Art by Josh Millard
June 7, 2017 11:14 AM Subscribe
Art by Josh Millard
I've been painting a lot lately, exploring in particular mathematical themes and especially variations on the Menger sponge. I'm proud of the progress I've made, and have built a simple site to show off my finished work: Art by Josh Millard.
I've also been writing about art process stuff on my blog, e.g. a step-by-step document of the execution of yesterday's new painting, Five Concentric Wireframe Cubes.
I've been painting a lot lately, exploring in particular mathematical themes and especially variations on the Menger sponge. I'm proud of the progress I've made, and have built a simple site to show off my finished work: Art by Josh Millard.
I've also been writing about art process stuff on my blog, e.g. a step-by-step document of the execution of yesterday's new painting, Five Concentric Wireframe Cubes.
Role: Artist, blogger, wordpress theme curser-atter
I think I've seen most of these over Twitter, mltshp, and Mastodon over the past few months, but their impact as Works really comes across much more strongly in this collection!
posted by ignignokt at 7:47 PM on June 7, 2017
posted by ignignokt at 7:47 PM on June 7, 2017
Love these! How do you take the photos of your pieces? I've taken some photos of my paintings using my iPhone and my iPad but the photos always look kind of lame. And I lose a lot of any translucence that the painting might have. Are you finding that your photos are translating pretty accurately?
posted by gt2 at 3:33 AM on June 8, 2017
posted by gt2 at 3:33 AM on June 8, 2017
Let's do a live stream sometime.
I've thought about time lapses but I worry that a livestream of me painting very carefully and cursing occasionally and not being able to keep up a line of chatter while getting anything done would make for deadly dull viewing. Maybe if I have an idea for something relatively kinetic, though.
How do you take the photos of your pieces? I've taken some photos of my paintings using my iPhone and my iPad but the photos always look kind of lame. And I lose a lot of any translucence that the painting might have. Are you finding that your photos are translating pretty accurately?
I've tried both my iPhone and a solid DSLR; the DSLR takes a crisper photo but honestly I'm just not super happy with either result in the lighting available in my house, so I've been falling to the easier/quicker path of phone snapshots. I'll raise or lower the blinds in my office depending on the current lighting and how glossy and glare-prone a given painting is, then import to iPhoto, crop, and do a minimal amount of exposure/highlight/shadow tweaking to get the on-screen image closer to the in-room impression.
In the end, some photograph better than others. I'm not happy with how Building At Midnight and especially Building At Sunrise look in their photos and may try to reshoot them once they've dried; the contrast and low, low values in both and the subtle blue in Sunrise's sky present a big challenge to capturing a good picture in meh lighting.
And, yeah, translucency is difficult I think no matter what. Both Menger Orange Glaze and Buddy rely on a fair amount of translucent glaze layering of paint thinned with medium, which is really only visible in person as the light plays off it differently to each eye, changing with subtle head movements.
But the photos in general are good enough to represent the paintings accurately; most of my stuff has relied more on relatively flat, opaque paint finishes and bare canvas, both of which translate reasonably well even in a so-so photograph because the regions of color and transitions between them come through and drive the experience of the painting.
posted by cortex at 7:41 AM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
I've thought about time lapses but I worry that a livestream of me painting very carefully and cursing occasionally and not being able to keep up a line of chatter while getting anything done would make for deadly dull viewing. Maybe if I have an idea for something relatively kinetic, though.
How do you take the photos of your pieces? I've taken some photos of my paintings using my iPhone and my iPad but the photos always look kind of lame. And I lose a lot of any translucence that the painting might have. Are you finding that your photos are translating pretty accurately?
I've tried both my iPhone and a solid DSLR; the DSLR takes a crisper photo but honestly I'm just not super happy with either result in the lighting available in my house, so I've been falling to the easier/quicker path of phone snapshots. I'll raise or lower the blinds in my office depending on the current lighting and how glossy and glare-prone a given painting is, then import to iPhoto, crop, and do a minimal amount of exposure/highlight/shadow tweaking to get the on-screen image closer to the in-room impression.
In the end, some photograph better than others. I'm not happy with how Building At Midnight and especially Building At Sunrise look in their photos and may try to reshoot them once they've dried; the contrast and low, low values in both and the subtle blue in Sunrise's sky present a big challenge to capturing a good picture in meh lighting.
And, yeah, translucency is difficult I think no matter what. Both Menger Orange Glaze and Buddy rely on a fair amount of translucent glaze layering of paint thinned with medium, which is really only visible in person as the light plays off it differently to each eye, changing with subtle head movements.
But the photos in general are good enough to represent the paintings accurately; most of my stuff has relied more on relatively flat, opaque paint finishes and bare canvas, both of which translate reasonably well even in a so-so photograph because the regions of color and transitions between them come through and drive the experience of the painting.
posted by cortex at 7:41 AM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
Wow, these are great!
posted by equalpants at 5:26 PM on June 8, 2017
posted by equalpants at 5:26 PM on June 8, 2017
I've loved the process shots you've put on twitter...they're inspiring and remind me to GET TO WORK.
Not sure if you've got one, but the newer GoPros have awesome timelapse software built in. It's painless. For lighting, get a couple of those cheapo clip lights, two matching new light bulbs of the same color/wattage/etc (get old-style tungsten if you can). stretch some t-shirts over them to make it softer. Put them 45 degrees from each other. It'll do. (I'm a lighting guy and photographer, but I'm not YOUR lighting guy/photographer....)
posted by nevercalm at 6:36 PM on June 9, 2017
Not sure if you've got one, but the newer GoPros have awesome timelapse software built in. It's painless. For lighting, get a couple of those cheapo clip lights, two matching new light bulbs of the same color/wattage/etc (get old-style tungsten if you can). stretch some t-shirts over them to make it softer. Put them 45 degrees from each other. It'll do. (I'm a lighting guy and photographer, but I'm not YOUR lighting guy/photographer....)
posted by nevercalm at 6:36 PM on June 9, 2017
Not sure if you've got one, but the newer GoPros have awesome timelapse software built in.
I don't have one, but I think Matt might; I could pick his brain at some point. Could probably also just rig something up with an existing camera, I suppose.
I really love Three Blacks.
Heh, another MeFite actually bought that one!
posted by cortex at 7:15 AM on June 19, 2017
I don't have one, but I think Matt might; I could pick his brain at some point. Could probably also just rig something up with an existing camera, I suppose.
I really love Three Blacks.
Heh, another MeFite actually bought that one!
posted by cortex at 7:15 AM on June 19, 2017
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