All of these photographs make me feel uplifted and happy. Three sheets to the wind Throw caution to the wind Blowin' in the wind Whistle down the wind Put the wind in your sails A fair wind
In language, "wind" has connotations of "letting go", leaving things to chance, freedom and even rebellion (Dylan). This slightly naughty, boisterous mood is what I want to capture with my film footage.
Spinning kites on Long Island. Really weird and abstract. Are they blades of grass in the foreground? Lots of sky. Beautiful shapes and colours. Sense of freedom and exhileration. Looks like a painting although it's a photo.
Slightly sinister mood here. Lots of ghosts drifting overland. Great for my "Sea Spirit"! Moody.
Although digital, the extracted shapes of the kite's movement is lovely, flowing. Gives me ideas for sketches. Can I draw movement? All the lines and forms of the beach are suggestive of this - rock fissures, water marks on sand, waves, seaweed, shell whorls...
And here it is, even in the sky.
An idea for possible wind sculpture/ sea spirit. Using long lengths of ribbon or organza to twist and trail in the air. Reminds me of the twitching zig-zag movement of organza in stream video - a caught twig jerks and wriggles in the water current. Here it is again:
I could try to mimic this movement in the wind.
Dark and moody. Alone. Being solitary, but in a good way, is one of the main reasons I go to Penbryn Beach.
There's a sense of the spiritual, of being at one with nature and..something else?...
Spent all morning practising uploading video clips to You Tube. Here's some:
Top two are most successful. I think from my videos something that is important is "elements" - being on the beach is literally about being exposed to the elements - wind, air, weather - so my sculptures need to interact with elements to work. The movement needs to be all around, inside and through, with the play of light being important.
Managed to burn Final Cut Pro footage onto DVD today - took all afternoon! Will put onto You Tube after Easter. Need to go back to beach(!) and capture the wind in my new sculpture, which is made only of felt. Handmade paper looks awkward and ugly in video; only good in stills.
Back from Wales!
Quest to get wild pics and footage proved challenging - good wind on Mon but couldn't get camcorder to record - diff from previous one; also digital camera ran out of power! Did get some though...
Other difficulty was that sculptures fell apart and paper went soggy; one piece blew away and a spaniel chased it and savaged it.
No needle and thread so we did our best to repair (son came to be prop holder).
Did some pastel Georgia O Keefe style sketches; also big acrylic/pastel painting of sculptures.
Attempt to paint in situ on beach bit of a disaster - difficult to get abstract without prep sketches - also freezing hands and paper blowing away.
Here's O Keefe style painting:
This is original, slightly enhanced in Photoshop. I like the smoother painted areas better than the pastel. Got too distracted by texture and need more form. Nice to paint again, but v out of practice!!
These two are zoomed in. The bottom one is starting to look like watercolour - maybe a better medium?
And here is video footage:
Really pleased with this. Boisterous, exhilerated mood conveyed. Pleasing form, plenty of light and space. I feel strongly that "wind sculptures" could be an area to push forward, having possibly gone as far as I feel I can go with the photography.
Also, I now know that this is the level of abstraction I want; after my "shells" of 2 weeks ago, I was disappointed with comments that they were "containers" and more figurative. This sculpture has more of the essence of the place - sun, wind, sky, surf, fresh air... although it still has something a little shell-like about it, the whirls, loops and spirals...I like the fact that it has transformed from something small and hard and fragile, found lying stationary on the ground, to something that seems large-scale, full of air and softness and movement. Interesting!!
Here's a link to a kite display. Should I set my films to music (and if so, which?), or is the sound of the sea enough??
Off to beach tomorrow!!!
Have been looking at contextual stuff to plan my artwork:
Georgia O Keefe - I'm going to do some big acrylic close-ups of sculptures, from life not photos.
Kurt Jackson - big angry paintings, in situ on beach - apparently it's going to be cloudy and windy, just what I need for a change of mood. (I had fab feedback for Fri's assessment, but an area I can concentrate on is "pushing the boundaries" with artwork, and Dawn suggested diff moods. Also got this comment from Sandy in PGD last week. Video footage is much more "wild" than soft, gentle photos. Def an area to explore...)
Monet brush-strokes, sky, rocks, sea.
And I really like this quote from Bill Brandt - Here’s a statement from Bill Brandt from 1948” The photographer must have and keep in him something of the perceptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time. We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas to stand and stare. We look at a thing and think we have seen it, and yet what we see is only after what our prejudices tell us should be seen, or what our desires want to see. Very rarely are we able to free our minds of thought and emotions and just see for the simple pleasure of seeing, and so long as we fail to do this, so long will the essence of things be hidden from us ” So although I feel his photographs are more figurative than mine, I agree with his philosophy.
Also need to:
film latest sculptures against sky, pref in wind/rain
experiment with reflections, or cloud movement in photography and film
Closely cropped organic forms, purely aesthetic?? Often a blurring of subject matter, here a flower/ female genitalia?
I want to paint in this style, simple, beautiful forms, close cropped. Subtle, natural palette, contrasts between light and dark.
Imogen Cunningham
Again, the concern with form and contrast. Subject matter often female nude or floral, but there is an abstraction of form, a fascination with spiral, curving lines. I loved life drawing classes, and see similarities between Cunningham's interests and mine.
Have spent all morning editing film footage - bit fed up of digital overload - craving drawing and painting at the moment but need beach for inspiration. Went home early to make more sculptures from new paper and felt. Managed to work out aperture in SLR camera. Took about 1000 pics and deleted all but about 10 of them! Light kept changing in bedroom. Need to ask again about depth of focus - completely forgot how to do (big aperture?). Also need tripod for less blurry pics. Anyway, here they are:
Quite like this one - used curves in Photoshop a lot. Looks a bit amoeba-like. Quite painterly.
I need to know how big they'll print before losing definition. More abstract than the "shells", and actual sculptures are nice - felt v. successful. However, some of earlier photos just as good/better? Got to keep shooting!!!
At college, inducted in new digital camera. Hopefully it will give large size pictures. Mine only does A3. Also made more paper and felt. Stitched felt at home - satin stitch over dissolvable fabric. When scrunched in water and dried on the radiator the felt pieces curl into 3D organic shapes. Am making a larger sculpture in both media to photograph with new camera. Want to crop closely and emphasise organic lines, Georgia O Keefe style.
