Stella's Art Blog

An artist who I enjoy is Shiyoon Kim. Kim is a character designer and concept artist best know for his work on animated films such as Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.  He's worked for film companies including Walt Disney Animation Studios and Sony Pictures Animation, as well as doing his own independent work. His designs and pieces are incredibly inspiring to me, and they push me to want to become better at character illustration.

Kehinde Wiley is a New York City-based portrait artist whose main focus of work is on depicting black people in leafy natural environments. Wiley challenges the stereotypes of black masculinity in America by creating vibrant, natural environments for his subjects to be seen in. Wiley is best known for his painting done of former president Barack Obama, who commissioned the piece to be his presidential portrait.

Frida Kahlo's portraiture work often featured herself as the subject matter. She painted realistic versions of herself, usually surrounded by plants and animals, with a neutral face expression. She got into her portraiture work as her health was deteriorating, which could be a reason why the mood of the paintings seem somber. Despite the bright colors and fantastical settings, Frida's expressions give the paintings as a whole a gloomy mood. Rembrandt created around 100 portraits of himself in his lifetime, each one done very realistically and portraying an uncanny likeness to his actual self. Unlike Kahlo's work,  Rembrandt painted what he saw, not adding anything extra to his paintings other than what was actually there. His work is more realistic with less of a personal flair added to it. Pablo Picasso started off his life doing realistic self portraits, which gradually evolved into more unique and psychedelic pieces as he grew older. Picasso became ...