Beethoven

Beethoven

Photo experiments… talk about challenging. I’m playing with the face, background, colors, patterns, effects, textures, and my sanity. It takes hours to make something that reaches my sweet spot. It’s a lot longer than my pencil sketch abstract designs. With my pencil sketches, I’m working with a clean background and patterns. It’s easy to go crazy and not have to worry about reactions. Blending is very difficult with photos. I must say that I thrive on the challenge. I get to travel an unknown destination with color that’s drastically different from the beginning. I would like to continue exploring. My hope is to take photos around the country and play with them in paintshop. I had a dream that I took a photo of the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know if I’ll ever make to Paris but it would be amazing to have a chance to play with a photo that I personally took of the Eiffel Tower. I made a design months ago with a picture of the Eiffel Tower. When my computer died, I thought I lost it but I recently found it in my e-mail. I am sure that making the design would be a completely different experience with my own photo. Anyway… I would love to do more photo experiments. I have an idea on a new project and will post an update when it’s complete.

I wanted to use a photo that was copyright free. Plus, I like Beethoven. I always loved classical music. I use to listen to it a lot more in my late teens. I love moonlight sonata. I hope you love my abstract interpretation of Beethoven. I made over 10 different version of this design. I was extremely frustrated yet indecisive. I loved the colors but I thought something was missing in each one. My favorite version is here and in my shop. I will be showing the other versions on social media. I want to add lots of color in my designs. I don’t want to focus on one particular color. Color is infinite and I want to become one with its beauty. I feel it helps me connect more with nature.

Each time I made a design this week, I listened to 80’s new wave music. I definitely believe music has a direct impact. I wanted to use lots of blue, purple, pink and yellow in this design. Sometimes I feel blue and purple are safety colors but there are many different hues within those two colors. I learned while making this design you can go in many directions with blue.

The music video… I wanted to feature synth pop music. I found an awesome song called Revenge by Hekk Doktor. However, the song is 2:50. When I sped up the design I was at 3:18. I had to cut a lot of footage to use the song. The video itself doesn’t feature the last 6+ hours of me designing so there’s a huge chunk missing from the video. I do apologize. I stopped recording after the 3 hour mark. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have done that because I could have place sections from each hour in the video.

I’m really happy with this design and I hope to continue experimenting with portraits. Sometimes, I feel like a chef but with color instead of food. I watch a lot of cooking shows. Every time I eat, I watch something related to cooking. Masterchef UK and Masterchef Professional are my favorites. I also love Masterchef Ireland and Chopped. I love to add lots of elements into a design. Blending color is what I love most about making art. You have to get all the ingredients right to make a nice meal. It’s the same thing with what I do. It’s so easy to mess up the finishing texture. The colors can be awesome but the texture can be a mess. The effects can be all over the place. It’s a constant struggle.

Katherine