Thursday, November 28, 2019

Inspiration from Marble...what???

While I haven't been in my studio during the last two months, I have been busy gathering inspiration with my iPhone while my husband and I toured through Portugal, Spain and Sicily. Because we were walking on the Camino and then hopping buses and trains afterwards, we didn't want to pack a lot - so my art practice was all about recording with an iPhone.
Beyond the regular scenic shots of buildings, bridges and wine I looked for interesting compositions that involved line, pattern and texture....here's a few:






I've been following a French artist, Fabienne Verdier who paints vertically in ink, standing directly on her stretchers, using giant brushes and tools of her own invention suspended from the studio ceiling. She studied calligraphy and art in China for over ten years and her art have a dynamism and flow that I find very appealing. Most of her work is in two colours, often highly contrasting and worked over several panels, sometimes vertically, other times horizontally. You might enjoy looking further: https://fabienneverdier.com/

During my time away and without having access to materials, I envisioned how my mark making might be produced on a larger scale and how I might work with developing marks on fabric and how it might evolve with the addition of stitch. 

Some of the statues had the most beautiful folds in their clothing and I was intrigued by the lines that were formed, especially when cropped or photographed at an angle.




I am not an expert at PhotoShop but I'm always willing to experiment and push a few buttons on the keyboard. And my results might be great or they might sit on the computer until I get around to deleting them....

But working with layers, cropped, over lapping and rotating has produced some positive ideas that might work into further development.

I used a filter called Threshold which have the strongest contrast.

I repeated the image four times with the same orientation

I took a slice of the previous arrangement

Then the slices were repeated and two were flipped.

More slices were taken and repeated....
 As you might guess, the design options are limitless and each time something else might appear, depending on the cut, orientation and the repeat. I'm excited and looking forward to more experimentation. Now, if I could just get used to being on a different time zone!