This new place is where I want to share the photos that I turn into abstract images. I have done this for a number of years for lots of reasons. Computers have always given me the opportunity to play. Initially this was more appealing than actually getting messy with paint and as I have told you before I only recently gave myself permission to admit that I could draw. Before that I limited myself to my camera and small fabric creations . Small was good, it could be done quickly and didn't take much storage but , upon reflection, I also had small children that made more than enough mess and I didn't want to clean up more than I already had to. When my children moved away, I had more space and more time and so creativity expanded but not all at once. I still had a lot of learning to do and my camera was the first starting point. Some of my photos were terrible and being a person who never deletes stuff without pause to ask... is this truly something that can not be salvaged? I began my journey into photo manipulation.
My Dad, who was in his eighties at the time, was also taking people out of photos and adding backgrounds and resizing things. So we shared techniques and results as a matter of course. I found and decided that printing photos on fabric was really fun but of course the colours had to be intensified and that lead me eventually to photoshop. I'll be the first to tell you that I only use the tiniest bit of this huge and amazing software but it is time to start sharing these results.
The photography group I frequented on Flickr under my alias "whimc" closed and the other members moved on to other groups and I have yet to find a firm alternative. At the same time I have been concentrating more on my fabric creations, mixing photos and paintings to print on fabric which I then quilt either by hand or machine. I will begin to share those soon too but this weekend Kat Sloma posted that she had recently been exploring her photo processing by making abstracts which she was going to share on instagram. That got me thinking! As I don't want to learn how to use instagram just now, I thought I could share my process here. And this will also lead me into more sharing of my fabric art, which I have also wanted to showcase for some time. Isn't it wonderful how ideas and plans all seem to swirl together and find their voice? One has only to stay open then as the idea presents itself, to accept it and move it forward. So here I am!
I went back through my photo archives and found some of my first photo manipulations and I will start by sharing those. Perhaps you will see a progression, perhaps you will see random application but at any rate you will see how I find and use my computer to assist my art.
When does play become serious enough to become art? A question I think I will return to often.
I used this photo printed on sheer organza on my very first Quilt that was exhibited in France.
