Influences for a new photo project

Anyway, This project is going to explore a really fucked up memory in my life. I'm planning for it to be a photography/ painting project, and below are some influences that I'm thinking about

Kandinsky's colour theory has always been a big influence, so I'm thinking of going back to that

Also, I immagine some parts to have a strong MC Escher aesthetic

Dave Mckean's work combine's digital photography and painting, so it's logical that I look into ripping him off.

Lastly, I'm thinking of giving the project and infinite canvas inspired structure

http://infinitecanvas.appjet.net/view?name=Amhot

If all goes well, this should be pretty badass

Whale Song Video and stuff

The music video for "The Whale Song" by Modest Mouse blew me away. It's definitely something to consider for my photo project.

I should really make more Zines (small homemade magazines about anything and everything)

The photography of Dave Hill's pretty awesome too. I love the way his photos seem to blur the line between photography and digital painting

Vernon Panton

Friggin awesome designer. So annoyed with myself for missing his exhibition in the national museum. 

Anyway I've been interested in ergonomics and biodesign for a while, just hanging on to the sleeves (is that even a proper phrase?) ofpeople such as Rick Toone and Luigi Colani (I should analyse their work one of these days). 

Anyway I'm especially interested in his really trippy stuff

It's got this really awesome emotive vibe to it, but it's also functional as a living space. I don't think it counts as Biodesign, but I feel like it's a physical manifestation of the vibes I get from some living spaces.

Digital Art

Just have to make note of this awesome web gallery. I was totally blown away

click

Particularly stoked byDavid Waters and Erik Jonsson


Another pretty awesome gallery

Webcomics

Sam And Fuzzy

Hands down my favourite webcomic. Author Sam Logan, manages to strike a great balance of humor, deep characters, intricate plots, and ties them together in the surreal world that is Sam and Fuzzy.

Summing the comic up in a sentence: Loser and criminally insane bear thing lost in a crazy world featuring ninja and gerbil mafias, a demon fridge, robot clones, a space gopher, a thief, more ninjas, a death metal band, a vampire, more ninjas, communism, capitalism, Skull Panda, and the ghost that is afraid of ghosts (unfortunately, 17th century chemist, Robert Boyle passed away long before the events of Sam and Fuzzy).

If that made any sense, or if it didn't, you (meaning myself, I don't think anyone is going to read this anytime soon) should totally check out Sam and Fuzzy.

Art wise, Sam Logan's style has progressed a great deal over the years. I'd describe his style as Frank Miller meets Sonic the Hedgehog. While his use of black and white, cinematic panel compositions and silhouettes scream Miller, he seamlessly combines this with a cartoonish friendliness in his character designs. His characters to me evoke an iconic cartoony "bounce", while at the same time being grounded enough in reality to evoke the reader's empathy.

(maybe I'll edit this post with pictures at a later time)

While I really enjoy Sam and Fuzzy, it's really not relevant to what I'm doing now (I'll probably post about that sometime),but perhaps it will be in the future, if I say wanted to do something with a narrative (story, storyboard, etc) or even if I just wanted to evoke that same cartoonish empathy. So yeah, Sam and Fuzzy good.

More on other webcomics sometime in the future.

Blog Manifesto?

I never thought I'd do this again, but this is gonna be my blog.

I'm thinking it's gonna be pretty much an online home for my creative process, where I will note whatever I find interesting whether it be in my life or on the world wide web. I guess I could call this an online art journal, where I will document my musings on art, philosophy, and, heck, anything worth rambling about.

Hopefully this will help bring cohesion to my sporadic (sometimes chaotic) thinking and allow me to draw influences from a greater breadth of experiences and sources, as opposed than the limited number creative sources that actually currently end up influencing my work.

Perhaps it inevitable that blogging becomes integrated with art as they both deal with the expression of the self. Art is life, and like the (good?) blogger, the (good?) artist never gets a day off. (I stole the gist of that quote off someone I think)