I have been home sick with the flu for the past few days, so my time at the computer has been far less then usual. I tried doing some sketching on the sofa but generating ideas in my current state proved to be pretty cumbersome, what with a cloudy and stuffed-up head.
However, I did manage to sit at the computer intermittently and created the images above, entitled Ancient of Days. These are experiments utilizing images from nature and various gradient overlays presented in a Polaroid format. I normally have a general idea of what I want to create before sitting at the computer, but these are exceptions to my typical process where I just sat down and started.
Included are images of trees, clouds, aurora borealis, smoke, sunsets, grass . . . the topmost image even has a mushroom cloud in there. I really enjoyed the release of creating these pieces on the fly, and would like to use the Ancient of Days platform to generate more experiments in the future.
11 Comments
Being sick is no fun, but those are lovely! I’ve been hounded by allergies all day and they’re mucking up my creativity a little too.
Would you be down for some photoshop tennis?
this is stunning. i especially appreciate the title. what was your inspiration if any?
Very inspirational and got me experimenting too – get well soon dude!
wow…these are insaine! I love them so much…
These are awesome James! I really like them! Hope you feel better soon.
http://www.twitter.com/Colorburned
Thanks a lot for the well-wishes everyone.
Jonathan, thanks for the offer, man. I’m going to be a bit busy over the next while with projects I have in the works, but I will keep tennis in mind for sure.
Abe, the (loose) idea behind these pieces was to create a surreal landscape of a ‘world between worlds’, which inevitably led to my researching Purgatory. This branched again to the idea of Apocatastasis, a restoration to the original or primordial condition, so the idea of trying to show a world being born came to mind. If you hit that Wikipedia link you will notice William Blake’s famous etching of the same name, which seemed appropriate.
So I guess there was a bit more behind what I was doing then I let on in the post. I do a lot of reading when I’m sick :)
I dig that second piece. Any chance we could get a copy of them actually on polaroids?
Nice work. Very inspirational. You should get sick more often. Best things come up on the fly.
I too have The Black Death! It’s AWFUL! I *never* get colds!
I ran across this the other day and thought you might get a kick out of them:
http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/04/21/fun-from-yesterday/
Get better soon! My doctor recommended some stuff called “Neti” (a nasal spray – which are horrible by nature, but *anything* at this point to stop coughing and hacking myself to death!).
M
Shelby, having these printed on Polaroids is a great idea. I wouldn’t even know where to start :)
Marvin, thanks for the link! So much amazing art in those old Atari games and manuals. The one for Terrorists in the Year 3000 is amazing.
That second one is calling my name I hope you sell it! :) Nice work as always