landscapes

Posts tagged
with landscapes

Photography

Smeared Skies Made from Hundreds of Stacked Photographs by Matt Molloy

Living on the shore of Lake Ontario, just east of Toronto, photographer Matt Molloy has daily encounters with brilliant sunsets and cloudscapes that he’s been photographing for over three years. One day he began experimenting with time-lapse sequences by taking hundreds of images as the sun set and the clouds moved through the sky. Molloy then digitally stacked the numerous photos to reveal shifts in color and shape reminiscent of painterly brush strokes that smeared the sky. You can learn more about his “timestack” technique over at Digital Photo Magazine and prints are available here. (via bored panda)

Art

Dreamlike Split-Level Landscapes Painted by Jeremy Miranda

Artist Jeremy Miranda lives and works in Salem, Massachusetts where he works with acrylic paint to create images influenced by nature, technology, and memory. Among my favorite of his works are his split-level landscapes connected by ladders that depict hidden worlds just under the surface of the ocean. Miranda has original paintings and prints available through Etsy, Enormous Tiny Art, and Sebastian Foster.

Art

Realistic Urban Landscape Paintings of Chicago and New York by Nathan Walsh

Many painters working from photographic source material employ a wide variety of techniques to arrive at a final image. This will involve anything from loose sketching beforehand to complex grids, where a photograph is translated into paint box by box. Such is not the case with British painter Nathan Walsh who instead relies on elaborate drawings reminiscent of architectural blueprints before every committing paint to canvas. This deep reverence for the underpinning geometry and perspective gives each work a sense of life that might otherwise not be present in something created with the mechanical aid of a camera or software.

Walsh tells me his primary source materials are not photographs but pencil sketches drawn on-site, for example the Chicago pieces above began from over 100 drawings he then references in his studio. In this way he can easily alter the position and size of any particular element, a process he likens to “building a world from scratch”. Personally I think the process is more akin to building the entire world in his mind so he can better represent it later in his paintings, each of which takes up to 3-4 months to complete. Via his website:

I deal exclusively with the urban landscape and aim to present a painted world which in some ways resembles the world we live in. I am fascinated by the city, it’s visual complexity and constant state of flux. The act of painting is an attempt fix this information and give vision to our experience of living within it. […] The work aims to create credible and convincing space which whilst making reference to our world displays it’s own distinct logic. This space is created through drawing, which I see as fundamental in establishing a world the viewer can engage with. Drawing allows me to make human pictorial decisions instead of relying on the mechanical eye of a camera or software package. This process is open ended and changes from one painting to the next. Whilst I employ a variety of perspectival strategies, these methods are not fixed or rigid in their application. Working with a box of pencils and an eraser I will start by establishing an horizon line on which I will place vanishing points to construct simple linear shapes which become subdivided into more complex arrangements.

You can see numerous final works at a much higher resolution, as well as initial drawings over on his website. Walsh will have work at the Changing Perspectives technology conference in Paris later this month, and is working on a solo show at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in November.

Photography

Long Exposure Tree Landscapes by Pierre Pellegrini

Swiss photographer Pierre Pellegrini shoots some phenomenal long-exposure photographs of trees. The strong perspective and foggy atmosphere seemingly ever-present in his work creates images that are both beautiful and eerie. You can see hundreds more of his images over on Art Limited and on his personal website.

Illustration

Paper Landscape Illustrated by Eiko Ojala

It’s hard to visit an art or design blog these days without spotting the illustration work of Estonian artist Eiko Ojala, his Naked series is a great place to get started. The artist works digitally without the aid of 3D software where he draws everything by hand to create landscapes, figures and portraits that look as if they’ve been cut from paper. Most critical are the placement of shadows which Ojala also draws by hand, though via email he admits the complexity occasionally requires the use of photographed shadows which he then incorporates into the illustrations. His latest work is this beautiful Vertical Landscape which is easily one of his most accomplished pieces and I think bodes well for this young illustrator’s career. Wouldn’t you love to see this in motion? (via behance)

Art Photography

Picturesque Chinese Landscapes are Actually Disguised Photos of Landfills

Take a few steps back or perhaps just squint your eyes and these images by artist Yao Lu might resemble traditional Chinese landscape paintings of cliffs, waterfalls, and mountains. Look a bit closer and your perspective may change. Lu digitally assembles each of her images using photographs of landfills and other aspects of urbanization draped in green mesh to mimic idyllic scenery. Similar to the recent work of Yang Yongliang featured on this blog just last week, Lu seems to be making a thinly-veiled commentary on the encroaching ecological threat of urbanization. See much more over at Bruce Silverstein Gallery. (via beautiful decay)