalk.com/archives/vol-15/artv1502-1.htm (Accessed: 30 November 2015).

Frottage (no date) Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/frottage (Accessed: 30 November 2015).

Holmes, K. (2012) ‘Original creators: Biomechanical Surrealist H.R.Giger’, The creators project , 12 November. Available at: thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/original-creators-biomechanical-surrealist-hrgiger (Accessed: 30 November 2015).

Phillipe, B. (2014) ‘Alice in 1941 by Max Ernst’, My French Easel, 31 January. Available at: myfrencheasel.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/alice-in-1941-by-marx-ernst.html (Accessed: 30 November 2015).