A catalogue of movement towards a final body of work.
It began with gulls.
This can be viewed from the street using the Artivive app.The paint sketch of the gull after KT Tomlinson’s gull in her 2022 book.
Same gull in flashy pirate mode courtesy of Paintshop Pro (individual recoloured frames) and PowerDirector (video editing).
Another Brighton gull, this one animated in MotionLeap.
First attempt at a bit of stop-motion using Paintshop Pro to crop the head and move and expand it incrementally so that’s it’s bearing down on the viewer. Eye recolouring also in Paintshop Pro.
Overlays and animation in MotionLeap.
I think this is Paintshop Pro – background colour, eyes and text – in four frames.
All the above are made in acrylics, watercolour pencils and, in some cases, soft pastels or charcoal. The last one is massive; I’m not happy with it, and it’s painted on canvas on top of two other things I wasn’t happy with so it will be going the same way shortly!
It moved on to photography
Below is the beginning of a series of photographs inspired by Saul Leiter, photographer and painter, who used opacities to layer and blend his images. These comprise just two layers – one containing built structures, the other a relatively untouched landscape. Layering, opacities, and animations are in PhotoDirector.
I have wildlife cameras in the garden; this one was wet and so caught drifting colours, indistinct forms, and a ghostly figure (me) walking through the scene. It reminded me immediately of Leiter and my own layerings above.
This video foregrounds the street but in layers that allow the field footpath to share the space. The footpath is animated in a ‘northerly’ direction and there’s a reflective animation going the other way in the vehicle on the far left. The sky comes from a video effect in MotionLeap. I retained the thumbnail images at the bottom in resonance with the more urban and technological setting.
Just two photos of the same flyover from two view points, the upper margin of the overlay positioned so that its right vertical strikes a line down from the point where, by strategic positioning of the top horizontal, the bridge intersects with itself. The animation calls up both the slippery mud of the footpath and the speed of cyclists approaching the blind corner.
My somewhat ambitious plan now is to make overlay paintings in the manner of Saul Leiter.
Conboyhill Arts - art from stART to finish 