Process
Hare drawing
"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
- Pablo Picasso
I love this quote. This remains true today as research shows that the moment children enter school and continue to grow into adults, the creative side of their brains are used less and less.
The older I get, the more I come to appreciate a 'childish' drawing style. That's why I draw without striving for perfection.
Make make make 2.0
Hare Collage
I always like to continue on a design or drawing. For example, I have now made a collage of the hare drawing.
Starting off simple: drawing
Assignment 1
Assignment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Today I will be working with the book 'Creative Block' by Gemma Lawrence.
Creative space is a book set out to ruffle feathers, get out of ruts and start those juices flowing. Focussing on creative process and theory, it is filled with over 100 tasks to get your head into a conceptual and creative space, encouraging experimentation and playfulness in art.
57. Arrange the first 5 objects you find onto a scanner
and scan them until you see a resemblance of something.
In the third scan I saw a snail! :)
18. Screw up a photo of someone and draw it.
4. Take a bold typeface, then cut it up into slices and rearrange.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog > Noto Serif Hebrew black
86. Find a random word/sentence and visualise them as how you interpret its dictionary definition.
42. Shred a photo. Then stick it back down, in order, but have the strips on different levels.
Shred Rotterdam
Today I will be working with the book 'Wicked Arts Assignments' by Emiel Heijnen & Melissa Bremmer.
About the book
Wicked Arts Assignments is a project of the Research Group Arts Education of the Amsterdam University of the Arts. The project reflects the oeuvre of contemporary arts educators around the world. Wicked Arts Assignments are bold, unusual, contrary, funny, poetical, inspiring, socially committed, or otherwise challenging.
Everyone who teaches art knows them: the assignment that is seemingly simple but which challenges participants, students and pupils to the max. Many artists and arts teachers have that singular, personal, often-used assignment in which everything comes together: their artistic vision, their pedagogical approach and their love for certain techniques or methods. The book Wicked Arts Assignments (Valiz publishers) and this website are both a tribute to and a source of inspiration for arts educators. The website collects artistic results and new assignments can be submitted.
Assignment 7
Translations. Using an oscillating process of translation, explore how forms generated from the digital can become physical, digital, and physical again: any digital/analogue tool may be used. Produce, curate, and sequence your images.
Digital 1
Physical 1
Digital 2
Physical 2
Sequence 1
Physical 3
Digital 4
Phyisical 4
Pattern 1
Pattern 2
Digital colour 1
How can I change/influence/play with colour during this oscillating process?
Physical colour 1
Physical colour 2
On day 3 I notice that I am finally starting to loosen up a bit and producing is getting easier. I worked with an assignment from Wicked Arts Assignments: translating.
I started with a digital form and I have always physically modified it and digitized it again. I have repeated this a number of times. I found it very interesting to do this. I actually noticed that you can go on and on with this endlessly.
Then I made a small test print of my final booklet. A lot went wrong with this test print, the pages were upside down, the format was much smaller than I originally had in mind and the page order was completely wrong. To make matters worse, I cut the pages crookedly and with frayed edges. Because the result was so bad and ugly I stuck it with tape. In the end I am actually quite satisfied with my little ugly booklet. Sometimes you can also appreciate ugly things. This booklet has produced new compositions, combined pages and omitted parts of the page. This still led to interesting scans.
Newspaper article Volkskrant: Artists start lawsuit: artificial intelligence infringes copyright.
This article inspired me to generate my own artworks.
By using this technique you can easily produce interesting images that are in the same style as your own. No one else can get these results (unless someone steals my work), which makes it fun to experiment with.
At the same time, it is a bit wrong to do this, because it raises the question whether these works are really mine. I don’t want to create work out of convenience.
Dot dot dot
Circles, dots, the round shape that everyone knows, is my all time favourite graphic shape to work with.
Dots often appear in my designs, where they do not necessarily have a purpose, but just look aesthetically pleasing.
For this assignment I go wild with dots.
Inspiration/fellow dot lover/soulmate: Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama - Dots Infinity NOWH
Accidental art
Inspired by Wicked Arts Assignments
For this assignment I was inspired by my surroundings. I went out on the streets and captured visual elements that I think can be art but originally are not intended as art.
For every photograph I created a graphical representation using simple shapes only. For example, I used circles and rectangles.
The final assignment is about declaring a timeout from something I am required to do.
I couldn’t think of a better way to end these short, intensive weeks of producing.
I did the timeout assignment and documented what happened.
During the break I started drawing and gradually I started writing down words that came to mind and fit the feeling I was experiencing at that moment.
nu, hier, gewoon
controleren, zijn,
rustig,
buiten, vliegen
laten, binnen,
weg
After collecting all of my material for the final publication I can start thinking about what the publication will become.
Unexpected work
Assignment 8.
Assignment 9.
Assignment 10.
Assignment 11.