Steven Cooper - Concept Artist

After my confusion with Editorial Illustration, I found out that the next illustrative career path I would be studying would be that of the concept artist. This is a subject that I am quite interested in pursuing, so I was very excited to find out that I we were having a guest speaker. Steven Cooper is a British Concept Artist who has produced work for TV, Film and Video Games. During his talk with us he described a lot of his creative processes, most of which were inspired by Surrealist methods, involving wet and dry media.

Study Number One

My first concept-art-inspired piece involved a rather messy process often used by Surrealists. Decalcomania [1] is a process involving wet paint on a flat surface, transferred to another flat surface through compression and pushing and pulling the material away. In this case I applied a mixture of blue and yellow paint onto a piece of clear acetate, applied it to a blank piece of paper with a little bit of pressure and pulled the acetate away. The ‘capillary attraction’ of the liquid in the paint creates marks and patterns on the page and then the shape that is created is the basis of a piece of work. I decided that the swirling shape and sea-like colour palette reminded me of a breaking wave, so I emphasised this using some blue ink and a tissue to add a sort of mist above the wave, and a couple of biros to draw in a small sail boat over the crest of the wave.

Study Number Two

My second image was inspired by a technique that Steven Cooper was rather a fan of and was also used by surrealists such as Max Ernst. Soufflage [1] is a technique that also uses wet media, this time ink that is blow across a flat surface using a straw. During our talk, Steven mentioned that he liked to use gel ink pens with water to let them bleed and then either blowing them around or letting gravity take hold so that they would drip down the page. At first I used some of my own gel based pens with water but I found that these didn’t bleed very well so I added some black ink which took much better to the water on the page. After I was done, I felt that the shape that was made looked like a large dramatic cloak so I decided to turn it into a villainous costume, using an ink wash, a sharpie and Photoshop to create an evil king. 

Study Number Three

My third piece involved quite a different influence that Steven spoke about. He mentioned that a lot of his figures and structures involving machinery were strongly influenced by the famous concept artist HR Giger, who made the art that inspired the Alien films. With a little bit of research I discovered that a lot of Giger’s work is very overtly sexual and almost always uses a mixture of human figures and features and science-fiction technology. I took one of his books out of the University library and straight away I discovered that he has made a large number of portraits incorporating these elements, for an example see here [2]. In response to this I made the above drawing, using pencil, a black biro and a black fine-liner, later adding a coffee wash and a light enhancement on Photoshop to give the signature sepia-toned effect.

Study Number Four

My fourth and final attempt at concept art brought me back to another one of Steven’s techniques that were also used by the surrealists. Frottage [1] involves taking a rubbing of a textured surface using a soft, dry material such as a chalk pastel or condensed charcoal and a thin piece of paper. The mark that is made then forms part of a drawing or can be left on its own as a full image. Inspired by this I made some rubbings onto a piece of corrugated card, which I decided looked like high-rise buildings and sky-scrapers. I made five of these and using Photoshop I arranged them to form the skyline that you can see above. This was a welcome break from my other studies as I noticed that I made a lot of character and figure-based images in response to this subject and this was my first attempt at something more environmental.

References

[1] Wikipedia.org, 2015.
[2] Vagallery.com, 2015.

Bibliography

Giger, HR. 2015. Vagallery.com. Image of Giger portrait. [Online] [Accessed from 2015] Available from: http://www.vagallery.com/h-r-giger.html

Wikipedia. 2015. Surrealist techniques. [Online] [Accessed from 2015] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_techniques