Frank Frazetta

Beautiful, wondrous, explicit, brutal – these are some of the words that sprang to my mind when I first encountered the work of Frank Frazetta.  To some, his work is something reserved for comic books and album covers.  To me, his art is

moving, inspiring and most importantly, fantastic.  Fantasy plays an enormous role in my life.  For the last two years, I have been writing a novel set in a parallel world, filling sketchbooks with characters and scenes.  Perusing my sketchbook, a friend recommended that I look into Frazetta’s Conan series.  For me, his attention to detail and realism, combined with his uninhibited embrace of imagination, form powerful images that seem to leap out of dreams – or nightmares.

I thought studying fine art was a serious, pedantic exercise, limited by traditional schools and subjects.  My efforts focused mostly on abstract expressionism and the human form but I found it stifling.  My imagination has always been overactive.  I love to imagine unreal realities.  If I drew a woman, I used strange colors, and perspective, skewing parts of her body to bring an unreal emphasis to one aspect of a ‘real’ subject.

Seeing Frazetta’s work made me reconsider my approach to art.  If I can take a realistic subject and present it in a fantastic way, why not take a fantastic subject and present it in a realistic way?  I hardly needed to turn my head to see that concept in action - the cover of any number of the fantasy novels on my shelves, the drawings in my boyfriend’s Dungeons and Dragons rule books.  These things I had overlooked all my life because my restrictive approach never permitted me to consider them as ‘true’ art now suddenly were acceptable as an art form. I knew this was a creative path I would love to follow.

I downloaded a trial of adobe photoshop and got to work scanning all the character sketches I had done over the years.  The work that I had never thought to submit because it seemed somehow too commercial, too silly, too ‘comic’ began to take on a new life.     The pure joy of seeing my rough pencil sketches of fantasy characters grow into fully rendered work was unparalleled for me.  I couldn’t have been more proud.  Each one truly brought to life characters that had existed in my head, or in prose.  Never had I imagined that I would be able truly to see them, face to face.  Even though I am proud of my writing and stand by my character’s descriptions as they appear in the book, in the end words can only say so much, while a picture can sing it.

I will always love painting and abstraction, but Frazetta has expanded my focus.  What I know I need is more training in all fields.  Everything I know about Photoshop I learned from playing around with it, but nevertheless I think I have been able to create art to be proud of.  What this has taught me is how little I know about technique. Discovering Frazetta’s art has made me realize how much more the study of fine art might bring me and how much more I might contribute.

Frazetta has opened the doors to a future of bringing rich fantasy worlds to life – whether as stand alone pieces, book covers, story boards for a show or movie, or even concept art for video games.  I want to illustrate.  There is nothing better than being able to show someone the picture that I had in my mind’s eye.  I can’t help hoping that I could be able to make a real career doing what I love.  Actually being paid for it!  I often question whether it is right to be paid for doing something that is nothing but exciting and fun.  But after all, someone has to draw the pictures.  Why not me?

If you also enjoy the work of Frank Frazetta, check out these videos of his work:

Frazetta’s Ladies

Misc Works

Susan Rothenberg

Pink Spin, 1987 oil on canvas

Up, Down, Around, 1985 - 1987 oil on canvas

Jenny Saville

Thanks to Johan from my creative processes class for bringing in some of Jenny Saville’s work.  Her approach to the female form and sort of grotesque beauty that she creates is right up my alley!

Jenny Saville, "Roseta 2", oil on paper laid on board, 2005-06

CONCEPTART.ORG

I was trying to pick just a few images to put onto my blog but to be honest I love just about all of them.  This is a great collection of mostly digital 2d art which is just as the name implies concept art.  So basically fantastical and impossible stuff that is often inspired by film, literature (and yes I include comics in my concept of literature) video games… etc etc…  Check out the gallery if you’re into artists with an excess of imagination and skill.