Vive La Différence – Andy Warhol

Happy monday. It’s another dose of vive la différence and this one marks the 1st year’s anniversary. I want to thank all my guest bloggers who contributed with such gusto and all you readers for the continuous encouragement of this series. Personally i’m delighted to be able to feature great bloggers and simultaneously take part. I’ve learned a ton of new skills along the way and i hope you enjoyed the fruits of labour and got some inspiration. Thank you all! 

My guest this month is michelle, author of MYcreative. Michelle is a photographer and, amongst other things, offers eat & snap walk-shops

For new readers:

The concept: each month I will invite one blogger. They will create and showcase one image/vignette. There are 20 themes and 20 objects for my guest to choose from. They choose 1 theme and up to 3 objects. I will then create an image/vignette based on their choice. Everyone has free reign on how to create the image. It can be simple photography, a drawing, a collage, a hand-painted image, a styled table top… the choice is yours! The fun part is that you, my readers, will see 2 versions inspired by the same subject matter. There is no right or wrong. There’s just ‘different’.

Michelle chose the theme: Andy Warhol – over to Michelle!

I dived into Tina’s site after meeting her at blognic and loved all the creativity that was being celebrated there.  As you might be able to tell from my own blog’s name (MYcreative) creativity is big for me.  A side of me I only rediscovered a couple years ago.  More recently I have been putting in extra effort in experimenting with my photography. So when Tina asked me to take part in Viva La Différence I couldn’t say no.

I chose a ‘theme’ of Andy Warhol as I had just started a photo challenge on my own blog which looked at reinterpreting an art piece using photography.  For that I went for a more traditional still life but I liked how Andy has a more fun and spontaneous nature.  To me the first thing that comes into my head when you say Andy Warhol are his pop art pieces. I thought the peony – one of the favourites of bloggers but still with a limited shelf life – was a great celebrity replacement (it’s so hard to get those celebrities on short notice!).

I created this by taking an ariel shot of a peony on a white background (two pieces of white paper plonked together) and then using this tutorial to mimic the screen print effect. Except it is even easier because it is just one layer instead of two with a person.

I might create a giant print for my wall … What do you think?

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I was excited when Michelle chose this theme as I’ve always been a big fan of Andy Warhol and wanted to try my hand at a Warholesque image. The image decision process for me was easy. I had just read my friend Catherine’s post on the 51st Anniversary of Andy Warhol’s 1962 iconic artwork 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans. Sadly the special editions are not available in the UK. I’ve been reliably informed that Catherine bought me a set. Thank you:-) Now all we have to figure out is how to get them to me from Australia! I visited a big Andy Warhol retrospective in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2007 and took a lot of photographs of the large soup cans which decorated the entrance.

Michelle’s tutorial link is perfect and really worth sitting through. I took one of my photos of a soup can and applied the pop colours through many layers in photoshop. In the end I decided to erase the original photograph (bottom layer) and was left with these free-hand and rather loose drawings. Artistic licence et cetera! To be honest, I can’t wait to try a portrait as per Michelle’s tutorial! Looks like such fun!

I want to thank Michelle for joining the vive la différence series and helping me to celebrate it’s 1st anniversary in such style. Yes, i think your warholesque peony would make a great giant wall piece:-)

When starting out, i could have never envisaged such creativity and enthusiasm from my guest contributors. The ride has been phenomenal, so here’s to another year and, of course, to vive la différence! Fancy joining the party?