People often ask me why artists draw nude figures… And I’ve google that question and heard what Female artists with PHD’s on the subject have to say and their answer suck… e.g. because once you can draw the human form you can draw anything”… What?!

That’s as rediculous as saying “when you can sing classical music you can sing anything”. Believe me, I sang classical music for 5 years… It aint true.

Anyhow, back on topic.
Why most artists do it: Essentially I think artists do it because it’s tradition. How did it start? Well, when only the rich could afford paintings, it most certainly was porn. Yes it’s true… Royalty has always thought that they had the right to choose what they see and how they react, while the common man had to be censored. So porn paintings were pretty main stream. Since then it has changed somewhat, but I am sorry to say, unless someone has a better theory, nude art is basically based on the tradition of porn way back when.

Why I do it: I have decided to add a revision… that is my opinion about the general practice of drawing nudes and why colleges etc do it. My personal reasons: Because I love the human form. I love comic drawings, I love drawing people moving, I love capturing emotions and feelings in the same form. The human body has infinite expression and depth… well, maybe not infinite, but more options than my brain can count…

So i draw nudes as a further appreciation and study of that emotion and form that I appreciate. I love it in any form of photograph, or artwork featuring a person. Not to mention my love of dancers and the human body in motion.

Some of my nude artworks can be found here: Art

and here: Portfolio

If all graphic designers had to fit the text book definition of the term perfectly we (graphic designers) would all be magicians who could jump through rings of smoke and make multimedia artworks appear with the wave of a mouse and the words “abracadabra”. In reality most graphic designers are only informed about a few parts of the graphic design field. Graphic design has become a multimedia field.

The reality is that the field consists of:

• Illustration (digital or fine art illustrations including painting)
• magazine layout and book layout (what you find on the shelves of bookstores and super markets)
• textile design (carpets, materials and upholstery)
• print design and advertisement design (concepts for advertising campaigns and silkscreen printing for clothing)
• interface and web design (design and coding of websites and interface designs for software development and planning)
• video effects and editing (shooting and editing of corporate video and commercial video as well as special effects and animation)
• 3d modeling and animation (Creation and animation of 3 dimensional models like Shrek), and many other fields.

All of the above is considered to be Graphic Design.

Most graphic Designers will attempts to know as possible about all areas. Some have partners and friends that they often refer to for assistance with big Multimedia graphic design jobs. It is however not possible to be an expert on every field.

Graphic design is a term that is used in association with commercial art for the most part. It involves splicing together a multimedia concoction of art, computer skills, digital imagery, design concepts, advertising concepts, type, copyright, video material and more.

All the things we see around us contain elements of graphic work. People have asked me whether there is any work in my field. There are dozens of designers being churned out by most schools all around the country every year. Yet the market does not become saturated.

The following contain graphic design work:

• tv ad
• poster
• bus ad
• magazine
• kitchen appliance logo
• sweets wrapper
• bottle label
• bookmark
• many clothing item

You see these items around you every day ,which contain work done by designers. Is it any wonder that it is a field with so much work out there? Getting the work is a different story alltogether though. It is surprising to find that the field is often not valued as a skill in the way many other jobs are.