I work well within boundaries of 'that what is'. I love photography since 'that what is' can be captured with a tool I know and love. I like re-editing 'that what is' into something different. For example a RAW file in a gorgeous picture, a set of prints into a book, images into a collage. This is my addition to WHISPER Gallery II initiated by @mrblinddraw.

[Intro post on my thoughts on the project and process here.]

Process for the WHISPER Gallery II

Available materials

It made sense for me then to grab pictures I already have and re-create them into a new artwork for the WHISPER Gallery. I was more than excited to see the artwork of @manouche since I knew I would find photographs that I could respond with. As some of you already read I picked a few pictures that came into my mind immediately in this post.

Missing materials

I wanted to create something that would show dancing and/or movement, as a respons on the music @manouche made with her piece for WHISPER. So, what materials did I miss to add that movement to my otherwise static and quite 'straight-lined' pictures? I knew the birds would add some movement to the picture, but they were not enough.

I suddenly remembered an amazing photo series I made in MoMA II in New York City of dansers in an empty museum room. It made sense to add some actual dansers to my piece, right?!

[Example of one of the pictures]

Also, I kept thinking of the red 'dot' in the original artwork of @manouche, and simply grabbed a red crayon to create a red 'dot' on a piece of paper that I could use for the artwork.

How working with those pre-selected pieces worked out

I thought I knew what I was going to make, but it worked out differently. Quite intuitively I started by cutting out the black and white 'path' from one of my pictures in the previous post to start with. It reminded me of the keyboard in @manouche's piece. I wanted it to be less lineair, so I curved the path it in Photoshop.

I then wanted the path to go to 'somewhere' and placed the red 'dot' at the end of the path. I suddenly envisioned the red 'dot' would be the entrance to another world - not exactly the same, but similar. That's how I decided to duplicate the path, turn it upside down and place it as if coming out on the other side of the red dot.

I edited some 'danser photos' into black & white in Lightroom and cut out a few dancers in Photoshop. I placed them on my canvas. Some of the dancers worked well visually, others didn't. Since I worked with black and white on black and white I had to make sure the silhouettes somehow popped out of the path. I reshuffled them until it was both visually pleasing and looked like they were all dancing to the same rhythm. What are they hearing?

I cut out the birds, removed a few, added a few here and there, and let them fly from the red dot in the middle towards the edges on the left of my canvas.

It all turned out too 'white', so I used paper texture to the background. I wanted to add more red and decided on a red frame and played a bit with it so the subjects were both within and outside of the frame. I then wanted to 'fill' the red frame even more, and finally knew what to do with my Suminagashi, which in itself is wrinkly and moving, so could maybe be seen as music waves, or dancing air? Who knows.

The end result

So here it is: my piece 'Danse' in response to @manouche's 'Fête de la Musique'!

[Click for better viewing!]

In the end the materials that were used are: paper, black ink, water, crayon, photoshop, lightroom, and my hands, heart and brain.

The GIF that will make you dizzy:

A few words in closing

I really love this community art project that @mrblinddraw created for us on Steemit. For me personally I know I need an external stimulus to try and create something I don't see as my 'main talent', but I love creating these kind of mixed media collages and want to do them more. So I want to thank @mrblinddraw for creating this 'space' for me and other artists to do this! I also want to thank @manouche for the perfect artwork for me the respond to. And I wish the best of luck to @pyrowngs who is next up!

Return from WHISPER Gallery II: Dance - A mixed media collage to Rosanne's Web3 Blog