Dawn

This morning I launched my newest project – a year full of color – “TWELVTY” All as scheduled, 9am my time, so the early wee hours for the cross-pond recipients.

Each month this year has it’s own color: January is yellow, and it’s flooding my thoughts.

It’s the sunrise of a new project. 

01yellow-33-copy
each month I’ll be making art in just one color for TWELVTY: yellows gathered in readiness!

The idea came to me just a couple of months ago when I was on holiday. Bumbling about taking photos… as one does.

I notice color everywhere.

I had a moment of profound realisation when I found myself taking photos of a group of tourists emerging from their (red & blue) coach, just because almost all of them seemed to be dressed to match in some shades of red & blue….

I had one of those momentsDo other people see this too? 

Like the fish who doesn’t know it’s swimming in water, my ideas have only swum in my mind, I’ve got no comparison unless I step away and try to look in from outside.

I mentioned the tourists & matching coach to someone a few days later – with gushing enthusiasm – but was met with blank nothingness. Not even the edge of a WTF? response I sometimes get when I share arty revelations like this, just a totally empty, disinterested blankness.

That was the moment I knew: I need to connect up with others who see & appreciate what I see & appreciate. My tribe. We need each other.

We need each other in a world of unknown areas of empty, disinterested blankness, a world with WTF? reactions to gushing arty revelations.

We need to reflect back to each other the magic of seeing some crazy spontaneous colour synchronicity, of seeing some beautifully matched chance happening, some little something somewhere that gets overlooked by most but makes our hearts sing just because of its orangeness, or blueness, or purpleypink, or whateverness.

I love how the idea is resonating among the folks who’ve joined already, the excitement bubbling up, and most of all the anticipation of what will emerge from this group as the year unfolds.

12in12in12

It’s going to be bright and glorious and I love it!


Want to make your 2017 brighter and more colorful?

Sign up below for more news on my doings & makings through the year, and get a lovingly hand crafted ebook all about color 

…oh, and you can join TWELVTY too !

yearfullofcolorbypenngregory_page_01

Be well, my friends, Much love to you all X

**********************************

(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)

A Treasure Hunt

Yesterpost I shared an exploration into the evolution of an abstract photo. If you liked that, you might like this too: My regular post on Dirty Footprints Studio  gives a bit of insight into the process of gathering these images.

Happy idea-gathering, folks 🙂

shape shadows

We don’t always need fancy art materials, expensive equipment, or a vast amount of space for art….
editIMG_1832
I made this from galvanised garden wire, fuse wire & pliers,
editIMG_1842
light and shadows
editIMG_1843
I love the way the forms merge with the shadows!
editIMG_1849

colorful excitement!

Hey folks!

Today I took a bunch of my stuffs into college to use the photo studio – so I now have some properly lit pics to show you! editIMG_1814There’s nothing to beat having a real expert set up the lighting and lend you their really good camera!
editIMG_1812
I’ve been invited to show some of my textile work in a little local exhibition,
editIMG_1778
so this is a little preview of what will be there!
editIMG_1784

thoughts of the moment…

In the accidental gap year I found myself in last year, I determined myself to continue learning. I absorbed a wonderous feast of inspiration and enthusiam from the good folks of the internet. Yes, that includes you. I thank you sincerely.

Day 1 back at school, drawing with strips of paper.

I collected and devoured books and articles, blogs, tutorials and galleries (online and off). I explored new techniques and new media with whole-hearted abandon. I believe I learnt a lot.

close up: 1st in series ‘Structure’, drawing with paper.

Turns out I forgot a lot too.

I forgot the time lost to debating the obvious and making suposition about the intents behind all manner of art. With mind maps.

3d city scape constructed from recycled paper

I forgot that for every hour in the classroom, at least another one or two are needed for research and time lost down figurative blind alleys. I forgot how the time it takes swells and nudges out of place all other aspects of day to day being.

noticing, photographing, recording moments: all that visual stuff other folks don’t see…

I do remember having a big wobble at about this stage on my last course. The initial I’m an art student euphoria has burnt itself out and in its wake sits a mildly stunned version of me, in mini-crisis-of-intent. Just a stage in the process.
The shopping bag by my desk. Thank you for your simple wisdom, orange elephant.

corridor of doors

I love metaphors.

In my world knowledge presents itself as a corrridor full of doors.

Some are locked,

Some seemingly lead nowhere.

Keep on moving, keep trying the doors.

Many lead to another corridor. All these corridors are full of doors.

But gotta keep trying…

Today’s door opened to everything there is to photography beyond low-level point-shoot-n-hope set on auto. Totally loving college!

Monday morning theme: Where to begin ?!

I know I’ll need to get the otherside of another cup of coffee before things start making sense today, what’s what and where to go isn’t making much sense yet!

I’ve built up a few days worth of photos to share with you, even cropped them down and renamed them, but in so doing I realised I haven’t got a good grip on the production/posting here ratio! Bear with me, there could be an onslaught coming soon as I catch up with myself!!

Meanwhile, I hate to post a post entirely unillustrated, so here’s a little something else I’ve been working on but not shared before….

off on a tangent & happy accidents

Using a blank page from my sketchbook to work on for the paper dying episodes has a threefold purpose:

  1. It’s a nice clean white (to begin with, at least) backdrop to photograph and record work in progress. A3 size book, opened up is a good sized working area.
  2. It protects my work surface (for now, an ironing board)
  3. It’s captured some gorgeous incidental art. Every stage of art, is art, right?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.


The little wire coils? Yeh, I’ll explain them later. Meanwhile I’ve got drying paper to go check on. BRB 😉

%d bloggers like this: