Recently I wrote about “How I Became an Artist” which briefly touched on some of the sources that influenced me to become an artist. I want to go into a little more detail and then talk a little more on what currently inspires me.
Art That Influenced Me
Early in life your home is your entire world and so it was with me. It was mom and dad’s art and of course them teaching me to draw that got me started. I remember both of them sort of mindlessly doodling on the cover of the phone book while chatting on the phone and I picked up the skill very quickly!
The next earliest influence on me was the cartoons my brother and I watched. I’m a little ashamed to admit how much TV we watched which was by and large cartoons. Some of the most prominent were Scooby Doo, The Transformers, Bravestar, G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., The Gobots, The Ghostbusters, Inspector Gadget, Disney classics cartoons, etc. (Check out my YouTube playlist of “Vintage Retro Memories” where I tried to make a comprehensive list of the shows we watched)
The single most influential cartoon to my art were any and all of the Looney Tunes. I actually didn’t try drawing any of the specific characters so much as I drew my own people and animals in roughly the same style. Here is one of the more than fifty 12×18 inch sheets I covered front and back in doodles.
The other giant influence on me in my younger years was the funny pages…well, page, in our local newspaper. I remember liking Garfield and Snoopy the most. Later I would discover FoxTrot, The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Sherman’s Lagoon and Get Fuzzy. When I started buying anthologies of these strips, that is when I started to think about becoming a comic strip artist. When I realized that being an animator meant being a small cog in a giant machine without much control over the finished product, I started to see that a comic strip artist was much more “up my alley”.
I can’t really remember being inspired by anything but cartoons until late middle school or high school. Thanks to my art teachers, I was slowly introduced to the world of art and important/influential artists throughout time. I remember liking surrealist art the most and the king of surrealism, Salvador Dali, was a favorite as evidenced in this high school art class drawing:
And this one:
Sometime in either high school or early college I discovered M.C. Escher. Though I was fascinated by these surrealists, most of drawings continued right on in the path of cartooning. Sometimes, however, those influences showed up in my doodles:
In late college and the years just after, I spent a lot of my lonely days in Barnes & Nobel and Borders hanging out in the art, humor and music sections. This is the first time I can remember being powerfully inspired in art. Concerning my comic/cartoons, the humor section with such things as collections of The New Yorker cartoons, inspired me to push myself with the mentality that “anything goes” in my sketchbooks. Doing this sort of broke my mind free to be as crazy as possible in hope of stumbling on some good ideas.
Outside of art I was highly influenced by the music scene and that slightly sneaked its way into my art from album artwork and music videos.
Also, books I was reading and movies I watched started to seep into my art. Books like CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy and The Digging Leviathan by James P Blaylock blew my mind. I was discovering types of Anime (Japanese Animation for those outside the culture) that I thought was above and beyond the silly stuff you usually see on TV. Hyao Myazaki became (and remains) my all-time favorite animator after I was introduced to him through Spirited Away.
Of all of those books I was looking through at Barnes & Nobel and Borders, the single most influential ones were a sub-category of the art section known as Street Art. These books showed me a world of art not often seen in the smaller towns I have always lived in; and showed me the difference between defacement/vandalism of property versus this beautiful improvement to alleys and subways known as Street Art. Several things contribute to why I think this type of art is the most fascinating. 1) It isn’t forced for some client or audience such as the graphic design I do for work. Artists are completely free to express whatever their minds can spit out. 2) Since the canvases are usually huge walls, the artists are not confined by traditional mediums.
Because most street art is illegal, its something I haven’t taken part in (much) and so you will see my art on typical paper or canvas, but still showing the influence of this type of art.
In 2010 I went on a mission trip with my church to Japan. The organizer of the trip, Joe Giauque, had it planned to do street performances (mostly music) to garner interest and then invite onlookers to a young adult church in Tokyo. He put the call out and a team of about 10 of us showed up. There was one problem. Other than the Joe himself, there was only one other musician, a cowboy that played fiddle. Joe had a plan B, though; he asked the two of us artists on the team if maybe we could do our art as a street performance. I almost always balk when asked to let a bunch of people stare at me drawing. It makes me nervous and I end up drawing/painting much worse. Also, I honestly think people get bored watching because it takes a while before anything recognizable even appears. I thought about his idea though, and it came to me, if I only knew how to do really cool graffiti- that could quick and fun to watch. So I bought a “How To” book and delved back into the world of Street Art. I started practicing the art of Graffiti but had to transcribe it into marker art (I couldn’t be going to a foreign country and spray painting their walls) When we got to Tokyo, we set up a speaker where I could jam some electronic and hip hop music. Then I laid down a sheet of poster board and got to work – it was blast!
At the time I was getting into all of this, the biggest name in Street Art was (and continues to be) Banksy. A really inspiring movie in this genre is about Banksy, called Exit Through the Gift-shop. Looking into Banksy’s work introduced me to a sub culture of Street Art which is stencil art.
Street Art has challenged me to go big with my art and to set no limits. Art magazines like High Fructose and Juxtapose encourage me to push my imagination. You can see these influences from this in pieces like my office wall art.
All in all when I look back, I don’t feel like any one artist has influenced me, its been more of a subtle overall influence from a broad range of types of art. I continue to fill sketchbooks with my cartoony doodles just marching to the beat of my own drum.
Art That Currently Inspires Me
With the internet its possible to find and see so much its impossible to narrow down and categorize what you like, but I will try. In addition to my love of Street Art and the aformentioned magazines High Fructose and Juxtaposed, websites like Society6.com, Abduzeedo.com, Redbubble.com, etc. where artists are trying to sell their work are full of inspiration. It can be overwhelming and make an artist feel like they have nothing new to offer the world. At the same time nothing sparks my imagination like stumbling on some artwork that’s along the lines of something I could do.
There are some artists and some friends who motivate me. Here are some links you should check out:
Stephen Wallace (close friend & former roommate )
Jeannie Lyn Paske (Obsolete World)
Jennifer Price-Rossman (friend)
Christy Beckwith (wife’s cousin)
Brooke Jeschke (friend) & her mom, Cheryl Phillips
I feel like this list could go on forever, so I’ll stop for now. Enjoy some inspiring art!
Josh Anderson Art Blog 