15 January 2017 Birds, Art, and the Future

We have recently added to our menagerie here at Toad Hall. Having ordered 48 fertile bantam chicken eggs only three have hatched. They are adorable and I am looking forward to their adult antics and currently enjoying their chick cuteness.

I have always loved birds and as I do artwork most days, they cannot help but influence my current piece. Today, however, we do not see chickens but song birds in trees. I love the decorative arts and the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain in the mid Victorian period has always been a favourite of mine.

The colours of the vintage world of the 1950's and 1960's also highly influence me. And dreaming out my studio window there is plenty of lovely colour and light. I like to take those colours and intensify them. To increase their potency just a bit above reality.

Today's drawing is birds among the tress. I did it thinking of it as a continuing image that could be lovely on fabric or even wallpaper.Indeed, I do like it on various products.

 These can be purchased HERE.

 I am finding, as I do my pieces each day, that I am continuing to return to the decorative. Whilst I used to mainly think of a piece as a single painting or print hanging on a wall, the joy of being on Society6 and seeing my work on decorative home goods like pillows and duvet and clocks certainly spurs me on in that direction. When one views what they are creating as a continual piece being spread out amongst many things and going out into the world in a vast array rather than a limited item to hang on one or few persons wall, it makes one feel more connected.

This seems to be what I find more and more as technology becomes more integrated into our daily lives. How we live now would seem futuristic to our selves twenty years ago. And although I love the past I realize the future is where we must live and in so doing try to find the best in that direction. And with creativity and artwork and creation in general technology and moving beyond the physical into the digital seems almost magic. With Virtual Reality becoming the next big move (perhaps it will be the mobile phone of the next 5 years) seeing things such as this that allows one to draw themselves a 3-d world or a piece the viewer can walk into certainly makes tomorrow seem more exciting than frightening. I hope all have a lovely vintage and hopeful looking forward day.

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