Celebrating creativity

Over at the X facta, Kel has been having an art attack. We’re invited to create a mandala. They’re widely used in many cultures, and you can read much more about them at the interesting Mandala Project.

Kel’s invitation came at a good time for me, as I’ve been doing some art journalling in circular shapes. I’m creating a visual wheel of life, with different circles representing different parts of life. The one above is Physicality. I used the term “Physicality” deliberately: I wanted a word that was more muscular and all-encompassing than, for example, “Health”.

(In coaching terms, a wheel of life is a useful tool to look at different parts of your life and what you may need to work on. If you’re interested you can find detailed explanations online, like this one. Pick the elements of life that are important to you, not necessarily any pre-set ones.)

You may be asking “what’s with the tag?”. Well once I’m done I’ll bind all these circular life segments together and use the tags to pull out the segment I want to look at.

This isn’t a classical mandala, but I was very aware of both the limitation and gifts of the circular shape while I was creating it.

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For me, one of the advantages of coming back to art quite late in life is that I am blissfully ignorant of most contemporary artists’ work. You may wonder why that’s an advantage. I can look at modern artwork and rely on my own impressions rather than see work with the inherited view of the ‘establishment’.

For my Artist Date last week, I went to London’s Hayward Gallery to see an exhibit by Annette Messager, a French installation artist whose work was completely new to me.

My first impressions when encountering Messager’s work reminded me that old fairy story The Emperor’s New Clothes. Were we supposed to “ooh” and “ah” just because of who she is? This is a woman whose prize-winning installation art includes alternate columns of grubby soft toys and books. Now I know what to do with my clutter. I found myself wondering how hanging soft toys in patterns on the wall can be art.

And yet…

Her explorations of the gruesomeness of childhood are fascinating. Do you remember how as a small child you were fascinated by the difference between life and death? How you poked at that dead bird, wondering why it wasn’t moving? Or how you named your dolls and stuffed toys and were convinced they had their own intricate lives and personalities?

Perhaps it didn’t happen quite that way for you, but Messager explores those childhood boundaries in a way that was, in the end, totally compelling for me.

In one installation, she uses stuffed birds and animals, masked with knitted soft toy heads, mounted on high mirrored platforms, so the viewer is left confused, trying to get a glimpse beyond reflections of the ground and themselves. You can see it here and here.

I found her photographic work the most accessible. Huge (the two examples here were about six by four foot) black and white shots, covered with drawings like spidery graffiti, alternate with the repetitive hanging of tiny framed shots of close-up parts of the body, arranged in overall shapes.

In the latter, part of a series called Mes Vœux (My Vows) she makes an analogy with repetitive prayer. Seeing a series of images again and again draws you in, makes you look at both the individual images and the overall shape, switching from one to another.

The single most compelling image, to me, was the one below. Part of a larger installation called Articulés-Désarticulés (Articulated-Disarticulated) this weird, lifesize piece was (probably deliberately) reminiscent to me of Christian Pietà imagery.

Click on the images for a larger view

So to answer the question in my title, I think Messager is both. She is a deliberate joker, using black humour to make us look more closely at everyday items. And her genius lies in the same gift: she makes us look, she surprises us, she makes us think, she disorientates.

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It amazes me how many fantastic free resources there are on the web. I can’t remember where I heard about the Photoshop brushes at Obsidian Dawn, but they are simply incredible.

You can use them to create objects, backgrounds, textures and just about anything else you can think of. Download from Obsidian Dawn and move to the Brushes folder of Photoshop. There are full instructions on the OD site. (You don’t need the full-on professional Photoshop, I use Photoshop Elements and the brushes work just fine.)

I took the time to play with these brushes properly for the first time yesterday, and created three rather quirky digital collages.

Two girls and a tricycle

The one above is the simplest and my favourite. I love that late fifties/early sixties film-noir look, and I adored the idea that the smouldering, dangerous brunette would be perched on a tricycle rather than a Harley. The only parts not created with brushes are the two women and the trike, which were three digital images from my collection, and the text.

Earwings

It just goes to show how immature I remain that I keep chuckling at my own idiotic pun in ‘Earwings’, on the left.

This one grew without much planning. I just knew I wanted to try out the wings and grass brush sets. Perhaps the caption is unnecessary, but I liked the visual balance.

Apart from the text, the only pre-prepared image is the girl’s head. I had lots of fun getting the lovely cloudy blue sky just right.

Heartless Crabmaid

This  is the first one I did, and the most complicated, using many, many layers for each additional texture of sea, sand and sky.

Hints and Tips

I experimented with changing the size as well as the type of brush, and varying the colours and opacity slightly helps the look. The exact brush sets I used in each image are mentioned in more detail on my Flickr page - click here or on the images.

And a tip about using Photoshop layers for this sort of thing: name every layer as you go. Then you won’t have to remember which layer to click on when you need to change a bit of ocean or whatever.

So if you have Photoshop, go off and play. The only thing to remember is to give Obsidian Dawn credit for use of the brushes for anything you publish.

Note: Obsidian Dawn are currently updating their website and you may find it down occasionally over the next couple of days. Bookmark it and persevere, it’s worth it.

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Now when I use the word nostalgia, please realise I’m not actually old enough to remember the Victorian age!

But for my Artist Date last week, (part of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way course) I went to a rural life museum that was once a working Victorian farm, much of which has been preserved. This is not an era I’m normally keen on visually; Victoriana can be so fussy. But the farm side of things made for a much plainer environment and there was much to see and love. I got a real sense of people working here over the years.

I took lots of photographs, trying to capture the filtered sunlight and polished wood as well as some scenes from the gardens.

When I got home it struck me I could get an effect to fit the nostalgic mood my visit had brought about, so I took the best examples and added a sepia filter and other effects. I’m quite pleased with them. You can see three examples here (click the images to see full-size), and the set of eight can be found on my Flickr photostream - click here.

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OK, so I know it looks a little like a squashed meringue cake, but this is my dreamboard for May’s full moon.

I’m a little late posting because I haven’t been around for a few days, but this is part of the monthly dreamboard party hosted at Jamie’s place.

The morning pages I’ve been writing recently (part of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way course) have begun to revitalise my creative impulses.

There is fantastic inspiration and connection on the web with artists of all sorts, but I’ve realised recently that’s only part of the story. One of the things writing my morning pages has shown me is the need for some real-life interaction with other artists and craftspeople.

That was going through my mind when I made this dreamboard. I wanted to set my intention to “cast an artists’ circle”: to meet up regularly with people near where I live who are trying to live a creative life. I don’t know what that will look like, perhaps as simple as a writer’s group, perhaps more complex, but the thought is out there now.

(Interesting how my inner censor wanted to write some sarcastic disclaimer after the phrase “trying to live a creative life” in the last paragraph. How do I dare count myself among such people? Well bugger off, inner censor!)

There are some great dreamboards over at Starshyne Productions - why not take a look.

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Thanks Lucy for tagging me with this bit of fun. I’m not going to tag others but if you want to join in, that would be great! What you need to do is:

1. Go to the fourth folder where you keep your pictures on your computer.
2. Post the fourth picture in the folder.
3. Explain the photo
4. Tag four others if you wish.

So here’s my photo:

It’s a shot of Brancaster beach in Norfolk from 2005, when my sister, her son and I, with one of my nephew’s friends, went on our last family holiday together.  My nephew S and his friend J were 15 at the time. We rented one of several guest cottages in the grounds of the owner’s rather large home. One of the main attractions was the swimming pool, which we had to book by the hour to avoid clashing with other guests.

The people in the picture are other holidaymakers. I’d just turned round from taking photos of our group, and wanted to capture the sweep of the coast.

We had a great time that holiday. One of the highlights was a kite-flying session - J had never flown one before so we were pleased to add to his education!

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This is a really busy time of year for me in my ‘day job’, when my supposedly part-time status creeps closer to being full-time for a while and even starts to extend into the weekends. It should start to calm down in March, but meanwhile my papers, paintbrushes and digital art toys are idle.

But I’ve found two artists, new to me, to share with you.

The first is Jeannine Chappell. Click here for the link to her site, and savour her beautiful work. The set of owls especially fill me with joy, and her methods are especially interesting, combining her original watercolours with digital manipulation.

The second is digital artist AlicePopkorn, whose blog is here and Flickr page here. Her image below is one of my favourites, but looking through her photostream is like entering a magic wonderland. Enjoy.

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On this historic inaugural day we had brilliant sunshine in the UK. I took a walk and brought back these photographs.

Surrounded by beauty and hope, how could we not believe in God? And Photoshop.

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I found the 52 Questions art journal challenge at Em Falconbridge’s blog, via Kate Iredale. Em’s blog is new to me and I’m glad to have found it.

The idea is that every week this year, Em will ask a question, and everyone playing along journals the answer on shipping tags (what we rather stuffily call ‘luggage labels’ in the UK).

I’m a little behind, so I did the first two weeks’ tags at the same time. Here they are. Question on the front, my answers on the back. (Click on the images to see them larger.)

Week/Question One: What do I wish for this year to bring?

Note to self: silver pen on light base does not scan well. The word-stream on the back of this tag says:

creative writing two new blogs learn french digital photography course fall in love publish a book move somewhere else get a tattoo live more simply save the world get hair dreadlocked learn to love exercise start painting get healthy cook superbly sing in the bath

Week/Question Two: Am I afraid of change?

Next tag to follow soon.

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