February 13, 2007

Me and My Art Idol, Brad Holland


I had the fortune of being taught by Brad Holland my last semester at school, and for those of you who don't know...he's a genius. It was really cool to listen to his thought process and how he approached his art. He was one of the major illustrators that turned the illustration world towards conceptual art. He's absolutely one of my favorites so you need to check out his website (you can get there quick by clicking on my links to the side.) Anyway...he talked a lot about symbolism and how it's useful in helping the audience understand what you are trying to say visually, but not to overdo it. He specifically mentioned (over and over and over again) that "$" signs are way overused and drawings that depend on such clichés are conceptually weak no matter how visually appealing.

Our assignment was to illustrate an article about doctors profiting from pharmaceutical interests. (Something like that...it's been awhile.) So I tried to find an image that would be less cliché... but used the stereotypical "$" sign anyway. It was a bit irritating at the time and, though I like the way Dr. Dollar looks, I think I could have come up with a better way of getting the idea across. Anyhow, in the end this is what I came up with, and Brad seemed to like it, so what do I know?

Political illustration is less of the direction I want to go in...but I had fun drawing this anyway.


(This is Brad Holland's piece)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

fun stuff on the dollar sign:) And what about the alligator painting? It's fun, and clever.

Edward said...

Yeah, you should do more dollar signs...

...how was your flight, by the way?