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 Kick About #11


I’ve missed the realm of blogging and all the inspiration and community driven involvement that it encompasses so I’ve decided to jump back in! While WordPress feels like a bit of eye sore at the moment (I’m sure I will understand all it’s bells and whistles eventually…) I want share the content that I’ve been up to in these bizarre times.

I thought I would kick off my new blog with a Kick About post. The kick about is a fortnightly event over at Reds-Kingdom created by friend Phil Gomm where artists from all around the world create something fuelled by a prompt. This week was the prompt of the Trappest -1e, a planet that is believed to be capable of harbouring life! Another fun prompt as always and anyone wanting to be involved in the shenanigans can do so, we would love to have you on board as a fellow Kick Abouter! You can have a gawk at the full offerings of creations by visiting this link

With this piece for this weeks Kick About I was really inspired inspired by Olafur Eliasson, in particular his exhibition – The Weather Project. I imagine a planet vibrating with orange hues against cool tones, with piercing shadows, and the ground of this planet cracking and buckling.

I initially used Maya by cracking open a simple plane and moving the segments about, then did some renders using a directional light to get some shadows and I simply painted over the render in Photoshop to get some nice contrast and paint that blazing orange against dark chiaroscuro and warming yellow sphere.