Sunday 10 March 2013

ACT Speedpaint Challenges: Week 1 (1-5)

Hello Everyone,

I thought I would post these speed paint challenges up, sorry for the delay for their appearance on the blog but I wanted to cluster a few up before actually posting them here. It just felt easier to me to get a few so I could do a decent post. Anyway where was I? Ah yes, my process for these speed paint challenges was to listen to the musical extract posted on the group blog about 5-6 times and then once while throwing shapes and lines on the canvas. I stole my mums egg timer set for a 5 minute duration, at the end of the 5 minutes I stopped and posted the result in the drop box :)

I didn't want to spend too long trying to make things look pretty, this exercise was just about doing what I felt in as quicker time as possible. I knew if I didn't do things fast I'd start thinking about it and then would try to refine areas when this is meant to just be about what the music made me feel. I am pleased to say that It did change every day, so obviously the pieces have been making me feel different as the music changes. It was kind of soothing to just throw stuff on a canvas doing what my arm told me for a change not using my very small brain too much lol.

Anyway the paintings are below, sorry again for their delay.


Speed paint Day 1 (light in a bottle) was my first, the music felt very sombre and I'd know as I spend most of my days listening to sad music lol. The first thing I saw was the waves just rippling in a stormy night. The bottle came towards the 3 minute mark I felt like the tune was following something and the bottle just materialised. The light inside represents something which I kind of hold dear - "finding that light in a sea of darkness", its never an easy thing to do but I think on some level the opening made me feel that way... Quite a bit of food for thought I don't mind saying!


Speed paint Day 2 (Underwater fish tank) was where my mind took me from the first, I listened to the two pieces together to attain some level of continuity. From the bottle the music sent me under the water to the floor, the erratic nature made me think that my computer screen was going to erupt with water which is where the overloaded screen comes from. Still there was something that took me underneath the water, it was like I was carried by a ripple of water or something. Can't be 100% but the tune did gradually sound more chaotic as it went on.


Speed Paint Day 3 (The Space Geyser) was when the fish tank erupted. Still the music did calm down a little here which made me feel like I was in a space scape. The spiral is the Geyser just in case you were wondering but it felt right with the planet shapes to knock up a solar system using a spiral (Fibonacci style). The track continued an erratic natures but towards the end it certainly began calming down a little. The finishing touches of the piece were just afterthoughts as the 5 minute timer ticked past its final few seconds and then bing it was done - Drop boxed!!


Speed Paint Day 4 (The Insane Plaformer) was a mix and mash it felt like the calm before the storm so the first thing I saw was fire gradually rising. The platforms themselves did not come in until we got towards the end as I knew it was building to the big finale. I kept a normal standard brush for this entire speed paint just because I really wanted to have a stab at some little features. I think this is the only piece that I did which came in under time, (2 whole seconds under time). Not much but still it was nice to have that as a little feat of my own haha.


Speed Paint Day 5 (The Flustered Forrest) was my big finale for the end of week #1 the track really felt sinister as I knew it was building to it. I knocked in a rather crude little window from a grunge brush and placed overgrowth everywhere. It just felt very haunted house to me. As the speed of the track rose I imagined leaves falling from the brush almost like an earthquake with leaves. I had thought about colouring the window a slightly different colour but then the buzzer buzzed for my 5 minutes so I left it, now that I look at it its quite bright... My tablet made all of these darker lol.

I have to say I have been terrified of having to do these quick images as I said to Phil before all of this started, I don't do things quickly, I like to refine. Still I don't think I did awful here even though speed really isn't my thing. It was quite nice to a change to beat the punch before my thought machine kicked in. That's the main reason I gave myself the 5 minutes, any longer and I knew I would probably get too into it and try to refine it more then I should. The goal of these exercises is just to capture what the piece made you feel and the best way to do that is quickly.

Anyway, I think that concludes this little post, again apologies for the delay in getting these on the blog I just like to cluster stuff like this up to do a decent post. Its also nice to be able to run them off of each other, I can literally see the journey that I had throughout the song... I don't think I would have noticed if they were far apart or separated by another post lol.

Catcha Later people!!
xXStItChXx

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