Tag: painting

Nebula #2

A second set of cosmos created initially from ingredients found in my kitchen and composited into orbiting planets and galaxies. What I loved about these experiments is that they were initially all accidents, I didn’t know the chemical reaction of vinegar, vegetable oil, alka seltzer tablets and some food colouring along with a bit of staging and lighting could produce something so other worldly. I distinctly remember feeling so elated from this practice and spending countless hours into the night snapping away.

Nebula #1

This weeks fortnightly kick about creative prompt is the short film Powers of Ten 1977 directed by Charles and Ray Eames. This film made me think of how minute our little planet is and wonder about the possibilities of life many light years away. I wonder what those other planets could look like and the beings that inhabit them. I decided to create some Nebulas using the textures from a previous exhilarating kick about and stamped them onto simple 3D spheres, superimposing them atop those same textures while painting galactic elements to create milkyways that possibly maybe could be.

The Dirt Road #2 – Summer (2022)

A second darker and more ominous cluster of images from the trailing dirt road in a nestled and secluded spot in Ireland. More ominous indeed, as a recent shower saturated the flora and darkened the landscape in a midnight blue, the sun rays only slightly visible when peaking through certain patches and glittering selected treetops and overgrowth.

The Dirt Road #1 – Summer (2022)

A recent trip back home saw me exploring new landscapes, one being a road covered in quick sand like mud, my usual companion prince – our golden lab now pretty much fully blind and with arthritis creeping in decided to abandon me and wobble back home, I can’t blame him, as this particular area of shrub where these photos were taken is pretty hazardous. Even with my lanky legs up to the knee in my wellies the shite was still pretty close to spilling in over the top. I’m glad I continued as the greenery of this solemn place creating untouched tunnels of overgrowth.

Mirage #2

A second set of images created for this weeks kick about over on Red’s Kingdom inspired by the paintings of Augustus Osbourne Lamplough. Creating these images uses a few different methods of mixing different mediums, First the images of the initial landscapes were captured on camera, then they were transformed in the edit by adding more yellows and browns to the already parched landscape, finally adding multiples of different shapes on top of each other with low opacities to emulate the layered effects of Lamplough’s watercolour paintings. 

Mirage #1

This weeks kick about over on Red’s Kingdom is the paintings of Augustus Osbourne Lamplough. When I recently came back to London after experiencing the greens of Ireland I was taken aback with how brown and muddy the earth felt, the grass crispy under my feet, the leaves and flowers with burnt liver spots. The world was well and truly scorching alive with a wave of heat that follows your every move. Sweating, I set out with my camera in the sweltering heat to explore the torrid areas and capture similar landscapes to Lamplough’s work, the park near my house where I run every day being the main jumping off point, coupled with the coloured slats, trucks and caravans in the midst of setting-up shop for a funfair. I wanted to explore taking the photos that step further – upping the exaggeration by adding a plethora of different shapes hinting at some civilisation in the distance. But is it nothing more than a mirage?

La Chambre Rouge

This weeks kick about over on Red’s Kingdom is Henry Matisse – The Dessert: Harmony in Red (1908)

All I really want to do right now is draw. I latched onto the royal reds of Matisse painting and the quirky perspective. At first I was a bit intimated by the brightness and saturation of the red, I didn’t want to burn anyones eyeballs with these illustrations and with the first illustration of the bunch I had the back walls a much darker maroon but then with the second illustration I jumped in with the same Matisse Red determined to make its high saturation work.

After adding in the details such as the swirly designs, the gold rimmed edges and vaulted high ceilings I was able to make the vibrant red work and decided to switch the first illustration to match! I am glad I did as I usually don’t do a lot of interior illustrations but this bunch quickly become one of my favourite paintings thus far

Marks of Nature #3

Another group of impressionistic images inspired by the paintings of Monet. There was so many densely populated birch trees stretching across certain areas it felt as though my eyes were attempting to cherry pick on specific elements, instead giving way to the coloured blotchy static and welcoming it as a whole.