Butchering photos OR Art?

 

 

 

 

 Up to know i had only used photo shop to stitch panoramic photos and do minimal photo manipulation and prepering images for print. My philosophy was to master photogaphy skills and use this to capture beutiful moments in nature like the above photo. Photoshop was a program that allowed me to do the last 5% of the photo processing. It was really hartd for me to then start to use photoshop in a completely different way, as an art tool.

So i began to play and play and play and wonder when was this bloody thing was going to end?
















When is this thing Finished?????

 I spent hours and hours playing and it seemd never ending of how much i could do.











I enjoyed learning new skills in photoshop but
i had very little enjoyment in doing the work.

 

 

After way to long i started to think how rediculous you can get so i chucked in a squashed cane toad in the mix just becuase it was just a stupid thing to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Testing the idea.......

 

I went out bush to a burnt out area to photgraph the sculpure in a beutiful place for it to fit in.

 

 

 

 

When i photographed the sculpture in the landscape, i relised that my idea would not work. Becuse of the colour and fine detail of the fronds, the sculpture got lost in the background.

So i then played with different angles to get the contrast needed to see the detail of the sculpture. I then thought of photographing the sculpture against the blue sky.

This new perspecive worked well

 

I then thought of making a digital work that was from the perspective from lying down and looking up through the cycads, while layering some trees to give a sense of depth.

It was time to go and play in photoshop.

 

 

Making the sculpture....

 

 

So i took home all the materials and played for about 8 hours and came up with the piece.

Using axes, lump hammers, pot rivets and a bit of blood 

 

I came up with a peice that i really liked, i really enjoyed getting into that creative space again. I havn't sculpted metal or wood for many years. 

 Playing in the bush.......

I went to coles and got a huge pile of boxes and went out bush. I tried cutting out the boxes and putting them at the base of the cycads. after playing for a while it became clear that it wasn't working. So i ditched that idea for a walk to see what i could find.

 


I found a burnt out bed with some interesting spings and rusty pieces of metal

A burnt rusty Gutter
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Corrigated Iron

So i thought that i could make a sculpture of a cycad and use photoshop to make a forrest of cycad sculptures.

Other Ideas for the Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

In keeping with my love for the environment, nature and photgraphy while drawing on the inspiration of the work of Andy Goldsworthy. I have decided to take a bunch of cardboard boxes( everyday items) out bush to find an area of burnt bush with rejuvenated cycads and see what happens.

 

 

 
 
  
 I want to play with the idea of photographing a panarama with burnt cycads growing out of cardboard boxes.

Inspiration of an Artist

Andy Goldsworthy

 

For me looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season. I take the opportunity each day offers: if it is snowing, I work in snow, at leaf-fall it will be leaves; a blown over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches.

Movement, change, light growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue.

-Andy Goldsworthy

 

I was really moved when i saw Andy's work for the first time, his deep connection to the natural environment is inspiring. I love the way he uses the natural colours, textures, light, forms and spaces as his canvas. I really connected with Andy as an artist and am inspired with his ability to  create beutiful organic forms that compliment their environment. The other thing i love about his creative process is that he just goes out bush and waits for inspiration depending on the day.  

 I would love to explore more of these creative processes with nature.............

Inspiration from other artists

 
 

Henrique Oliveira

''I believe that the message is never art itself, but instead, the lack of a message is a characteristic that makes some creations interesting to me,'' he says, adding ''my works may propose a spatial experience, an aesthetic feeling, a language development and many more nominations to refer to the relation it establishes with the viewer. But, any attempt to find a message would fail.''.
Henrique Oliveira

''I call them pictorial and organic,” he says. Although he always starts from a sketch, when occupying large spaces his work is made in a much freer way. “In the organic works, which are based on more clear references such as skin, bellies, organ, or tumors, I tend to follow a plan which can be changed a little bit on the way.''

The thing that struck me about Oliveira's work was the tension between his big beutiful organic forms breaking out from the the rigid urban spaces. These works reminded me of traveling in Cambodia seeing the magnificant kingdom of Anchor Whatt crumbling over the past 700 years from enourmas powerful trees that started out as hair like roots between the cracks of the stone work. When i was sitting in these spaces i was humbled by the power of nature that could dismantle the most impresive human endevour.