Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts

Friday, November 5, 2010

suggestion


subtlety, a hint... a whisper, they all conjure something mysterious and secretive. In the collection of work I am making for the exhibition, I have a few boxes which were purpose made for me and have various sliding panels which protrude from the sides and a hinged lid which opens to a very shallow depth. The idea is similar to the old Russian doll concept of magical unexpected opening parts, my version of the "Transformer" toys children play with.
The boxes are made in such a way that you cannot see all of the pictures at any time. You have to choose by opening or sliding some out which in turn obscure others behind it. These boxes require a number of individual works and a lot of time... making it a collection of pieces in one. I hope buyers will understand why I will ask a fair chunk for them....
These boxes allude to the way we tell stories and relate events about ourselves. Some stories change narrative order and might obscure other information through emphasis or even omission. The boxes will each have a loose thematic concept.
The one I am working on right now, will explore the idea of voyeuristic eavesdropping. Thus some nudes and some suggestive imagery. Hoarknockle will have to be chained up while I work on this one. Or blindfolded (I cant be expected to get my own tea can I now?)
The image up here is a suggestion. I have long had a fascination with drapery and the way cloth folds and wrinkles. This rumpled cloth with be used inside the shallow box with a figure in the lid, seeming to look down at it when the lid is lifted.
There is work to be done.
Lady Sandra is occupied all weekend and I shall be working too.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

believing


my friend Ivann asked me how I started each work and until that moment I had not quite realised how I went about it. For that moment he took me to his perspective and showed me myself from a different angle.
I had not sought it out and it was only when I had somehow stumbled into it, that I intuitively approached every new piece in this way. Like a swimmer standing on the starting block, smelling the chlorine and breathing in the pre start hush, feeling the jangling anticipation of the race... thats how I try to shape my mindset when I start each new work.
Its not easy, please let me dispel that thought. Its something that one needs to feed, like a yeast plant that can live from one bread to the next, but needs attention to live on and on. I feed it enthusiasm and thrill and in return it breeds more. I receive this with gratitude. Its a synergy.
There have been times where the horror of a blank surface has paralysed me. I have no guarantee that it wont happen again, but I do believe that the enthusiastic pursuit will have enough momentum to keep me rolling...trick is not to come to a halt.
I try to summon the feelings of triumph and the knowledge and experience of previous works to infuse me ...to find that child-like thrill of starting something new, Dare I say it...its like the Force. I dare not ponder the negative possibles of anything I begin...Its a positive image that sucks me into it. The last three pieces have flowed from one to the next and drawn me in and taken me along...and I have to keep the momentum, carry the speed. Its rather like mountain biking over rolling terrain.
I have worked at so many dreadful things and for so many thoughtless people that I make a conscious effort to remember that and to feel the rush of working to the call of my own ideas. Its a great big thing of wonder.
I recently overheard someone saying that work was only for money. Its quite scary to hear someone say that...and to know that there are so many people who live like that. I have found work to be something that propels me and forms me. It gives a certain meaning to who I am as equally I give meaning to what it is I do. Even awful jobs have been like this. I have always tried (tried...not always succeeded) to make the work part of who I am...and not only for the money. For now, I work because it is what I do, its more like breathing and I know it is a very very special opportunity. I work because I feed off it beyond the money. My condolences to those who don't.
The triptych is a digital representation of the work I will print and mount in a frame of sorts...each piece will be around 12 by 18 inches and I will glaze and paint into them as well...
What are they about? Imagine that you are going through an old box with pictures and letters, you may or may not know whose they are, but you form some kind of idea or opinion on what all these differing bits mean. These images have some things that connect them, and also not. How do my stories relate to each other? Maybe they do, maybe not.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

creative journeys


the point of going on a voyage of discovery is not to decide beforehand what it is you will discover, you have to be open to whatever you find. I believe there is an ancient Zen concept of not arriving at a spring with a full cup since you already have a filled vessel, you cannot take away anything from the spring.
Its in this spirit that I try to voyage and find ideas. There is no point in censoring yourself before you even find anything. There is no point in forming a mental construct of anything until you have found and studied it. As artists its our job to look and find and amplify. Is there any difference to finding a beautiful (yes, define beauty?) butterfly in a rain forest or a scary looking fish in the crushing black depths of the Marianas trench? You can never tell which creature may have a bigger impact or surprise.
I try to explain my work to myself and I try to follow some kind of logic, but there are times when solutions present themselves and there is no going back or rational explanation to be made. Isnt it equally irrational to paint a bunch of flowers slashed from their natural surroundings and jammed into a vase (purely for our own pleasure) and then painted? Why not then make a still life of 20 rashers of bacon draped over a door handle? It all comes down to what we regard as the norm. There is little rational about this.
Is there anything really rational about classical music? It must be the ultimate in abstraction, yet we regard it with the utmost reverence and awe. Why should visual art be anything less? (well okay , I do find Jeff Koons and Tracy Emin rather silly)

To me the camera is another way of telling a story. The old adage of: "The camera never lies" has somewhat faded with the arrival of Photoshop, yet there still is a tradition of looking through albums of photos as a kind of story telling. Even if it is a blurry image on a cellphone. This picture is part of my conversation about story telling. I think it will be the middle piece of a triptych, the one side being the fractured portrait in pigeon holes, the other being an image I am currently working on. It feels good. It doesn't make perfect sense, but there is some kind of kinship and connection among the images.
I am not discovering new worlds or continents, I am navigating the smaller fissures on and around them.

Friday, October 15, 2010

missive missile


if one had to visualise the emails and traffic of the internet as missiles, it would look like planetary intercontinental warfare, like a cloud of electrons blurring the nucleus of the globe. Its quite staggering to imagine. I thought of it this morning after the dog HAD to go out and I was waiting for some time and then my brain would NOT go back to sleep.
As an artist, visual stuff is so important. The whole notion of gathering visual fodder and looking at everything becomes such a focus of one's attention. I often forget that others around me don't share this ravenous gathering of images. Furthermore, many don't follow the way one often takes an idea for a walk and finds the strangest routes to explore... it happens. Without the very strange travels and diversions from the normal, it would all remain so predictable and ordinary. In order to find the new world one has to go forth and travel, to go boldly...
In my work I have been looking at how we communicate and how, when we do, we recycle stories and tales and connect them to one another according to the company and the situation. This means that ideas resurface in new and interesting ways. In just this way I am using digital images in my actual paintings by using a transfer film from Digital Art Studio Seminars, and also using photographs of my paintings in my digital work.
I am finding this very exciting and it allows the re-use of imagery and making interesting images.
In the included piece above, I have re-used part of the Sir Cornelis painting and incorporated into a digital work I was making. It extends the narrative I have been pursuing.
I am currently making a companion piece which should go next to it. Work in progress.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

pittsburgh entry


a brief flurry of urgency in the studio as I rushed to get this ready for shipping to the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators exhibition.
This is a work I originally created digitally to explore the concept of packing and unpacking as a metaphor for telling stories. The idea of blackbirds escaping from a baked pie is wonderful and has the magical and surprising quality I look for.
These birds are packed in boxes along with various other references to them and what they do.
I printed the piece on watercolour paper and pasted it to a thin sheet of plywood, sanding off the corners to emulate the way old photos are worn away, corners go missing and they develop all kinds of irregular shapes.
The frame is built to look like the top of an old box, now opened, showing some of the wooden slats that closed it and nails where the wood would have been broken away. Beneath the main picture are a few other old papers as though this would have been a box containing old memorabilia and now opened to reveal a picture of birds in boxes. The frame and wooden parts are made from old cedar fence boards al grey and broken down from years of being outdoors.
I took a brush to the digital print and added some darker areas and highlights and glazed it to add depth.
What I like and aim for is the contrast between the dry aged wood and the satiny glow from the picture inside it.
Like stories told, there are all kinds of unexpected revelations that emerge in the narrative. You find out things from places and people you often least expect it from. They have been packed away in boxes for years.

Monday, December 14, 2009

framed


Here is a shot of it framed, as I am about to walk it out of the house. Hoarknockle is all bundled up against the ...the ...the...the... I am at a loss for any word strong enough to describe this most malevolent and rapacious chill that sits outside the door in wait of some poor creature. I don't know how the squirrels do it.
I keep looking at this piece and wondering about that narrow line between the technical details of the plane and my artistic interpretation. I believe fellow artists will support my artistic rendition. Its all about who you ask. I have planed an interview with myself for later tonight. I hope to shed light on the exact thrust and thought of this concept and what I had hoped to achieve by it. I have a pad of paper and a few sharpened pencils and feeling quite unusually nervous about the interview. Not sure if I am more nervous about interviewing the artist about this recent work or nervous at being interviewed by a probing person wielding a notebook and sharpened pencil. Lady Sandra may be able to defuse the tension by sitting in on the interview in her red, skin tight leather suit. (I do believe I feel the tension dissipating as I write this)

There is a powerful aroma of mutton soup from the kitchen. Anything to battle the agony of this pernicious chill!

I hear the baying of sled dogs and the crack of a whip. Seems like Hoarknockle is ready to go.
I do believe a bold libation of brandy is justified.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

plane threesome


Eventually, after some tough negotiating with myself, I got the threesome sorted out. The three planes drawn in fairly small format, almost more of a sketch and trial than anything major. The planes took center stage and the clouds a close second. I think its evident I had fun with them.
There is always the issue of detail and accuracy when dealing with technical objects like planes. They do so need to look like the real things and have sufficient number of parts...wings, tails, propellers (or not). I was trying to come up with satisfactory combinations of all the vital parts, in correct proportion and also using the right balance of artistic flair. The old content versus form issue.
To me these images firstly need to sing of flight and exhilaration, before the pundits can come and count the rivets and wrinkles. I wanted to create a poetic justice to these fabulous craft that do the impossible: Lift free of the earth and move into the air in almost any way they choose. To me THAT is still a magical thing. No matter the physics and the mechanics of how it is done, its still a marvelous impossibility that happens in front of my eyes. Rabbit from a hat, all over again. And again.
I have framed the three pieces, they are smallish, about 15cm square (thats 6 inches, more or less) in a long rectangular frame with three windows through which you can see the pictures.

Lady Sandra gave it her approval. Enough said. Hoarknockle has been plying me with Campari and orange since early today and I see a new bottle of untasted French Sauvignon Blanc chilling.
Tora! Tora! Tora!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Hawk trainer jet


I have been enjoying the process of the Hawk picture. As it progresses, I keep finding things to add and do to it. Wonderful.
Not often does a picture allow me to have all the fun, they can be cantankerous and difficult and wont allow me to have my way with it. Maybe this one realises I will respect it, no matter what.
I am working on the clouds and this is only a process image to show where its all going.
I have a final addition which I will be throwing into all three images after I complete this one.
Lady Sandra is having fun with her collection of snow shovels.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

jet whoosh in full digital appreciation


Sitting here with my feet wrapped in a warm blanket while Hoarknockle massages my shoulders, I can occasionally hear the planes rush overhead. Working on the delicate details of a Hawk jet trainer tailpipe, I dont always have all the detailed information I need to make sure it is anatomically correct.
In the past I would have had to dig out the trusty Nikon F, full manual 35mm camera and get myself out to the base and spend an entire afternoon trying to avoid frostbite and getting a decent photograph through the imperfect window of the Maybach. In all probability I would not have managed a perfect photo of the part I would need. After having the film processed and only two days later would I discover that I would have to go back and repeat the exercise. Thank goodness for digitality and the wonderful webbed world which will now bring the images to me in delightful crispness. My thanks to everyone who puts beautiful photos online. Although I would never dream of any possible plagiarising of such images, they are useful to confirm the existence of detail which my own photos may lack. Every darling little rivet is plain to see. (although how some racy pictures manage to find their way into my search for a Hawk trainer I cannot fathom. If I had searched "rivet"...well then maybe....)

What it is about the glistening surface of an aerodynamic object that appeals so powerfully, I cannot say. But there is a true visceral thrill about the nature of beautifully crafted objects. Michelangelo would be proud of some of these sleek shapes.

This Hawk will be the other bookend to the three craft triptych. Harvard, Snowbirds and Hawk. A quick sketchy image which I hope will capture the fast nature of these dart-like objects. All I have to do is complete the entire image now...so far only the lone Hawk hanging expectantly in a undrawn vacuum. All I need now is a quick spurt of Instacloud from a spraycan. If only!

Lady Sandra is oiling her collection of snow shovels.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

jet trails


I came across the work of Brian Despain. What a wonderful surprise! Rich intense and beautiful. When someone does something that well, it inspires.
I took one look at what I was doing and immediately added "Instant Cloud" effect from my collection of clouds from a can. (part of the "Landscape from a can" collection) Just one spray and you are smiling.
The small red and white aircraft are the Canadian display team, the Snowbirds, who fly out of the airbase nearby. I had Hoarknockle carve each one from a rare hardwood, starting from a cubic meter of wood and ending up a small model about the size of my hand. They were painted and hung from invisible strings. (OBVIOUSLY!)
This image will be the centerpiece of the triptych I am working on. It has an apocalyptic glow to it.. an ominous golden resonance that I quite like.
Its rather cold out still. Axel the hound couldnt find his feet after going out for his early morning, backyard visit. He came galloping through the backdoor in a rather uncoordinated way. Thirty below zero in centigrade isn't funny.
Lady Sandra is using an electrically heated snow shovel in her daily shoveling adventures. Hoarknockle walks behind her, carrying the batteries.
Cheers!

Monday, December 7, 2009

flying around


In the spirit of flight, I decided to continue and make a three part image of planes taking off and landing at the airport. They will become three smaller panels framed together as separate images which all belong to the same idea.
On the one side will be three Harvard trainers, center will be the Canadian show team, the Snowbirds trailing smoke and on the right side will be a Hawk trainer.
I'm working from a series of photographs I took myself on a rather cold day when my fingers ceased to function effectively and refused to tell me when they pressed the shutter button.
I'm doing it in a loose style...sketchy and quick.
I occasionally hear the planes overhead although the current outdoor temperature of minus 26C (minus 15F) discourages me from running out to wave at them.
Hoarknockle has been forced to accompany the dog outdoors to prevent him from becoming frozen to the spot when he undertakes his communion with nature.
I very much want to get out and capture some different photos of the flying machines. Not in this chill .Hoarknockle is too busy polishing up the brass sleighbells to come out and keep me covered in electric blankets.
A parcel arrived today, addressed to Lady Sandra, which looks alarmingly like a Zonda sportscar.
Time to soothe my nerves with some tea....