Thursday, May 10, 2007

Art is about learning



I'm just now beginning to discover the wonderful world of patterns to use as backgrounds. There are so many gorgeous patterns out there. I wish I had the ability to design my own patterns. I'm also liking working with contemporary images, I guess I'm a little vintaged out at the moment especially the images of woman from Victorian and Edwardian times. I'm still enjoying images, photo's and graphics from the fifties onwards because I haven't worked much with them, I recently found a set of illustrated encyclopedias from 1958, and I'm using images and graphics from there in my journal pages.
I feel at this point it's necessary for me to cite some of my influences. Because I've only in the last three months turned my attention to playing with my arty side, and being completely self taught, I've had to learn a lot by copying techniques from the internet and from other people's work. Unfortunately there are no classes and workshops that teach this kind of art in South Africa that I know of. So, at present I'm really influenced by, and learning from the art of Mary Ann from Dispatch from LA, Judy Wise and Kelly Kilmer, all of which I absolutely love and enjoy the different styles. I'm never sure if artists are irritated by us plebs copying them, or if they take it as a compliment. Either way, I'd like to thank them most profusely for so generously sharing their creations on the net. In time, hopefully my own individual style will begin to emerge more strongly, but I guess in a way art is a meme, and we learn from the innovaters and trendsetters.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bronwyn,

I love the journal work you're doing over here. I think you are developing your own style and would never think you were copying. I think you do what all artists do - you see an element you like and do something similar. There are very few original ideas. They all have to come from somewhere right? Keep up the great posts and beautiful journal pages!