Casey Neistat - Filmmaker/Youtuber.

Casey Neistat is a film-maker I discovered on youtube, he has recently started making daily vlogs.

Something that inspires me about Casey is no matter what is going on in his life (work, family, travel) he manages to post a vlog everyday that is visually stunning. He uses a lot of time lapses of new york and various things he does to pad out the vlogs so to speak but they are so beautifully done that they have become an essential and much loved part of the videos he posts. Aside for the asthtetics of the videos he posts, i also love the content. He tries to put across how important it is to just make. dont be a perfectionist, as long as you dont give up and you just create, tell the story you are trying to tell no matter what. This is definitely something im working on embedding into my life in order to add my art practice into my every day life like he does.

Unsplash.

I recently found a couple of websites that have license free images meaning that anyone can use them for whatever they want, personal and commercial. I had no idea that something like this existed and it really opens up the possibilities for work as if i cant find a way of taking my ow picture i can ssearch through the collections to find one that will or or even some that will inspire me. my favorite out of all these sites is Unsplash.com. the website is simple and easy to use and focuses on the image making it easy to navigate, it also features collections so its easy to look through for inspiration too.

Leeds Corn Exchange

I finally visited Leeds Corn Exchange this week to see what the place had to offer as the "home of independents" 

The place itself is really lovely and i guess its useful to know what's in there and what it has to offer in terms of independent art. there are not art shops so to speak, there is mostly just fashion boutiques, however there is one place called The Great Yorkshire shop. I liked this place particularly because it features stuff  made exclusively by independent companies, makers, artists and designers of Yorkshire. This will be a really nice place to visit every so often to get an idea of what the designers and artists of Yorkshire are creating.

Bertil Nillson - Naturally

These are a few images from a series called Naturally by Bertil Nillson. I originally saw one of the images on tumblr and went searching for the artist and come across the series on his website. 

The artists statement: 

"Naturally was born from that inspiration to explore, both the landscape and our role within it. Working with the naked figure in nature is straightforward, there is an obvious connection with our natural history. I’m interested in what happens when I introduce cultural elements – colour, shape and dance gestures – to question that relationship"

I really love these images because it demonstrates a very graphical composition. nature in the background, the figure in the foreground to bring focus and the bold use of colour to draw the eye to the shape of the figure. It is evident that the artist has considered balance in his images as there is definite contrast of colour, like the one where it is black sand, white sea foam and then the stark contrast of the red figure.

I hope to use this series of images to inspire me in the future showing how i can transfer my knowledge of graphical elements to nature and create a lovely balance between the two.

Mark E Miller - GO

Mark E Miller is a YouTuber I have followed for a while, he makes weekly vlogs about his life and incorporates time lapses and really nice visual transitions into his videos. One of his most recent videos is called GO and is a motivational video for the new year. A few weeks before new years Mark requested bike themed images from his viewers and GO is a compilation of those images. I really like this because it is a collaboration on a huge scale, the resulting video is incredibly beautiful and highlights the fact that you can collaborate with people who might not consider themselves artists. The "brief" Mark set out was incredibly simple and vague: A bike themed image and he managed to get hundreds of really lovely images.

This video has inspired me to consider this kind of collaboration in the future or as a possibility for a future brief. I could use tumblr or facebook to request a simple picture or drawing and incorporate it into my work. This is also really exiting as you dont know what you're going to get sent so the possibilities for the resulting piece of work are endless.