No escapism here; all dark corners are revealed
December 7, 2011 4:33 AM   Subscribe

Laurie Lipton studied 17th century Dutch masters to develop her own unique style of pencil drawing. (First bought to our attention by misteraitch)
posted by adamvasco (27 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Clipped to my Evernote "inspiration" folder. Fabulous stuff.
posted by datter at 4:57 AM on December 7, 2011


Always thrilled to view the work of someone who is as generous with their talent as well as their time. These drawings take ages to do. Beautiful work.
posted by Hickeystudio at 5:00 AM on December 7, 2011


You might also like: Robyn O'Neil.
posted by oulipian at 5:25 AM on December 7, 2011


I was going to do a post on Miguel Endara, and the video he's made of his pointillism. But I think I'll just drop it into this great post instead.
posted by chavenet at 5:30 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


Eerie and astonishing and lovely. A nice bracing sorbet to clear the palate, much needed after enduring the usual maudlin holiday fare. Thanks!
posted by kinnakeet at 5:31 AM on December 7, 2011


I like the machines, but the people are a little creepy. Especially the maniacal grin on the "big red button" woman.
posted by DU at 5:43 AM on December 7, 2011


I like the machines, but the people are a little creepy.

I think they're pretty much supposed to be.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:48 AM on December 7, 2011


I like the skulls. The many, many skulls.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:00 AM on December 7, 2011 [3 favorites]


Also available on youtube
posted by IndigoJones at 6:14 AM on December 7, 2011


jeez. I used to know Laurie a long long time ago, and was just talking about her to a friend this morning. synchronicity. I have nothing interesting to add other than that as you might imagine, she would take a LONG time over her drawings....
posted by peterkins at 6:20 AM on December 7, 2011


That video is interesting. She veers between kind of factual and informative, and sort of grandiose. But it's good to hear her take on the drawings.
posted by OmieWise at 6:23 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wonderful post, but this needs an NSFW tag, unfortunately. Some sketches toward the end have some nudity.
posted by emelenjr at 6:24 AM on December 7, 2011


As an aside: It seems like most artists' sites are terrible. This one isn't. Furthermore, her gallery image-click behavior is perfect. I was able to see her work in pretty glorious detail on my 27" display, with minimal effort. Bravo!
posted by bwil at 6:56 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


I’m equally fascinated by her technique and her subject-matter, so her work is win/win for me. I’d love the chance to get a good long, close look at one of her original drawings one of these days.

oulipian & chavenet - thanks for the links about O’Neil & Endara!
posted by misteraitch at 7:01 AM on December 7, 2011


This is completely up my artistic alley. I love this. Thank you!
posted by sandraregina at 7:09 AM on December 7, 2011


simply stunning drawings! and unlike GenjiandProust, i often want to move away from skull.ish (is that a word?) art, but this is mesmerizing!
posted by anya32 at 7:25 AM on December 7, 2011


As an aside: It seems like most artists' sites are terrible. This one isn't.

It's not as needlessly flashy as most Flash sites, but it still uses Flash for the gallery pages. So it won't work at all on some platforms, you can't bookmark individual works or gallery pages, can't highlight the artwork titles to copy/paste, and so on. The fullscreen effect is used nicely, but there are good reasons not to use Flash for sites like this. Otherwise it's great.
posted by oulipian at 8:01 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yeah hey, an artist gallery whose presentation doesn't suck! The Flash even works right. Neato.
posted by Nelson at 8:05 AM on December 7, 2011


I don't care how many dpi you have, a screen is a terrible way to look at drawn art.
posted by rikschell at 8:05 AM on December 7, 2011


a screen is a terrible way to look at drawn art.

You're probably right. On the other hand, I first saw Taxi Driver on a worn out VHS cassette with woolly sound, dubious colour and a number of tracking glitches. It was a terrible way to watch Taxi Driver, but as it was the only one available to me at the time I'm rather glad it was there.
posted by howfar at 9:45 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


a web site is a terrible way to have a conversation.
posted by Nelson at 10:16 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


And a fish is a terrible thing to have in your pants, I know, I know. Consider me scolded.
posted by rikschell at 10:44 AM on December 7, 2011


Very neat work. I'm decently sure I'm not related to her, but couldn't drum up much info on her background, so who knows?
posted by zachlipton at 10:52 AM on December 7, 2011


Top shelf! Graphite FTW.
posted by Scoo at 11:42 AM on December 7, 2011


I don't care how many dpi you have, a screen is a terrible way to look at drawn art.

This is actually quite true but charcoal drawings, and particularly Lipton's style of charcoal drawings, tend to translate better than most art does. Especially the way the portfolio does the fullscreen thing, on a large modern monitor it's quite nice.
posted by furiousthought at 12:17 PM on December 7, 2011


I love how her subjects get progressively more macabre over the years. Though the early ones are freaky in a different way. In her bio she mentions Diane Arbus as an inspiration and they definitely have similar attitudes towards their subjects, like, "look at these freaks; aren't they so normal?"
posted by book 'em dano at 2:53 PM on December 7, 2011


Fascinating. And oddly helpful for my Christmas list.
posted by Diablevert at 8:46 PM on December 7, 2011


« Older Open source online board game engine with over 1...   |   Cocozza - he's a naughty man Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments