Inspiration Comes From Artists.

I have been interested in art since I was young and have had a love for some artists for a long time and I hope they never leave me.

Here is a list of 5 artists that have always inspired me and why?

Van Gogh
I love Van Gogh. His work was some of the first I remember seeing when I was young. "starry night" and "the sunflowers" were in a books my parents had. I really loved them. During my foundation at UCA, 2012, I went to Amsterdam with the college. The Van Gogh museum was closed at this point but my tutors took us to the Kruller Muller Museum just outside the city and I saw a huge collection of Van Gogh paintings. It was incredibly inspiring and just an amazing experience for me. There was a range from his brightly coloured landscapes to portraits of the poor and charcoal sketches.Then in 2016 my friend took me to New York with her and we went to see "starry night" at the MoMa. Again it was inspirational and beautiful to see these paintings in person.

Monet
Monet is another artist I have loved since I was young. I always loved the colours. I thought they were beautiful. I think it was some of the Water Lily paintings I saw first and found inspirational. Again I've been lucky enough to see them in both Amsterdam and New York and also the Impressionist show in London 2015.

Franz Ackerman
I was introduced to Ackerman during my GCSE's or just before. I had a love of colour and my teachers thought he would inspire me. He did, I liked the bright un-natural bubbles of colour.

Rothko
Rothko's work is beautiful. A real inspiration to my thoughts and ideas throughout university. His colour is fuelled with emotions and I really feel that. I love knowing an artists process, knowing how ideas become art and the process in the middle. Seeing this happen. I'd love to sit in a room and watch him create a piece (I feel like that for all these artists).

Mondrian
Mondrian is an interesting artist to me. I mostly loved reading about him. Stories about how he worked. Never having two canvases the same size and him painting and moving his studio around to resemble his paintings. I think that's what inspired me more.
I do love his work, especially the later pieces depicting New York from above and I feel like I understand those pieces more since being to New York. Seeing a painting in the city it was made really changes your perspective on the painting. It gives you more understanding of the painting and the artists relationship with it.

Thanks, frey frey!

A Blank Canvas - Seasons may Change...

 

Forever being told at university to try using an autumnal palette: reds, greens, yellows. That's not what is inspiring me. Sorry! Until Autumn 2016.

 

Gonna be honest I was quite lazy with this and did it very spur of the moment in the end and it didn't last as long as I would have liked.

 

But it was still pretty awesome!

 

Here's how it went:

• Manic panic hair dye
• Pillabox red
• Sunshine yellow
• Live Vibrant Colour
• Blue
• Punk purple
• Superdrug wash in/wash out
• Strawberry blonde

 

• Like before I had lovely bleach blonde hair to begin, with freshly trimmed to get rid of the straw like ends.
• As I was going for a orange base I used a strawberry blonde wash in/wash out dye to add warm tones to the hair as I had none due to the amount of bleach I use.
• I only had a small amount of orange hair dye left so I mixed that with the red and yellow dyes  I had  (all manic panic) to create a warming autumn leaf tone.
• I then mixed a bluey/purple. I didn't want too much purple but just an undertone running through the blue.
• I added the blue and bit of the red to it in a pot and mixed it.

The two main colours are now ready.

 

In my head I wanted the orange as the main colour on top with the blue underneath like a long shadow. I wanted this appear like a autumnal sunset.

So, I separated my hair into four sections. Two top sections and two under sections.

I looked like I was trying to make a dodgy 90's hair-do.

 

• Keeping bottom layer tied out the way I did one half of the top layer, then the other half.

I used no special technique here. I have no professional training. I just slapped the orange in my hair. To create some depth and tones I added bits of the yellow in places as "highlight" and red "shade". 

I don't think it would have looked as good as it did if I just stuck to orange and blue.

• Once the top layer is nicely smothered in orangey tones I tied the two halves back up and covered in cling film.
• Then I moved on to the blue. 
• I used the same "technique" as before but with blue/purple/red tones. The blue/purple mix I made earlier.
• I left this for a couple of hours wrapped the cling film, washed it out and conditioned. 

Voila! 

My autumnal palette.

Ready for Halloween.

 

I allowed this to just fade as it did over November. I got some wacky looks from this and then bleached it out in the 3rd week of November.

 

I needed the icy blonde look back for December

For this I used:

• Hair bleach
• Colour freedom toner
• Manic Panic shocking blue
• Colour freedom pastel

 

Simple for this one. Just think Elsa!

 

• An icy white blonde top with blue undertone.
• To give it more depth I did a dark deep blue undertone with a more pastel blue middle then blonde top. 
• This stopped harsh lines of colour and allowed the blue to fade into an icy shadow.

 

Thanks, FreyJa!

A Blank Canvas

It is no secret that I like to dye my hair.

When myself and best friend Ellie (EllesBelles) were around 14 or 15, Ellie made a little diary for our school's time capsule about general Towers School life for her. In this, she wrote a profile about me. At that time we counted 18 different hair colour combinations. I'd been dying my hair for 2-3 years at this point. 6-7 years have gone by since then...how has my hair not fallen out since then!!

Whilst studying art, people would say "haha, your hair is like your art" I'd just think "well yeah!". I remember hearing my dad talking to someone, "the blonde is only there as a base in between colours, like her blank canvas"

So,

Post-uni-art-thinking made me decide it was about time I used my hair as a blank canvas and design a series of hair colours showing something to do with colour theory in art.

I'm not big on reading long giant books on theory, prefer colour for dummies or just the basics of colour so I can experiment at my own free-will.

Taking all this into account, I decided on using quotes or sayings from artists or art historians or theorists or general people and turning them into my hair!!

If you get what I saying here...

To show you what I mean, I did a practise run of the first idea.


"The splash of Yellow, says more about the purple than just having a plain field of purple" Danny Rolph, 2016.

 Step by step:

1. Bleach the shit out of your hair..looking for wispy white in colour and fried ends.
2. Separate hair into the sections you want coloured. 
3. Yellow first. Smear dye all over the area. Forget that tip about vasaline on your forehead - going for the Simpson look - leave in hair for a couple hours for stainiest finish.
4. Wash out. Dry. Reseperate the blonde from the yellow best you can the you don't mix the purple with the yellow. 
5. Cover blonde section  in purple hair dye. Realise you don't have enough so throw in a bit of old blue to top up. (Pretend this was all deliberate) yes it was meant to match the tattoo....
6. Leave again for a couple hours. It's semi-pernement it won't do much damage.
7. Now condition the fuck out your hair beca use we want to remind our hair that we love it.
8. Wash out conditioner after another hour and dry.
   
   

I dunno, just trying something new here.

(I was also meant to upload this about a month a go. oops!)

Thankyou, Jack Black!!

I got a 2:2 for my degree.

When I started my course, I remember my tutor telling us about how Brighton students studying fine art cry if you get anything lower than a 2:1.
It’s pretty much a 1^st or nothing.

I didn’t cry.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1.   I gave up with the grade ages ago. I decided about a month into third year that I didn’t care about the grade. I wanted to make it through the year without dying. I made it…sort of.

2.  At the time I had a job that didn’t require my grade, just that I am creative…that fell through so not sure if it counts anymore.

3.   The amount I argued with my tutor, I’m surprised he didn’t fail me.

4.  I did better in my dissertation than my studio practice. Everyone is shocked at that one. F*** you dyslexia!!

5.   Finally!

 My main point. The only point for this blog post. I made the artwork I wanted. I created what made me happy. “Rock isn’t about getting an A” well neither is art. We paint because we love to. 

Unfortunately, that has to be graded at some point and unfortunately, that is in the hands of other people. Unfortunately for me, that decision was left in the hands of a person I did not see eye to eye with. Don’t try to control my creativity!! 

But, I did what I always do when authority pisses me off. I said f*** you and carried on making what I love.

I didn’t suck up to anyone. I didn’t change my art to please others.

 At least I can honestly say I love the art I made at the end. I really do. It makes me happy and that is all that matters.

What to do now?????

Get a tattoo expressing your anger for the system. That’s a punk thing to do!!

Hmm...

After All This Time, I'm Still Into You

After all this time, I’m still into you.

Bet everyone thought I’d write about My Chemical Romance before any other band.

HAHA

So, Paramore was never my favourite band growing up. GreenDay and MCR always came top of the playlist. I’d say they were my favourite female lead band (but, then again, Evanescence).

Side-note: Paramore is my sister's favourite band.

I’ve been thinking about Paramore a lot lately.

When I left home for uni, Paramore released their self-titled album – Paramore.

Their sound had changed. Not for the worse just not as “emo” – happier, maybe.

The album seemed to relate to the things happening in my life.

·      Leaving home to move to the big, bright city of Brighton.

·      Leaving family and friends behind.

·      Moving on

I remember it hitting me when I got off the train in Brighton on my way to a job interview before starting university.

The song “Daydreaming” came on my headphones and the lyrics

“It’s not that I won’t remember where I’m from,

Just don’t wanna be here no more,

It’s not enough”

It was a sunny day and in the distance, as I walked down Queens Road, I could see the sea shining bright blue in front of me.

With all the excitement and positive vibes from moving away from Ashford, those lines just struck a chord with me and the entire album sounded so different.

Other songs on the album that then meant so much more:

·      Grow Up

·      Ain’t it Fun

·      Be Alone

·      Last Hope

·      The Interludes: Moving on, I’m Not Angry Anymore and Holiday

·      Still Into You (but mostly because of mine and my sisters dance routine)

·      Anklebiters

I’ve named almost every song on the album…

My sister, being the super fan she is, told me the album was based around when Hayley moved away from home and growing up and stuff and thangs.

Hayley spoke to me

I was also lucky enough to go see them on the Self-Titled UK Tour they did following this album with my sister and best friend Lauren, funnily enough, the day before I moved to Brighton.

It was amazing!!

Of course, this was not the first time Hayley just seemed to understand.

I mean she was basically the leader for all 14-year-old emo girls everywhere.

With her flicky orange hair, making it cool to be ginger.

We all wanted our hair to be that flicky.

You could say she inspired my wacky coloured hair obsession but that was all me.

We all wanted to go to school and copy her in the Misery Business video.

Songs that meant something to me:

·      Hallelujah (first song I ever heard)

·      Hello Cold World (more association for now)

·      Brighter

·      Born for this

·      Playing God

·      Brick by Boring brick

·      All We Know

·      Fences

Among others, that escape my mind right now.

A little way into uni, my sister introduced me to another song, “Tell Me it’s Okay”, which is basically summed up growing up.

It’s tricky to choose lyrics that really show what I mean so you can just listen to it yourself...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-da28p8B2o

It’s so true…

You were a miserable emo kid through school but it’s okay to grow and be a bit happier now.

All I’m really trying to say is Paramore and their music grew with me and I’m hoping other people around my age feel the same. 
We’re fucking lucky to have that.

I know my sister is definitely jealous of that.

Just want to throw this in here but after all these years competing with Hayley over hair colour she has finally released her own range of hair dye - GoodDyeYoung.

I am too excited to use it!!! It better be good, I’ve been waiting too long for this!!!