Findingviews
Picture sales and an open notebook of thoughts from Orginal Robart
I’ve recently produced an abstract pattern and thought it might be interesting to run through the flow of events and processes that led to this particular piece being created.
It all started in on a Sunday afternoon on the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal when I spotted some catkins above my head. The weather was beautiful that day – with a clear blue sky, I took a
photograph using my mobile phone – sadly I didn’t have a good camera available (the battery was in need of a charge). However the final picture I felt was full of potential. So I took a little time to study it. That photograph is on the right. A favourite theme of mine is how the outstretched branches of trees can really look like the system blood vessels and veins in an animal.
Those thoughts got me thinking in sort of laterally fractally kind of way.
If trees can be like veins, and veins when abstracted can look like neurons and these patterns can sort of look like a map.
So plants can be like animals, can be like vascular systems can be like guides to the things we make.
How to show that in an image?
The Connects Pattern
My first step was to put the focus on the shape. That meant getting rid of the sky and simplifyingthings, taking everything right down to its minimum in Photoshop. That looked interesting but wasn’t enough of an image to capture the feeling I wanted. It was a start. I look the pattern I’d created and took a section from it and twisted its orientation onto a new layer in Photoshop. That looked better but was not complete. It was time for a bit of experimentation. Now I was painting with the the shapes in the photograph and I felt an abstract pattern starting to come together. The next step was to take a look at the colours. Taking my map thoughts as an inspiration; I took memories of the colours in the London underground map and started to apply these to the pattern. Things were going the way that I wanted. It looked bit flat so I rendered in little bits of lighting on odd parts of the picture.
The final result looked like a map that was bit off its head, a bit like prints of branches, a bit like paint splatter and a bit like something organic and living with odd bits of colour and detail that sort of stand out and make you raise an eyebrow. To me that says complex pattern and I think on reflection I’ve achieved that as I keep finding new shapes hiding in it.
There was a time when I worked with a significant number of abstracts. Partially because I like an abstract that derives from reality – that – uses the lack of realism or photorealism to unleash
feelings or emotions, and also because I took a lot of bad photographs that leant themselves to this style. As my photography improved I worked more on straight forward shots but often my sense of abstract and fun would sneak back in. I have a feeling that 2010 will be a year of strong and more creative work – with lots more abstracts or perhaps exaggerations that feel can bring on emotions. I guess to me the abstract is a way to reach feelings.
‘Later in the night’ is a good example of my abstract file. It was taken in a pub, looking at the bar in dim light. I used a shortening of focus and a short exposure time (no flash) to capture everything as lights and shadows. A bit of Photoshop work tidied up the tones and grain to give it this dirty and film noir look. There is something about the 40’s style of noir that is dangerous, glamorous and sophisticated. Much more exciting than a regular pub.
That’s the inspiration to Later in the Night. The name comes from the simple joke that later in the night, when one is tired and perhaps worse the wear for a few drinks, this might be how you see the world