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Sunday 31 December 2017

Sci-Fi and 3-D Art. 31st December 2017.

Hello and a very happy, peaceful and profitable New Year to you all.

Somehow, it seems fitting that I should mount this post on the last day of 2017. I hope you enjoy the work exhibited below. I shall make comments about any of the pieces here, which I feel would benefit from them.

Off we go...

Some of my friends may have seen this first piece before. It still remains one of my favourite works.

Alien Egg.

Still on the egg theme, the next one is one of the things I like to do with my art; create something in the hope that people looking at it will have that, "carpet-pulled-from-under-them", feeling. By this, I mean the viewer will try to rationalise what they see, attempting to fit it in to their personal frame of reference and experience. Like all artists who do this, I hope the viewer will fail and feel a little off balance, and possibly the path to new ways of seeing things will result. Quite a few of my works have that intention behind them.

Cosmic Egg.

One more of my "egg" themed works. This one is an alien egg before hatching.

Oval Shell Sunset.

The next two, are part of a long set I made showing an imagined holiday hotel on Mars. If Elon Musk, or the USA government have their way, this may become a reality a lot sooner than I expect.

Mars Hotel & Spaceport.

Looking out from the
Mars hotel window.

Below is done in the style of Sci-Fi graphic novels art. It's an attempt to show two scenes happening at different times, in one image. The spaceship is in colour, in the three front panels in real time. It's shadow can be seen as a reflection passing across the huge building behind. The ship it'self is just visible at the left edge of the right hand panel. This section is in the past. It's another part of the Mars Spaceport.

Spaceport 3 Admin Block.

We've had the alien egg, now it's time for the hostile alien warrior to show  himself. I based him on an evolved spider-like creature. A lady-friend of mine described him as, "A handsome beast".

Alien Warrior.

The following two are part of a set of five or six pieces based on the idea that the Earth is under attack by a very advanced race of aliens. The earth is being destroyed by them. The warrior above may be handsome specimen of the invaders, but they are certainly a powerful force to be reckoned with.

 Armageddon #1.

Armageddon #3.

Of course, we are under attack, but not defenceless. One of the Earth's most powerful weapons are the advanced, AI (Artificial intelligence) android warriors, know as cyber warriors.

Cyber Warrior.

I spent a long time teaching myself to draw realistic planets of various types. Here is one example.

Blue Twin Moons.

The image below, is a very advanced starship. These craft, as any Sci-Fi fan knows, are generally too big to land on Earth. The Knot Ship has been designed using twisted space-time physics, (think of a Mobius Curve). Therefore it is small enough to land on the larger planets. Like the Tardis, it's smaller on the outside, than it is on the inside. Here, it is emerging from the sea, on a planet in a far off star system. I have also made a photochromic-lithographic print of this image. I may show it on this blog sometime in the New Year.

Knot Ship Rising from the Sea.

Here is another of my radically designed space craft. It's a shape you will all recognise, I'm sure.

Pyramid Ship Landing.

Yet another of my space ship designs. This time it's a long-haul transport ship. Officially, it's used by the Intergalactic Alliance, to ferry essential equipment, foodstuffs and luxury goods to the outlying planets. Unofficially, it's used for a  bit of smuggling on the side. Not that the authorities are aware of this of course.

Alliance Fleet Arm Transporter Ship.

The next image proved to be quite popular, much to my surprise. This is another of my, "What the hell is going on here?" ones. At least one person has it hanging on their wall. I lose count of who has which of my works in their homes. I suppose I should keep a record, but it's far too late to start now.

Dali's Dream.

I thought I'd add a couple more examples of my surrealistic art. In the 1960s, when I was at art school, my first painting in acrylics, was a set of toroidal shapes (doughnuts). These were in bright colours, against a purple background. There were two tutors in this class, one looked at the half-finished work and said, "You have no colour sense whatsoever". I was a little put out, I KNEW what I was doing. The other tutor told the first one that she was wrong. Adding that I'd not have been able to use the colours I did, if I had no feeling for colour. She was right, I've been tested and have perfect colour vision and I love colour. I think that people in the Western world are frightened of it. I'm not, I wear bright colours.

Some 48 years later I finally managed to create the piece of work I was trying to, all that time ago. The image below was the result.

Desert Rings 2.

The next two works are hanging on people's walls. I'm always very flattered when someone likes my work enough to live with it on their wall.

Steel Staircase.

I had a friend who worked in a photographic shop. I was teaching him some computer art techniques. One day, I took a few of my latest stuff into the shop, to show him. I'd printed the one below on silver coloured photo paper, it looked amazing, almost 3-D. The young female assistant saw it. I've never seen a reaction like it before, or since. She was so impressed that she kept saying, "It's wonderful, I've never seen anything like it in my life, it's incredible". Bless her!

This image has been through several incarnations. Two friends of ours, Chris and Diane, have different versions to the one below. Hi both, Happy New Year!

Dreaming #1.

The one below has been on exhibition a couple of times, it created a lot of interest. One lady asked me how I'd done it. It's very difficult to explain to a person who has not seen or used 3-D imaging software. I did my best, but looking at her, I knew she was lost. Particularly when I told her that I'd drawn it all in wire frame first, then added surface colours and textures. Also, that I'd drawn it as if I was looking at it all in front of me. Then I'd moved the view point of  the camera dolly in to the middle of the image. I explained that it resulted in some of the marbles then being behind me, and only their reflections were visible in the other marbles. I know it sounded like magic, but I couldn't explain it any better.

PCB Marbles.

My very dear friend Roger, fell in love with this next one as soon as he saw it. It's now hanging up in his house.

Silicon Birthing.

I used part of the one below as the cover illustration for my Sci-Fi based instrumental CD, "Unseen Galaxies." 

Strange Cargoes.

Every time I look at the next one, it gives me a feeling of great serenity. I can visualise the craft here floating out of the sky in complete silence, then landing, very gently, in spite of their great size.

They Came from the Stars.

On that peaceful note, I think I will end this post, and wish you all a very happy New Year once more.

Gordon.







Tuesday 10 October 2017

Art Photography.

Hello everyone, yet another late blog post, still, here I am.

This post is a mixture of black and white, partially coloured black and white and colour photos. It all fits loosely under the umbrella title of "Art Photography". I'm putting the black and white ones first. As always, if I don't  think an image needs any comment from me, or even a title, I will simply let the shot speak for itself.
Off we go then...

The first one is a photo of  the newly refurbished, Halifax Piece Hall. It dates from 1779, when it was built as a Cloth Hall for the trading of ‘pieces’ of cloth, (a 30 yard length of woven woollen fabric produced on a handloom). It has a lot of shops on the galleries with more to come, and a great number of events are planned for it. There is an entrance in the building to the new library, (very impressive) and it's adjacent to the Square Chapel Arts Centre, also Calderdale Industrial Museum. If anyone whats to learn more about the Piece Hall, or see what it looks like now follow the link below.


http://www.thepiecehall.co.uk/heritage


Halifax Piece Hall.

Balustrades, Peoples Park.

Peoples Park decorative urn.

The next five photos are from a disused dyeworks mill. I featured it here in a past post. 


Mill chimney from 
boilerhouse side.


Inside the mill.

Roof of boilerhouse.

Inside boilerhouse looking 
towards Old Lane.

Governor on a working 
steam traction engine.

York Arms (pub) Staircase, York.

Now for the colour shots. This is a very diverse collection of photos which appealed to me at the time and still do. The first is a Morris Dancer from the Sutton Masque border style Morris team, from Cambridgeshire. I took it at this year's Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing weekend. For more information on Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing, the link is below.

For some reason, the server can't find it by clicking the link. I've been to the site and it is there, just copy and paste it into your browser. 

http://www.rushbearing.com/  

Sutton Masque dancer.

Below is a wonderful cloudscape I took at Hunstanton in Norfolk. The light at the coast in Norfolk is wonderful. It's an artists and photographers paradise.

Hunstanton cloudscape.

I took the following photo on my phone a few days after I'd bought it. I was in Leeds, Yorkshire, when I saw this building. It has mirrored windows, so you are looking at a reflection of the building behind me as I took the shot. I thought it was a sensational but didn't have a camera, just my mobile. It was my first Smartphone, I didn't expect much from a phone camera (8MP in this case) but was very impressed with the result. 

The Bourse is an office and retail complex, it was sold for £8m to Paloma Real Estate Fund in 2016.

 
The Bourse, City of Leeds.

If you look very closely at most flowers, they are incredibly complex and beautiful. Quite a lot of the photographs I've taken of flowers, look like abstract art. The next two images are good examples of this.

Close-up of a nasturtium flower.

Centre of a begonia flower.

Below is a photo of a Ganoderma applanatum, or Artists Bracket fungi. It's a very common perennial bracket fungus. The underside is white and can be scratched with a sharp point to leave brown marks and so produce artistic images - hence the common name. It releases spores in their billions. The brown colour below it, is a dense brown dust of them. It's a very tough fungi, it you tap it, it sounds and feels like wood.

Ganoderma applanatum -
Artists Bracket fungi.

Canalside Tree.

Seedpods.

York Art Gallery entrance at night.

Walking round York one night, I spotted the shop window display below. It's quite surreal and far too good to miss taking a photo of.

Window Display. 
Or is this a Dragonfly?
Thanks for that Peter.

Soda bubbles in a plastic cup.

Rain drops on a Raft Spider's web.

Back to the dyehouse above for this next shot. I was inside the mill, looking back at the way I had climbed in.

Viewpoint.

Now for the final shot. Anne and I went to the Halifax Agricultural Show in August. it was very enjoyable, especially the showjumping sheep, which was fantastic. they were so well trained  and it was a LOT of fun.

As we were leaving, I spotted the two sheep below. It was another of those too good to miss photos. This photograph had to be either the opening of closing image. It's a nice finish to this post.

Ahhh...

I'm determined to get my next blog post mounted here in about 4 weeks. I already have an idea as to what it will contain. Well, until the next time, goodby.

Be kind to each other. 

Gordon.




Thursday 27 July 2017

Latest Abstract Art..

Hello world

Here is a selection of my latest abstract art. Regular readers of this blog will remember that  amongst a lot of other styles and artists, I am very much influenced by Victor Vasarely and Pop art. This little group of images reflects that. Over the last few months, my health has been up and down. I've used the time to teach myself a range of new techniques, the results are below. As is often the case with my work, I will not comment on them, unless I feel something could be usefully said.

I think the first piece is possibly my most sophisticated work to date.

Box Sculpture.

Escher Stairs.

Folding Box.

Chevron 3.

Mountain Landscape.

Theatre.

Zigzag.

Glass Tower.

1 over 4.

The "Gamma" series of images come from a collection of  twenty or so. I was exploring what was possible with the particular technique I had just learned. I wanted to see how far I could push it.
.
Gamma 3.

Gamma 13.

Gamma 12

Gamma 17.

The next two images are my favourites in the Gamma Series. I have put both of them on black Tee shirts, they look stunning.

Gamma 7.

Gamma 19.

Plutonium World.

Freak Out.

I used one of the Pop Artist Lichtenstein's colour palates to create the next work.

Lichtenstein Decoded.

Here again, the pop art influence can be seen in the next two pieces.
Lyrical.

The Mill.

Below are three mid to late 1960s style images.

Quantum Event Triptych.

The 60's Dream.

Acid Windmill.

As always, I hope these were worth the wait. Don't forget to pass my Blog URL on to any friends who may like this kind of art. Gordon.