In the style of… Louis Rhead

July 15, 2013March 26, 2014 | Anna Cull

Rendezvous – acrylic and white gel pen, 280 x400 mm, 2013. — Rendezvous – acrylic and pigment gel ink, 280 x 400 mm, 2013.

I had something specific in mind when I started painting the Akaroa Harbour beachfront photo… and this painting isn’t it. Initially I was going to create a highly stylised image using simple shapes and patterns and fairly flat colours ― but sometimes I just can’t help myself… the temptation to layer colours and add texture is just too great. With Louis Rhead’s turn-of-the-century posters in mind (see below), I exaggerated the shape of the trees and the curve of the shoreline. He has also influenced the overall composition, my choice of colours and the romantic styling of the women in the foreground (although mine look more medieval than Art Nouveau).

I may have another go at painting this scene for next week’s Shoot it, Sketch it…

Louis Rhead

Images from http://commons.wikimedia.org

English-born artist Louis Rhead (1857-1926) made a career out of poster design and book illustration in the USA. I love the Art Nouveau influence in these posters dated 1896-1900. The sweeping curves and stylised trees are beautiful. The colours are fantastic too.

In the style of… appears occasionally instead of my regular Shoot it, Sketch it posts. Using my own photographs as a starting point, I’m drawing inspiration from some of the world’s greatest illustrators. It’s not about slavishly copying someone else’s art; it’s an experiment in seeing things differently.

The beetles are coming

July 12, 2013February 8, 2014 | Anna Cull

The sketches and final drawing are from my first year at art/design school (2010). We were fortunate that our graphic design course (officially called ‘communication arts and design’) recognised the importance of drawing skills and provided a lot of opportunities to explore different mediums and styles. This was my first foray into pointillism. The composite image on the watercolour background is from the visual diary I put together for my final exhibition in 2012.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

July 10, 2013September 18, 2013 | Anna Cull

No, not really… although I did make these images more than a decade ago! I’d completely forgotten about them. I rediscovered them when I was backing up some of my old computer files. Hands up if you’ve heard of Bryce, the 3D modelling software. Hands up if you knew about it in 2002. Back then, the program was owned by Corel (it’s now owned by DAZ) and I was teaching myself CorelDraw and PhotoPaint. Corel users were offered a free trial and it sounded like fun…

I created seascapes, landscapes, snow-covered mountains and shiny spheres floating in impossible skies. And it was a lot of fun. But rendering the scenes was painfully slow and I seem to remember crashing my computer frequently and often during the process. A month’s trial was quite long enough. Seeing these images again now though, I’ve been wondering about checking out the latest version… but it’s just not possible to do everything — there simply aren’t enough hours in the day!

Dear diary, part five

July 5, 2013September 16, 2014 | Anna Cull

ABN logo – sketches and final design
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)

logo © Access Broadcast News, 2011

I worked on this logo while I was at design school and so I included it in my exhibition but, really, it was a freelance project that I did in my ‘spare’ time. Access Broadcast News is a media-monitoring company based in Wellington. They wanted their logo to be vibrant, dynamic and creative. I liked the idea of putting a new spin on the more traditional images of news communication such as radio waves and old television sets (which is why they appear in the sketches). My final solution is a cheeky nod to the RKO radio tower. I brought it into the 21st Century by adding multi-coloured dots to represent modern fibre-optic cables.

The diary pages are from a journal I designed for my Design & Arts College exhibition in 2012. Two years of research, ideas, word maps and sketches had to be reduced to a mere 72 pages. It was no easy task but I now have a beautiful, professionally bound diary that I’ll always treasure.

Amy

July 3, 2013September 15, 2013 | Anna Cull

Amy – ink and watercolour on paper, 255 x 205 mm, 2013.

My friend Amy may have lost her fob watch. It’s not easy being a Time Lord if you can’t remember who you are. (Happy birthday, Amy.)

Dear diary, part four

June 28, 2013July 7, 2013 | Anna Cull

Beat book cover design – sketches and layout ideas Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011) — Beat book cover design – sketches and layout ideas
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)

'A meme that launched a millions trips' – final cover design — ‘A meme that launched a millions trips’ – final cover design

For this project we had to use found images and a limited colour palette to design the cover of a book about the beat poets. My cover is a paper collage of photographs, censored texts and deconstructed poetry. The background features excerpts from the works of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs that I have retyped, rearranged, printed, torn into pieces and transferred on to paper using an acetone printing technique (the same technique I used for my book without boundaries). The acetone transfer produced a wonderful, imperfect, aged sort of effect which you can see in more detail below.

The diary pages are from a journal I put together for my Design & Arts College exhibition in 2012. Two years of research, ideas, word maps and sketches had to be reduced to a mere 72 pages. It was no easy task but I now have a beautiful, professionally bound diary that I’ll always treasure.