Tuesday 13 June 2017

What, More Wasps?



Not surprisingly, the success of my two "Golden Wasp Game" prints at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has prompted me to re-engage with a project that I had put to one side last year. The idea behind the pictures – a mysterious game played by both wasps and by humans in their different ways, perhaps a little like Hesse's "glass bead game" but, um, with wasps – now needs working up, so I can put the inevitable Blurb book together.

In the last few days I've added quite a few new images to the series, and in the process developed some new (to me) techniques, which I've found very useful. I like to work at a very lo-tech level, combining elementary Photoshop moves in what, I like to think, are quite creative ways. At the risk of flattering myself, I'm rather reminded of the scissors-and-paste approach behind the Sgt. Pepper album's innovations in sound recording technique, which were described in a recent 50th anniversary programme on the BBC. With any luck, as with that album, the trickery is sufficiently tastefully subordinated to the desired end effect as to be invisible, and thus may stand the test of time.


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