Raymond Pettibon and Robert Crumb

The artists that I chose for this section, Raymond Pettibon and Robert Crumb, have very similar drawing styles. Their main medium is ink and have a very graphic style of drawing. Raymond Pettibon’s work tends to have an element of social commentary to it, with many of his pieces including text along with a drawing. His images are very strong compositionally. He manages to fill up a space and make an image complete without having to actually completely fill up the page. In the first image that I included, from 1987, the drawing is both simple and complex. The amount of detail in the outline of the woman and the man in the doorway gives you a clear picture of what you are looking at even though the drawing itself is very simple. 

Though Robert Crumb has a similar style the feeling of his pieces is very different from what drew me to Raymond Pettibon’s work. Robert Crumb is known as being a comic book artist and his pieces have that very specific aesthetic. His images are highly detailed with very precise line work, and it shows a variety of ways to use ink successfully. The image from 1993 shows this extreme focus on detail, the lines in the men’s jackets and the women’s shirts are incredibly exact and fine-tuned. This type of work inspires me to want to work on my ink work and be able to have this much control over a medium.