Unleash your creative superpowers!
Landfill provides inspiration for children with a dream
The next time you find yourself whining about not having the right mans health materials, instruments, or equipment for your current project, watch the video above.
Don’t be a brat. Get creative.
(Pic #1) Our house cat Ducky – bathed in negative space. (Photo by Josh Kaplan)
It’s called “negative space” — but there is nothing negative about it.
In fine art, a painter or photographer strives to draw you (the viewer) in to his world. One of the easiest ways to do that is to “lose your center” — by focusing on something outside the middle of the frame. By doing that, you get to leave a beautiful space for the viewer’s imagination. By definition, negative space is the emptiness surrounding the subject – but if embraced, it can acquire its own sense of form.
The whole idea of an artist’s interpretation of a subject is to present it in a fresh way — capturing the familiar and transforming it into something radically different — making it uniquely his. Allowing negative space to breathe can create a kind of power levitra through its own volume. As you see in Pic #3, American painter Franz Kline thoughtfully merges positive and negative spaces into the picture plane, and one effectively supports the other.
In the photograph (Pic #2) of my shoulder, my husband completely eliminates what traditionally would be my portrait, and instead gives way to the soft blurry background that creates its own weighty, curious abstraction. My face is almost irrelevant. (And that’s totally cool on days I’m not wearing makeup.)
Left: (Pic #2) My environmental portrait – faceless, off center. Right: (Pic #3) Painting by Franz Kline: Equally playing the power of positive and negative. (Photo by Josh Kaplan.)
(Pic #4) Close-up, tricycle handlebar. (Photo by Josh Kaplan)
(Pic #5) The ear of our 21-year-old house cat Marbot, swimming in negative space.
(Pic #1) Brightly colored pens, close-up, at Art Essentials in Santa Barbara, California. (Photo by Josh Kaplan.)
My surefire cure for getting unstuck:
It happens to all of us. That wall we hit when it’s not working. We’re dry. Scared. Frustrated and empty. The artist asks: When will inspiration come? Is there a chance it’s left for good? And if it has, how then do we define ourselves? At least that’s the rabbit hole I start sliding down, and maybe you do too.
Get to the nearest art supply store – it’s seriously therapeutic.
For me, just walking into an art store gives me a jolt of, “Let’s get started” or “Damn, I just have to work with those colors.” There’s something about seeing a row of Seafoam pastels juxtaposed with hot magenta… or a sweet shade of violet that reminds me of the miniature crocuses scattered in our front yard when I was a kid.
My eyes dart around as if I’m peaking on a sugar rush. The paintbrushes diabetes call out to be touched. I give in – stroking the red sables and the super-soft $75 brushes I’ll never allow myself to buy. But they are doing their job: they are getting me excited about making art.
I start “testing” colors in the French pastel section – checking their compatibility with each other. I remembered a woman in my art critique group pairing a pale dusty pink with an olive green. Those colors reminded me of the striped Danskin tops I wore when I was 10. That thought reminds me that (also) when I was 10 — I never got stuck. Give me a periwinkle Crayola and some free time, and I was good to go.
And now, walking out of Art Essentials in Santa Barbara with my new aquamarine oil stick and a receipt that shows I indulged myself to the tune of $3.89 — I’m good to go again.
An inspirational visit to “Art Essentials” in Santa Barbara. (Photo by Josh Kaplan.)
