Frolicking Figures

This weeks fortnightly Kick About over on Red’s Kingdom is the ethereal painting – The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. I am in the process of a big DIY project at the moment, which is turning a shithole of a room in my shared house that is used for storage and discarded items into an artist’s studio where I can work on creative things such as the Kick-About. In the process, I happened to come across the box where I kept all my life drawings from uni; being the sentimental type I could never throw them away and I always wanted to create this project – so the kick about provides that drive yet again.

I decided to focus on the busyness of Bosch’s painting with emphasis on the figures and go against my usual likeness towards landscapes. Realising I didn’t need to photograph every sheet of life drawing I dusted off my old hard drive that contains photographs of those life drawings and re-photographed a few that were otherwise of an abysmal quality. I then popped them into Photoshop and cut out each figure from the sheet of paper and collaged them together accordingly. A very sentimental feeling seeing all my uni life drawings in one place together and a fulfilling experience.”

The Burning Landscape #2

A second assortiment of mixed media photography created for this weeks JMW kick About over on Red’s Kingdom. The goal being to turn my photography of Rural Ireland into ruinous oil paintings.

Chawan #3

A third and final set of textures created in response to this weeks Chawans Kick About. I definitely prefer the lighter more milky variations of these experiments, but none the less I wanted to experiment and create darker tones to reflect some other Chawans I used as reference with more terra cotta and midnight blues throughout.

Chawan #2

A second set of textures deriving from a plethora of sources inspired by the glazed finishes of the tea drinking vessel – Chawans. I would love to have a proper whirl of pottery at some stage, the last feeble attempts being gaudy ashtrays in primary school for chain smoking aunties and uncles. The feel and smell of the clay as well as the amazing coloured intricacies that can be produced from barrel or smoke firing is definitely one for the creative bucket list!

Chawan #1

The decorative tea drinking vessels – Chawans are this weeks kick about over on Red’s Kingdom. I was instantly drawn to the textures of these gorgeous Chawans, I can only imagine the craftsmanship that goes into creating those intricate glazes. I am a bit of a hunter gatherer of textures myself and enjoy capturing the small things that make something whole so I decided to cherry pick from the mountain of textures I have stored in a number of hard drives and superimpose them in a way that might look like some of those details that make up Chawans. Some textures in there include; dirt, mold, water, rust, snow, moss, plants, and a hefty amount of ice. It is always a pleasure creating in this way as there is always a heir of mystery as I never know how they will turn out.