Name that drawing style

August 14, 2008 4:35 AM

What's the proper name for the style of painting where pictures are created from large blocks of colour with very few details? It's the style of painting I associate with Cuba and South America and which was used for the artwork in GTA San Andreas.
posted by twine42 to media & arts (9 comments total)

not sure i follow, but could it be the "mexican mural movement" (aka m.m. renaissance)? diego rivera et al.
posted by not sure this is a good idea at 5:00 AM on August 14, 2008

Not sure that it's a specifically South American thing.

In computer art, it's often called Cell Shading when generated from 3D, or Vector Art if it's an drawing from something like Adobe Illustrator.

From a more art-centred standpoint, it's probably derived from comic-book art and/or Pop Art (specifically Roy Lichtenstein).
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 5:02 AM on August 14, 2008

Reminds me of old WPA posters from the 1930's, a la Ranger Doug.
posted by notsnot at 5:22 AM on August 14, 2008

Poster-style. For some early art in this style see Lucien Bernhard
posted by JJ86 at 6:06 AM on August 14, 2008

Poster style, the Mexican muralists have a different styles.
posted by clearlydemon at 6:34 AM on August 14, 2008

When it's applied to photographic sources, it's called posterization. The word refers to the look of hand-pulled silkscreen and, to a lesser extent, color woodcut and lithographic posters. It's a "style" that's purely a choice now, but was pretty much imposed on the artist by those older printing media.
posted by newmoistness at 6:43 AM on August 14, 2008

Photoshop has a decent posterization tool. It works better on some photos than others, of course, and I'm sure someone with better PS skills than I could do a better job, but the effect is groovy.
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:20 AM on August 14, 2008

Ah, here is the obligatory Wiki link.
posted by JJ86 at 11:00 AM on August 14, 2008

I'll ditto le morte de bea arthur and say that when found in a video game or movie (done by computer) I'd call this cell-shading.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 11:11 AM on August 14, 2008