I am so struggling with this. I’m so out if the art world that I don’t really know any artists anymore so it isn’t easy to find someone I know. Of course Angela did say the influences didn’t have to be artists. But nonetheless.
I’ve found this new app for my iPad called Thicket. I really like it. It’s an interactive app that changes lines or arrays on a screen as you tap and interact with it. It has music too which also changes as you interact with it. What I really like about it is it’s use of colour and build up of layers upon layers of lines. In some – or a lot of ways this relates well to felting as it is all about building up layers. And one thing I can’t do with felt is fine detail.
On the other hand, I’m back to Monet and my desire to do waterlillies from my Brighton pics. I really want to explore expressionism as this is something that translates really well to felt. Maybe Thicket will loosen me up enough to be able to be expressionistic?
But then in recent years I have found music to be really good at injecting energy or calmness into my work.
I always regard Carolyns Fingers by the Cocteau Twins as my “painting” music. It’s the only music I really find I have a synesthetic ability with. I see light sparkling through water, rippling and dancing in shafts. But then I have my crescendo music that brings energy to my work. Like Fyfe Dangerfield that was on in the car on the way to the station. Or my Vivaldi ringtone. They have an energy about them that mean I can saw lines up and down and be energetic.
Monet I can and want to do though. I have the materials necessary. I can do some stuff on my iPad, I have canvas and paint and I could overlay things if I wanted. Thicket, I would sort of need to do on a computer to build it up. And that is very controlled and not very fluid. Contrived even. Or if I did it with collage, I’d need to get materials. And I’m so skint. Buying the felting machine on top of the course fees and iPad (even though my contribution to those was about 1/3) has completely cleaned me out. And I’m off to NYC in 8 wks…
Or I could get a canvas, paint it black and hammer some nails in round the edge and weave cotton around like those old seventies things we used to do. Or even the chappie sculptor bloke (G something?) I did some work on for a level? That all seems too simplistic.
Now one thing I do remember liking is the image that is used as a sample on the Tumblr site. The blurry lights. These remind me of sparkling light on water. It would be interesting to try to replicate this in photography and apply it to Monet. What with his supposed myopia and all.
Overlaid blurry photos would make an interesting composition.
So as the day has progressed I’ve become pretty sold on this idea. I’d also like to try out photographing fabric that sparkles out of focus to see what effect this gives when out of focus. Also tests the settings for photographing flowers. Abstracts inside of the flowers could be really interesting. Will get some flowers on the way home so I can spend time and adjust them to how I want. Its not like I’m going to find any flowers out in the open at the moment is it?
Will dig out my Monet books and rummage around in them. My influences project may just just result in photographic exploration and ultimately prep work for a bigger piece? It is unlikely that I would be able to make a decent sized felted piece in 6 hours… But splodging around in Art Rage, taking photos and manipulating them in Photoshop is ideal. I’d really like to use this assignment as an experiment and exploration.
Colour. Why is it always about colour? BOLD colour at that.
PIXELS. Extreme close ups of digital photographs will give blocks of colour. Noticed this when I have been zooming in on the BMW images at work to retouch them. Nice blocks with gridlines in between. I don’t have to go that far, but details blown up will give fabulous colour abstracts. Its also a way to do expressionism blobs. Blending together will be the fun and overlaying to push from one colour to another.
Can find some great close crops in my existing image bank, can try the above photos, and make electronic collages and small felted pieces in prep for a larger one.