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Ashley Wood. Primarily works in oil paints, is a narrative illustrator. His self produced content can be quite predictable, (robots and ladies), but his skills as a painter makes his content more interesting. Above you'll see scanned pages from "Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty, Official Comic Book", a comic that as you can see, breaks the conventions of the normal comic book; every panel is oil painted, and it makes the story so much more intriguing seeing the way Wood has depicted the story.
Even with simple content, his application of visual language really captivates you into admiring his painting.
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An element of visual language that I've noticed quite consistently in his work is his use of fading background items. As you can see above, as things enter the background, they fade to different degrees, emphasising the foreground items more or simply adding more effect to the image. It helps to identify and separate the foreground from the background. It's a delicate technique; adding this foggy effect really is quite beautiful, further enhancing a point I've made: his subject matter may not be very interesting, but Wood's technique and skills add so much quality to the painting it makes the simple things very interesting.
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If we take a look at some photography of fog (1), we'll find it shares traits with Wood's paintings. This foggy effect is very prevalent in his work, adding so much depth with such a simple concept. It makes you squint, or lean in to view the foggy items, as you would in real fog.
This take on perspective and depth is something I want to reproduce in my experiments. It inspires a sense of mystique and secrecy in the viewer, which is a trait that really helps with an already abstract and mystical approach to illustration.
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Moving on briefly to composition, I deconstruct the compositional elements of this piece.
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Here I'm analysing the vanishing points and verticles. This helps identify perspective and spaces. When you look at the first image here, we see the spaces between key items in the composition, and guidelines for perspective. I wonder if he constructs the piece from what he sees in his head, or starts with almost random guidelines to determine the building's positions. Creating random guidelines like this first however, you can construct the composition of an image.
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Experiment #1
A quick experiment to see the effects of creating random guidelines for constructing a composition of buildings. This is a good start, at least for initial inspiration if you can't simply think of something from the top of your head.
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The lines I've drawn here denote the separation between the very light and very dark tones. It shows the shapes you see when you blur your eyes. This isn't very relevant to my investigation, but it's an interesting reminder of the different shapes your composition can passively construct.
Here I evaluate the tonal values within the piece. There are 3 very noticeable tones. There's the brighter lights that're almost all white (the lightest tone), the tone that emphasises colour and details (the middle tone) and the dark shadows (the darker tone). It's almost as if there's 2 layers of shadows (the middle tone) and if they overlap, they create the darker tone.
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Looking at this evaluation, we can see that the background items' tone lightens, representing his use of the fog effect that I've discussed. This layer of fog over items further enhances the foreground in a very natural way; your eyes are drawn to the foreground, but this isn't because of negative space, it's this organic, natural effect he uses in his pieces.
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Experiment #2
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(My Experiment)
Looking at Wood's abstract use of paints I conducted my own quick experiment. My attempt was based on the expressive, abstract quality to Wood's work. If I was so do it again, I'd produce it traditionally with proper oil paints.
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Experiment #3
Above, I composed an experiment using a stencil print I've already created. On the left is before and the right is after. There's a character stood behind another but to further enhance this composition, I took a page out of Wood's book, and added a layer of fog over the background character. This effect not only improves the message of the image, the information is made clearer, (ironically because the background is made less clear) and the illustration is now even nicer to view.
I believe this technique is in favour of Wood's work for another reason - his abstract approach can be quite overwhelming, so limiting what we can see, using this technique, clearly makes for a cleaner, less confusing piece.
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Wood's ability to make almost any subject matter interesting, comes from his skills as an expressive, abstract Painter for illustration. This, and the technique enveloping the backgrounds in layers of Fog to enhance his pieces, is what sets Wood's Visual Language apart from other illustrators.
Bibliography and Reference List
1. (Metal Gear Solid: Sons Of Liberty Official Comic Book, double page spread and cover, Alex Garner, Ashley Wood, 2006/7)
2. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dos-Tarino-Artwork-Ashley-Latest/dp/1600102573 (Dos Tarino: Artwork by Ashley Wood, 2008)
3. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ashley_Wood (Ashley Wood's cover art for Star Wars Tales 16, 2003)
5. (World War Robot, Ashley Wood, 2010)
6. https://forbiddenplanet.com/22134-uno-tarino-the-latest-art-of-ashley-wood/ (Uno Tarino: Artwork by Ashley Wood, 2007)
7. http://www.worldwarrobot.com/ (World War Robot, Ashley Wood, 2008)
7. http://www.worldwarrobot.com/ (World War Robot, Ashley Wood, 2008)
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