AlisonJamesArt
Explorer of physical and virtual environments, an adventurer of the mind and a creator of fantastical things
Weekend Creating
Disclaimer: This is not a SL post, but rather a post about my RL stuff. I hope you enjoy it anyway!
Sooooo….as just about everyone here knows, I am an artist in my physical reality. I came to Second Life as part of my postgraduate studies and have dedicated a lot of time to learning a ridiculous amount of things in order to use the platform to create art. Sometimes though, I just feel the need to return to other mediums and I often do pieces that are not just online world photography or videos. I think I don’t talk about my other art work enough on this blog or anywhere actually, mostly because I have been focused on writing about Second Life things as what I am doing there has been my biggest project to date. Right now though, I feel like chatting about it and showing you some of the other things I do…so here we go…
I have just gotten a beautiful new camera (it’s an EOS M50) and as I have never actually done any serious photography in real life with anything other than my smartphone, I have been spending a lot of time playing with it. It is fast becoming one of my favourite things to do. I still have NO idea what I am doing or what half the settings mean but it has been SO much fun trying to find out. The photos you see here were all taken at a beachfront near me in the hour and a half before sunset as that was the time I had to get out and play.
I love that photography makes you LOOK at things. My second degree was in Environmental Science and I have a particular passion for tidal zone ecosystems, so a lot of the photos I have taken so far seem to highlight that. After spending so long cocooned in my studio at home looking at the outside world through my window, it has been so very lovely to be outside, especially since we have had some absolutely gorgeous days.
On top of the photography, I have been doing some drawing. I have always enjoyed the physicality of scratching on paper with a pencil and I have a terrible habit of collecting pencils from just about everywhere. Don’t ever leave a pencil or a pen near me, ok? You have been warned…This piece was done over the weekend. It takes a bit of time to obsessively draw enough of those little circles to fill a page but I find it quite hypnotic and soothing.
Title: Stars in the Sky
Artist: Alison James
Size: 42.0 x 29.7cm
Medium: 2B pencil
I actually wasn’t going to title it, but a friend of mine said it looked like Stars in the Sky and it felt appropriate given that we have just had a giant full moon here, as well as the 50th anniversary of the moon landing! I draw these types of drawings intuitively. There is more of an emotional connection to them than there is an intellectual one. I simply sit and draw and that is really refreshing after being submerged in an art project that is highly conceptual and has taken 3 years to come to fruition.
So that was the creating I did this weekend. It has been a fun expedition into real life. Tomorrow I will be back at uni asking the hard questions again about life, the universe and everything, but for today, I am just happy to be sharing some of the other works I have enjoyed making this weekend with you.
AlisonJamesArt 