Abstract Art, Abstract Expressionism, Modern Art, Photomontage, Photography.

Hello and welcome to everyone around the world. At last, the new post. Between continuing health issues and major work being done inside our house, I have  been kept away from blogging for a while. This post is a mixture of my latest work. As always, if  I think a piece needs any comments, I will add them immediately above that piece of art. So, in no special order, on with the show.

I'm starting with one I was particularly pleased with. As some of the regular readers will know, I have done a fair bit of Fine Art printing. I'm hoping to start again, once the work on the house is finished. The artwork below is in a fine art print style and came out far better than my expectations.

Still Life #7

Next, two more which I like a lot, both in a fine art print style.

Growth

Caves

Recently, we had some heavy snowfalls here in the village, followed by freezing conditions. The image below is a photograph of ice which had somehow created a bubble like surface. The ice was about 1 inch thick, (25.4cm).

 Ice Bubbles

The next image continues with the idea of something being frozen, then painted.

In Ice

I think it's time for something suggesting warm weather. I think the title says all I want to say about it.

Summer of  '67 #2

The next five pieces are part of  a series. They were created using a technique I was inventing, (making up) as I worked on the images. It was very experimental, I had no clear idea what the results would be like. It was quite exciting for me and gave me a pleasant surprise. 

Daleside

The following work, (The Last Mill Chimney) is a lament for the loss of England's great textile industry.

The Last Mill Chimney

Vases

Standing Figures

Three Harbour Views

The one below is a photomontage. It's part of a series entitled, "Lost Mills". It is another lament for our textile industry. Textiles are a huge part of Yorkshire's heritage, and were the main factor in it's wealth for a long time. For those visitors to this blog from overseas, I will explain that the area of Yorkshire I live is very hilly, being in the Pennine Mountain chain. It is a wonderful water catchment area, with plenty of streams and rivers, and is suitable for sheep. The water is "soft" i.e. it runs through Millstone Grit, (sandstone) and not Limestone. The calcium and magnesium carbonates in Limestone, result in "hard" water. Soft water is perfect for washing the oils and lanolin from the wool of sheep. (Soap lathers far better in soft water). Naturally, a textile industry formed here.  That was a very potted history of our textile industry, missing a lot out, such as the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. Sorry Yorkshire! I'm (slowly) adding images to the "Lost Mill" series. 

Lost Mill #4

Quite a few of the next images fall loosely under the heading of  Abstract Expressionism, but by no means all of them. Two or three are abstract photomontage works. The rest are, well, take a look and decide for yourselves.

Devolving

Rays of Glory

Druid's Temple

Countryside Study

Island Splash

Seabed

Sunken Atlantis

Lambda

1950s Cocktail Bar

Lime

Green Rain

Robot 7XB

Robot 7XB was the last image in this post. I hope you liked what you have seen, or at least liked some of it. I've not decided what the subject of the next post will be yet. I do know that it is unlikely I shall be able to do another post within the next six weeks or so. I have to wait until the work being carried out at home is finished and I have access to my studio again. Plus we shall be taking a holiday on The Isle of Arran, in Scotland soon. We were there two years ago and I fell in love with it. I came home with a lot of photos, many of which are in this blog. Look at the post on Seaweeds for a start. I hope to be getting a lot more photos of parts of Arran that we didn't see last time.  I love malt whisky, so we shall be visiting the Arran Whisky distillery for certain. I'm getting excited already.

Please don't forget to leave a comment, thank you.

In the meantime, be nice to each other.

Gordon.

My Latest Abstract Art and a Few Photos.

Hello to all my readers.

A very Happy New year to you. I hope it's a peaceful one for all of us.

I'd intended to put this post up three weeks ago, as usual, life got in my way. The post is a mixture of computer generated art and modified photography. There are 22 images in all. I hope you enjoy them.

I decided that rather than just post the images, I'd say something about the inspiration or thought processes that lead me to create them.

The first one is a modified photo of two of my Arabic/Fusion Dancer lady friends. As I was looking at the original, I realised I'd not seen them for a long time, until I took this photo. I began to realise that remembering friends is bound to give you a slightly distorted view as time passes. That lead me to try and create an impression of such distortion. Here is the result.

 Distant Memories.

Next is a photo of two of my wife's Arabic Dance coin belts hanging up. I like the textures and colours and didn't think it needed any thing doing to it.

Coin Belts.

Now for something I've been meaning to take a photo of for several years. Once a year in late August, we go to the week long Whitby Folk Music festival. For my overseas visitors to this blog, Whitby is on the East coast of Yorkshire in England.  Some of you will know that I was a professional singer, musician and storyteller until ill health got in the way.  The cottage we stay in, is about 300 years old. The walls are plaster, painted white. One wall has an area of plaster that had not been smoothed for some reason. I noticed that it looked like a medieval Jester's face, complete with hat. I took it's photo last August. All I've do it is changed the colour to make it stand out more.

Jester. (Hey nonny nonny my Lord).

I was out for a walk at the start of January, it was a sunny, bitterly cold and frosty day. I walked along part of the Calder and Hebble Canal and the scene below caught my attention. The multi-coloured lights are a happy result of the sun shining on the camera lens. I thought it made it look magical. All I did was to increase the colour saturation and enhance the texture of the water.

 Mystic Portal.

The following photo is a remake of one I took two years ago. It's the ruin of the ruined boiler room of an abandoned cloth dye-house mill. If you look back in this blog, you will see five other photos of this mill here: (On the page, scroll down to see them.)

http://gordonartphotoand3dsci-fi.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Post%20Industrial%20Art

Mill Wall.

The image below started life as an area of rust on an old steam railway engine, in York Railway museum. I like the textures of rust and paint. I'm always fascinated by that sort of image. As soon as I saw it, I knew I could make a "Modern Painting" from it.

Still Life #4.

Now for the last of the landscape format images. It's my interpretation of what a newly sunken ship looks like to a diver.

Shipwreak.

Now for four square format pictures:

First is my fanciful try at portraying a human aura - the spiritual energy force surrounding living things. Humans are very seldom beings with one aspect to their personalities or moods. Very simply put, different colours of an Aura show different aspects of the person. (I don't want to get in to a deep explanation here). Blue, is a healing and spiritual colour. Red can be strength or anger. I tried to show the mixed nature of the human Aura in "normal" conditions.

Auric Field.

I created the next image to be the cover of a CD of quiet jazz, suitable for a Valentines Day meal, (14th of February, don't forget) or any romantic meal for two.

Jazz For Lovers.

The one below was inspired because I'd been out on a mushroom finding session with the local fungi recorder. She has an amazing memory for facts about fungi. I thought I'd have a go at creating a logo suitable for a fungi society. Just to explain, the fungi hunting people I know are NOT foragers. We simply record, with photos and location, where we find certain types. They get sent off to an area recorder, who publishes an annual report on what had been found in their area.

Mushroom Logo.

I was looking up at a telegraph pole one day. I suddenly realised what a magical thing sending voices, images and text along bits of wire, all around the world, really is. We take technology for granted, familiarity tends to do that. However, I don't believe that we should ever loose a sense of wonder about the world. As I looked at it, I thought "It's like a wizards's hat". That was the birth of this image.

Wizard's Hat.

For a great many years, I have believed that buildings can speak to us, if we are prepared to listen. The builder/decorator we use, was looking round our house last year. He was getting ready to do some major work inside it. He looked at me, then said, "Sorry, I was listening to the house, I want to know what it wants us to do to it. Too many people don't listen to their houses. They end up doing things that make the place uncomfortable to live in". He was thinking along the same lines as me, it was wonderful to find someone who feels the same.

Some of you will have heard people say, "If only these walls could talk, I bet they could tell you a tale or two". The picture below is a story waiting to be told. I used four of my photos, each on it's own layer in Photoshop, to create this image.

History Tales.

A few minutes up the hill from where I live, there are three Japanese Larch trees. Over the years, I've taken several photos of them at different times of the year. I kept trying to get "THE" photograph. With the picture below, I think I have finally done justice to the trees. In case anyone wonders, I only used two of the trees. The third one is a little distance from the others and didn't frame well.

Larches.

Liminal spaces are thresholds, points or places of entering or beginning. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place. Author and theologian Richard Rohr said, "This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed". There is an ancient legend of liminal spaces having Guardians. The Shinix is one. These Guardians can respond to prayer and offerings (sacrifices). I created the image below with this in mind. It was layered from several photos. The strange thing about the image is, that there is nothing in any of the individual photos that could produce the figure you can see in it. A friend and I studied the image and the separate photos used. In the end I said I thought that perhaps I shouldn't look too deeply and he said he felt that was right. I don't have any explanation for the result, but he is there and holding something that, again, we couldn't find in the layers. There is a lot on the Net about Liminality, articles and images, should you wish to dig deeper into the subject.

Liminal Guardian.

I think it's time for one of my Abstract Expressionist artworks now.  I couldn't decide if I liked the colours in the piece below at first. They seemed a bit subdued compared to a lot of my work. I tried several colour pallets on it. Finally, deciding to go with the one I started with, it's quite a restful piece. I'm proud to report that a poetess I know liked it so much, that a copy is now hanging in her front room, 

Indigo #2.

The next image is a straight photograph. It looks as if I've spent a long time layering images in Photoshop but all I did was take a photo of a shop window. The result was far better than I ever expected. So much so that a week later, (the 29th of January this year, if anyone's interested). I got the bus to Halifax and spent an hour taking photos of shop window reflections. It was Sunday, it's the best day for this. There are not as many people about to walk in front of the camera at the wrong moment. Also, most shop lights are turned off. This usually gives better reflection shots. I did take some with the reflection of shop lights and they came out well. I'm starting to make a book with the best photos as soon as I get this blog post online. There will be 36 images in it, one to each A5 page.

City View #1.

Regulars to this blog will know that I'm a big fan of pop art. From time to time, I create a piece in that style. I'm going to put five examples below.

Soundblast.

Soundwaves.

Port to Starboard.

Magical Mystery Tour.

The next bit of pop art, titled Barnstormer's, is a tribute to the daring and skill of the pilots and performers who did public shows. They did stunts like, flying a plane though a barn, having people stand on the wingtips whist they flew and a lot more. barnstorming became popular in the USA during the 1920's. There are a lot of video's showing Barnstorming on YouTube. There are some from the past and some of people still practising it now. I liked the modern one with two Englishmen flying wingtip to wingtip through a barn. Once mistake and they would have had a terrible accident. They must be mad to want to try things like that. I'm happy if I cross a road without being run over.

Barnstormer's.

This is the final piece, it's called Hy-Brasil. It was an island which appeared on maps as early as 1325. It was still being shown on maps in 1865, where it was called Brazil Rock. On most maps, it was shown to be about (200 miles) 321km off the west coast of Ireland, in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was described as being cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached. This was the home of a wealthy and highly advanced civilisation. There is a lot of evidence to support it's existence. Anyone wishing to read more about it could start by looking at the link below.

http://www.historicmysteries.com/hy-brasil-the-other-atlantis/

Hy-Brasil.

Well, here we are at the end of another Blog post. It's been far too long since I posted, I'll try not to let it be so long next time. I hope that some of these images stimulate people to read up on some of the things I mentioned. Better still, go out with a camera, sketch pad and pencil or working with a graphics program and creating their own art.

Until next time, be nice to one another and have fun. Gordon.

Art from Insects Photography.

Hello everyone

This last month has been so full of things going on for me, some good and sadly some bad, including my wife Anne, breaking a bone in her foot. I felt I was struggling to keep my head above water sometimes. Still, I'm an old campaigner and a fighter, so here I am again.

One of the good things is that Anne and I have finished putting up all our Christmas decorations. We usually start about the 1st of November. We have a three floor house and decorate each room and both staircases, in a more-or-less Victorian style, in keeping with the age of the house. It takes a long time. I love Christmas.

On with the blog post anyway. Some weeks ago, my friend Darren suggested that I should be able create art from the photos of moths and other insects, which I take for the Freshwater Environmental Ecology Trust, Cromwell Bottom Local Nature Reserve and UK Flora and Fauna blogs, (see the blog links here). By the way, the FEET blog is a members only one, so there is no link for it. Darren had been looking back over my blog, at the Post Industrial Art photos of mine. A fer years years ago, I showed him my Urban Explorations shots. It was at Darren's suggestion that I changed the Urban Exploration photos into something a little less sad. The abandoned industrial photos reminded him of how much industry our country has lost, due to stupid, misguided actions on the part of our government. No sooner said than done, I came up with a range of suitable images. So now, again due to a prompt from Darren, (hi Darren) here is the Insect Art, for want of a better description.

If any reader/viewer here comes up with a better term, I'd love you to suggest it to me. Just put a comment in the comments section of the blog.

Below are the images I've so far created, 18 in all. I'm quite pleased with the way some of them have turned out. I do have visions of creating some more later.

Hippie Butterfly

1967

Blue Spot Ladybird

Butterfly Graffiti

Arabic Mosaic Tiles

Clouded Border Moth

Ghost

Camouflage

 Doodle Bug

Glass Snail

Hover Squad

Ladybird Circle Dance

B Movie Poster

 Moth in Amber

Twenty Plume

Oriental Silk

Psychedelic Moth

Summer Days

Well, I hope you enjoyed those, for the record, Oriental Silk was completed last night.

Don't forget, if anyone has a good idea for a name for this type of art, please leave it in the comments section. I will credit the person who's name I choose as the one I like best, unless they say they don't wish their name to be mentioned.

Be kind to each other.

Gordon