Mixy's Art Blog

thinking in digital

I got back into art after a long while away from it. Whilst ‘grown up life’ was busy occupying too much of my time and I pedantically stood in the way of where I wanted to be, I dwelt in a creative famine that lasted for too many years to recall.

The thing that brought me back to life was digital art: I acquired myself a computer with all kinds of glorious programs and bit by bit (ha!) I fathomed out how to make use of them. I began in Adobe Photoshop. And I fell in love with pixel pushing.

At this time I lived in a tiny one-room rented flat. Painting wasn’t viable: This carpet was new when I moved in, I paint messy, I can’t afford to lose the deposit.

Digital was my perfect solution.

The ‘desk’ where my computer was homed was a big shelf unit, with the tower on the floor, the ginormous CRT monitor on one shelf, the keyboard and mouse on a piece of board I perched on my lap.

Ideal?

No.

But I was entranced by the magic of what could be done, so comfort and ergonomics were very much secondary.

After all, this is where my soul belongs: in the midst of a multicoloured frenzy of streaming ideas and glory. I Stuff like this began happening…

And a short while, and on with the addition of digital camera, bits of ‘reality’ entered the mix.

I got massive value from the magazines that were about at the time – we’re looking back about 10-12 years ago now. All my spare money went on anything with Photoshop in the title.

I devoured the tutorials, I dabbled and played.

I was up all night on this stuff. A lot!

I got my collaging head on.

And I took my ideas with me down this rabbithole of dreamscape.

(I’ve been there ever since)

oddments & day bits

If I could add up all these bit of days, these odd hours I find wanting for what to do.

Many nights I find a fragment between 2 & 4 am.

Then there’s bits of afternoons as well.
Bits of uncertain waiting.

Placeless snips and snaps.
Trimmed minutes at the end of one thing, before the next begins.

I’d like to make a collage or a patchwork of these moments.

Then I’d build me some new days.

a sunday finding

The treasure of hidden art.

fullmoon meltdown (26/52)

Everything begins with an idea. Everything.

See the little tiny bits of neon pink in there? That’s the idea that set this page running. I saw this colour in the art shop forever-ago. I’m not a pinky kinda person but I had a really visceral attraction to this particularly teeth-jangling shade, and it was in my head until I had to buy it last week.

It’s a colour that says Bite Me.

If I was in charge of naming paint colours it would be called Don’tFuckAbout Pink. Then for some reason that wouldn’t be allowed. So I’d call it BiteMe Pink. Then I’d get a job someplace else cos I can’t tolerate that level of being told what I can’t say, or what I can’t call colours.

But I digress….

Thing is, I didn’t know what this page would draw out of me. All I knew was it was going to be powerful, virtue of is starting out as these three modest shouts of BiteMe Pink.

Even under all this noise, they can still be heard.

And it was a cacophonous week.

The weekend in the middle (my weeks begin on a Thursday, remember? please keep up) consisted of more than my usual level of soul searching at a creativity workshop. Meeting with extraordinary minds and beautiful souls. Deeply spirit rattling. Still feeling the ripples now. And breathe….

This week concluded the first half of the year.
And this week concluded with a big fat full moon
And the hottest day of the year,
And a literal fullmoon meltdown.

It was monuMENTAL

As illustrated by the many layered frenetic scribbles.

Coalescing finally, as this….

“Be Real ~ Be Awake ~ Be Present ~ Be Now”

No going back

Sometimes the biggest reason not to go someplace,
the only reason I can conjure up,
is the sure and certain knowledge i won’t want to go back after.

Crazy, huh?

Wanting to go and not going.

Wanting and not wanting.

Wondering where the path will lead.
Denying the scenery to open up in front of the next step.

Letting a little uncertainty take centre stage in your mind in place of the stars and the sparkles that your Imagination can whip together.

last week: remixed (25/52)

Just sometimes I can’t settle and be at peace with a painting.
It’s out there somewhere, or tucked away in a book, and it’s niggling me.
It’s cropping up in my thoughts and interfering in my whatever’s-happening-next-ness.

Last week’s page of the page-a-week project was one of them.

Look, here she is. She looks mis-coloured.

What’s a page with no yellow? No warmth?

No.

Where’s her depth? Can’t leave her cold like this.

Bring on the warm tones!

(I’m happy now!)

Palindrome Week (25/52)

25/52: It’s Palindrome Week!

And it’s pushed me into a different colour zone.

I’m new here, I haven’t visited this array of bluegreens and reddypinks before

The streaks of white are new as well. The collage continues, I can’t see that ending any time soon.

Rising up, looking forward…

Something of a Tribal Phoenix
amid musical mishmash. Here we go……..

The Gestalt is Revealed 24/52

“To see patterns is to understand.”

Do you know Jason Silva?
He’s media artist, futurist, philosopher,
he’s a ball of frenetic energy and enthusiasm and with a magnificent mastery of descriptive language he spills this energy out into the internet in Shots of Awe.

I like Jason Silva a LOT.

I was listening to him talking with Tim Ferris while I made the most part of this page.

Evolution of a Ideas

I love the dance between the digital and the analog.

Set the pixels in place, print and then set to with the tools of a previous age:

Actual cutting with actual scissors

Actual mess with actual paste.

The combination of these colours and the sheen of the medium have given her heads a pearly purity.

(And all that baldness was bothering me.
It’s getting lost now under layers of cut out swirls.)

Poured paint, deluge of color.
But tonally bland.

Contrast added. A sea of souls.

Reaching In

For every action, so they say, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In balancing the outward reach, a degree of reaching inwards naturally follows

As Im exploring my journey of imagination and making, I’m looking through inner worlds as places of thought and reflection, and I’m acknowledging the past to step into the future.