I know we’ve finally arrived to “the future” when we can make colour dance.

Dentsu London just launched a project in collaboration with photographer/biochemist, Linden Gledhill, to reinvigorate the Canon brand and promote the PIXMA colour range printer. The project “brings colour to life” through “sound sculptures” made of paint droplets captured in vivid detail as they “dance” in response to sound waves.

Using a high-speed camera – the Canon 5D Mark II, to be exact (with a  100mm lens) – Gledhill will be capturing more mesmerizing formations of vibrant water-based paints. When you see it on video, it really looks like rigged animation, but it’s not; what you see, is really what happened in real life.

How do they do it? Dentsu explains on its blog: “The ‘colour sculptures’ were created by stretching a balloon over a speaker to form a membrane.  A few drops of paint [...]]]>

Sound sculptures by Linden Gledhill.

I know we’ve finally arrived to “the future” when we can make colour dance.

Dentsu London just launched a project in collaboration with photographer/biochemist, Linden Gledhill, to reinvigorate the Canon brand and promote the PIXMA colour range printer. The project “brings colour to life” through “sound sculptures” made of paint droplets captured in vivid detail as they “dance” in response to sound waves.

Using a high-speed camera – the Canon 5D Mark II, to be exact (with a  100mm lens) – Gledhill will be capturing more mesmerizing formations of vibrant water-based paints. When you see it on video, it really looks like rigged animation, but it’s not; what you see, is really what happened in real life.

How do they do it? Dentsu explains on its blog: “The ‘colour sculptures’ were created by stretching a balloon over a speaker to form a membrane.  A few drops of paint were then placed in the centre of the balloon and a single sharp note was played through the speaker, causing the paint to erupt for just a fraction of a second.” You better believe it!

Tidbit: Want to see more? Take a look at Gledhill’s Water Figures project.

As I’m no art connoisseur, I was pleasantly surprised to find how influential colour development through the ages was on art as we know it (did you know that until the late 19th century, artists lacked vivid greens and purples?) There’s lots to explore about colour – and even if you’re an expert, the interactivity features of the exhibit are quite captivating.

See which pigments stood the test of time and what different colours symbolize and why. You can shed layers of a single painting to [...]]]>
We came across a pretty neat webpage, or rather an entire web exhibit, entitled Pigments Through the Ages. The site gives visitors an entire history of manufacture and use of different pigments. Whether you’re a colour nerd or not, there’s lots to discover without feeling bogged down by chemistry or unexplained jargon. (I discovered what egg tempera is and the difference between violet and purple! Cool!)

As I’m no art connoisseur, I was pleasantly surprised to find how influential colour development through the ages was on art as we know it (did you know that until the late 19th century, artists lacked vivid greens and purples?) There’s lots to explore about colour – and even if you’re an expert, the interactivity features of the exhibit are quite captivating.

See which pigments stood the test of time and what different colours symbolize and why. You can shed layers of a single painting to see differences between paint techniques, compare colours in 3D, or see The Adoration of the Magi under ultraviolet light!

Have a look and you’ll find out who pioneered chrome yellow, where Van Dyke brown got its name, and how veridian helped researchers date and authenticate paintings.

Tidbit: Read about how our own Bruce Alcock designed screens for the play I Send You This Cadmium Red to help bring
colours to life.

Here’s her blogspot:

http://lauracarlin.blogspot.com/

She just won an award for a lovely book called the Iron Man:

http://www.walker.co.uk/The-Iron-Man-9781406324679.aspx

As you can see, the paintings are almost done now. They’re brightening up the studio downstairs. It’s really quite beautiful to see them all lined up whith the sunlight passing through the bamboo blinds. The paintings are beginning to feel more like a cohesive set with a common language of blobs, sepia washes, dense line-work and a tendency toward flatness in lieu of modeling and light-rendering. The next time we update on the Vive La Rose paintings, you’ll be seeing the finished product!

Don’t forget that the finished paintings will be showing (along with a screening of Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound [...]]]>

As you can see, the paintings are almost done now. They’re brightening up the studio downstairs. It’s really quite beautiful to see them all lined up whith the sunlight passing through the bamboo blinds. The paintings are beginning to feel more like a cohesive set with a common language of blobs, sepia washes, dense line-work and a tendency toward flatness in lieu of modeling and light-rendering. The next time we update on the Vive La Rose paintings, you’ll be seeing the finished product!

Don’t forget that the finished paintings will be showing (along with a screening of Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound Symposium.

It appears as though Bruce is starting to finish some of these paintings. Check out the figure-drawing on the two fish pictures. Beautiful. And what about those water pictures? They’re looking mighty wet!  We can see that Bruce has added quite a bit of turpentine to the potatoes to try and get that watercolor effect in the boiling potatoes painting. To get the effect of the steam, he’s used a drybrush with white paint. He’s also added sepia washes to the paintings of the woman to tone down the candy pink backgrounds. Next Bruce plans on adding some punch to the cod jigger and finishing the figures in the piano scene.

The finished paintings will be showing (along with a screening of Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in [...]]]>

It appears as though Bruce is starting to finish some of these paintings. Check out the figure-drawing on the two fish pictures. Beautiful. And what about those water pictures? They’re looking mighty wet!  We can see that Bruce has added quite a bit of turpentine to the potatoes to try and get that watercolor effect in the boiling potatoes painting. To get the effect of the steam, he’s used a drybrush with white paint. He’s also added sepia washes to the paintings of the woman to tone down the candy pink backgrounds. Next Bruce plans on adding some punch to the cod jigger and finishing the figures in the piano scene.

The finished paintings will be showing (along with a screening of Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound Symposium.

It looks like Bruce is close to finishing some of these paintings. He’s switching it up as he goes, adding cold wax medium to a few of the paintings of the woman (steam moving over the extreme close-up of her eyes and nose bridge, for her whole body to differentiate it from the other figures in the piano scene and in her hair for the face close-up). He then dragged water-diluted india ink over the wax for a nice resist look. It appears as though the fish are getting fishier now, with indigo oil-bar line work watered with turpentine, plus a little ochre. You can see in the photos that the Vancouver Spring is shining through the windows giving the studio area around Bruce’s painting project a comfortable glow.

The finished paintings will be showing (along with [...]]]>

It looks like Bruce is close to finishing some of these paintings. He’s switching it up as he goes, adding cold wax medium to a few of the paintings of the woman (steam moving over the extreme close-up of her eyes and nose bridge, for her whole body to differentiate it from the other figures in the piano scene and in her hair for the face close-up). He then dragged water-diluted india ink over the wax for a nice resist look. It appears as though the fish are getting fishier now, with indigo oil-bar line work watered with turpentine, plus a little ochre. You can see in the photos that the Vancouver Spring is shining through the windows giving the studio area around Bruce’s painting project a comfortable glow.

The finished paintings will be showing (along with a screening of Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound Symposium.

Today, Bruce worked a lot with red. As you can see, there is a lot of it in the background of the transfigured woman: mixed transparent red oxide, venetian red, cadmium hue deep and a little mars red. He also worked on drybrushing the edges of the woman’s hair and dress (she’s becoming a spirit at this point in the film, so she needs to dissolve into the background). It appears as though the roses will need several more washes and we seem to be running out of black. Look at that texture. Worth it? Totally.

When the paintings are finished, they will be showing (along with Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound Symposium.

The Vive la Rose paintings are now starting to take shape. Bruce is working with his drybush, oil bars (also called oil sticks), and lots of turpentine. If only he’d remembered to open a window, he wouldn’t have gotten so lightheaded (and that goes for the rest of us who walked through the room. The dizziness was thick like a fog). Bruce says he’s trying to take it easy and go at a medium pace and that he’s loving the large scale of these canvases. More of the painting process will come as he finishes these beauties.

Again, when the paintings are finished, they will be showing (along with Vive La Rose) at the Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound Symposium.

Bruce’s film is going to be in a gallery show! The Christina Parker Gallery, in conjunction with the Nickel Film Festival and the 15th biannual Sound Symposium, will be showing selected artwork, props and set elements from Vive la Rose along with fifteen new 24×36 paintings of defining moments from the film.

This is the first in a series of work-in-progress postings bringing us from the beginning of Bruce’s painting process, to the finished product. We will be posting more photos as Bruce completes more of this project.