For my final Blog entry i decided to look at a painting by the art it Graham Sutherland. This particular painting by Graham Sutherland has been my favourite example of portraiture for the past three of four years, and as i have recently had the pleasure to re discover all of his work due to my context essay i decided i would like to do a small piece about his painting of Somerset Maugham. firstly looking only at the composition we can see sutherland has painted Maugham from a slight low angle giving the impression of superiority and an overall authoritative manner. the rectangular shape of the painting gives the figure even more hight making him more imposing. You ant take your eyes off him, the angler nature of his garments and the knowing look of his achievements and his celebrity. His clear distinguished nature emanates from him. The yellow in both the background and his skin tone is perfectly complimented by the warm maroon tones of his scald, the pice is over all warm in its pallet an inviting, although somerset exudes superiority, it is in a content non threatening way, the viewer knows this is a man demanding and deserving of our respect.

Lizzy Steward is an illustrator who graduated from Edinburgh College of art, i have come across her work before i started Edinburgh, however only through select photographs online, i never got the opportunity to see any of Lizzys work in person until by chance as an exercise to help us write this blog the group i was in was given it to critique the design. I know that as part of this blog you are supposed to focus more or less purely on the visual aspects of the work you are writing about, however i believe the subject matter of the stories ( and there for the illustrations is important). I really like Lizzy's illustrations of seemingly mundane activities, its these little life observations that give her work a familiarity we can all relate too on some level, her organic and simplistic style in not without its complexities in equal measure. The way in which Lizzys characters interact visually with such realistic fluidity is no easy feat, speaking from experience its one of the things i personally struggle with in my own work, so i have huge admiration for those that can do it in such a seemingly effortless manner, as well a this you need to look at how the characters engage with objects, for example the man sat on the stool at the right of the above page, the way she can make her characters apart of there surroundings whilst still keeping them the focal point is something that visually i wish to emanate.

I was this week once again on another trip to the cinema with my friends and flat mates. This time we ended up going to see the newly realised Fury, staring Brad Pitt and Shia Labeouff. Fury is a war film that follows a specific tank regiment through out the time period of 1945 ad they are about to make their final push to attack the heart of Nazi Germany. Don't expect this film to be breaking new boundaries ( i certainly didn't) visually speaking, it sticks to very much the same conventions of ever war film ever produced. Muted colour pallet, long sweeping landscape shots, silhouetted shots of soldiers in battle. It very much sticks to all the media codes and conventions of its genre. However thats not to say i didn't enjoy watching it because i did, from an artistic stand point though i remained  very much un surprised. Its no Baz luhrmann romeo and juliet, but i guess why would it be? in a world run by money why mess with the winning formulae of dramatised heroism and stereotypical camera shots to stack up the cash.