Blank White to Wonderful- Inspired Creativity

screen-shot-2016-09-19-at-6-29-33-pmThe Story behind Wuv Woo.  Being inspired by something is perhaps the purest key to creating anything truly unique and original.

“Good artists copy.  Great artists steal.”  Pablo Picasso.

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”  Mark Twain  

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The New Yorker Magazine: Covers

New Yorker Magazine is iconic.  As a little girl I could, and would,  sit for hours at the local public library where they had an entire wall of beautifully bound New Yorker volumes, some of which were only the iconic comics.  I’d pull the heavy volumes off the wall one by one and read for hours at the table in that special section of the library.  I loved comics— what kid doesn’t?  But the comics in the New Yorker are sophisticated and wry and funny in a very different kind of way than the typical comics in the Sunday comics section of a newspaper.  They introduced me to ideas and things about life in the world that as a kid I might not have had access to for many more years.  I actually consider it part of my education.

And the covers!  The New Yorker covers are iconic.  They are relevant to the news and happenings of the day, they tell a story, they are serious art by top artists from an editorial point of view and I love that about them.  A friend of mind with a fabulous house in Pebble Beach had one of their bathrooms entirely wallpapered in New Yorker covers, coolest thing ever!  I still think about that from time to time with the notion of doing it too.

Wuv Woo.  This is one of my favorite pieces of art I created while falling in love with the man who is now my husband.  The creativity point to this story behind the image is that I get my inspiration from everywhere though you might never have a clue where from.  Why?  Because I am inspired creatively but never a plagiarist.  Even if you saw the New Yorker cover that inspired this image you would not recognize it.wuvwoo-charr-crail

That particular cover caught my imagination.  There was something about the face. It was sweet and oval with a geisha like whiteness to the skin.  Almost like a porcelain china or some smoothly chiseled marble.  It was a simple close up view of a beautiful face with almond shaped eyes and such lovely subtlety that just looking at it gave me a kind of pleasure.

I saved the illustrated cover of the exquisite face for many many years before I ever managed to create this Wuv Woo image.  Then one day a moment arrived and I was there and ready to do something with it.  Just hours later something new was born– because  I acted when the inspiration struck.  And it’s worth noting that one must act when inspiration strikes whenever possible!  Capture the idea, save it however you can!  Luckily I was ready to go, in place and could go the distance right then.  So some details behind Wuv Woo…

1— It was inspired by a New Yorker cover but took years to germinate and be born.

2— Wuv Woo is something sweet and affectionate I say to my husband meaning I Love You.  We have both adopted it as one of those mushy things couples say to each other.

3— Though I would more often be described as colorful this one rests in only three colors— red, black, white.  It needed no more than that to manage a striking image of contrast and sweet design.  The red represents love.  The face represents a loving and steady gaze at the object of affection.  The flowers and patterns represent the feminine and creative flair.  The words and the font I chose have a weight to them, an italic expression that relates to forward motion, the white cirlcling lines represent even more action and movement.  I didn’t consciously intend these things in the moments during creation.  It’s only now that I can look at it and see what I did.  I was in the creative trance while it was happening.

The technical– The face is a line drawing I did, which was directly inspired from the cover, the flowers and patterns are Photoshop brushes I created and use in varying sizes, layer styles and opacities.  I did the whole thing in Photoshop, incuding the drawing, using a Wacom tablet.

What more is there to say about it other than this.  The idea of being inspired is perhaps the purest key to creating anything original.  In the end my image looks nothing like the original but that’s because I allowed my inner voice to have it’s own say, it’s own delicious flavor.  I let it have it’s own expression of color, form and composition.

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie Finding Forrester, starring Sean Connery, that mentions this idea— about finding a starting place, aka an inspiration, and allowing your own voice to find the path, to take the creative journey but make it entirely your own.  Isn’t that what an artist does?  And I mean any kind of artist!  No matter the medium.  Musician, painter, cook, writer, photographer or architect or any other creative endeavor.  No matter the medium— it’s invariably the seed of inspiration that takes a white piece of paper and fills it with wonder.  From the Blank White to Wonderful.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”  Plato

Isn’t the need to create as much a powerful human need as the needs to eat, to sleep, to have comfort, to procreate?  We are conceived, we are born, therefore we create.

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Creating from inspiration– scene from Finding Forrester with Sean Connery.

CLICK TO WATCH SCENE FROM FINDING FORESTER

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About charr

Charr Crail is a Northern California photographer and artist with an avid passion for creating unique digital imagery. Charr, a full-time freelance photographer, spans the divide between photojournalism and extraordinary art via photography and can trace back her evolution as an photographer/artist from three dominant sources. Her father made his living as a newspaper photographer and as soon as he could, was taking young Charr, then four, on assignments to capture a lifetime of experiences and images. He instilled a sense of adventure and curiosity in her as they would often meander down unknown country roads of the South – just to see and capture what was out there. Soon after, Charr would develop her eye for photography and journalism as “the river that runs through everything she does”. Charr’s mother blessed her daughter with the ability to appreciate art in its various mediums. Further, her mother was able to pass along the joy, satisfaction and excitement one can experience in actively creating something beautiful. It’s no surprise, then, that Charr would become a photojournalist and later a photo editor spanning two decades working for Northern California publications including The Sacramento Bee. Often, her assignments would include community events with a “close to home” theme woven into every image and story she captured. Her photojournalistic experience has therefore been nuanced through everything she produces. She’s also drawn to the wonder of color and the beauty that can be found in the composure of a face and the make-up of the human bodyscape. Charr has won countless awards for masterful pieces including; the Professional Photographers of America LOAN Collection for two consecutive years, WPPI Grand Award and her work has been featured in the Di Rosa Museum in California’s beautiful Napa Wine Region and is also part of the permanent collection. Separately, she instructs digital photography workshops that teach students how to blow out the creativity of their photography in simple methods using programs like Adobe Photoshop and how to market using mobile devices-- Visual Content Creation using Mobile Devices.. Charr lives in Sacramento with her husband Chris and kitties Leeloo and Sadie.

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