Katie Crawford

I know from personal experience the therapy of putting negative things in your life into art, usually the worse the feeling the more emotive and hard hitting the art is. Katie Crawford has created stunning images from her battle with anxiety and depression. The photos are  simple and beautiful and it presents a golden opportunity to understand something she suffers from or a chance to say me too. 

"I want the photographs and their paired writings to begin to express the constant, overwhelming presence of anxiety. It's not always terrifying, it's not always strong and it's not always intense, but it's always close by."

Below are a few chosen images from the series and their accompanying text, chosen purely because they spoke to me the most. To view them all and to read Katie's thoughts behind the images click here.

they keep telling me to breathe. i can feel my chest moving up and down. up and down. up and down. but why does it feel like i'm suffocating? i hold my hand under my nose, making sure there is air. i still can't breathe.

a captive of my own mind. the instigator of my own thoughts. the more i think, the worse it gets. the less i think, the worse it gets. breathe. just breathe. drift. it'll ease soon.

no matter how much i resist, it'll always be right here desperate to hold me, cover me, break down with me. each day i fight it, "you're not good for me and you never will be". but there it is waiting for me when i wake up and eager to hold me as i sleep. it takes my breath away. it leaves me speechless.

Late Night 60s

A few songs that are helping me burn the midnight oil. And destressing me from attempting to work digitally :)

Anamorphic art

So today I discovered something pretty epic, and it's called anamorphic art. It's art that uses perspective to create an image, the perspective being what brings it to life. Anamorphic art can be small or large in scale, as many components can go into a piece. Which means it's great to see in person, as you can interact with the art and move around until you get the optimum viewpoint, and if done right it can create a mind bending stunning peice.

Below are two artists who use mirrors in some their work. So you're already looking at a beautiful illustration or sculpture in itself, but it becomes another image entirely when a cylindrical mirror is placed atop. an awesome expression of creative intelligence.

Jonty Hurwitz

István Orosz

An Interview with Craww

Craww is an amazing artist who's work I have admired for years and is a constant inspiration to me. I was lucky enough to grab a quick interview with him and feed my curiosities. His art is an amalgamation of the mythical, with recurring beautiful women, skulls and crows. He describes his work as a stream of consciousness that takes us through his journey through his own dark untangible world.

 

How often do you venture out of your comfort zone when creating your art?

The only time I am ever really comfortable is drawing. Paintings, whatever the medium are much more of a battle. I never really know how they are going to turn out until the end, so the process usually involves a lot of angst!

Having said that, the rewards from pushing yourself are much greater, even when it all goes wrong. At least you learn something.

During your process, what do you find is the hardest step? 

Starting. Those first steps...

Do you feel like you've gotten to know your characters? And have they created a life of their own? 

I think so yes, I’ve found they have written their own mythology over the years they have featured in my work. It’s an ongoing story, i look forward to seeing where it goes!

What advice has had the most impact on your work?

All the “advice” clients gave me as a graphic designer! Dealing with clients made me quit and start painting.

Do you have a motto? 

I dont, sorry!

 

 

Craww links 

Website

Instagram

Twitter

Demons

Recently in my work I've been exploring working with sin, pleasures and questioning morality. We all have weird little things that make us tick, or ones that make us want to look away, so wheres the limit? So I've been working loose, going by instinct and playing around with mark making. With these images I took inspiration from the Rorschach test, playing on your psych and finding your demons. So what do you see?

Consciousness

A moment of serendipity... I was just spell checking the word conciousness and google came up with a wealth of psycadelic awesome images, and it would also appear that our minds are blue. Here are a few and click for the links.

Z x 

 

Anatomy and Textures

I'm currently working on some comic book covers and wanted to move away from the classic hero line art. So what better way then indulge in some gritty freehand drawing. The comic has themes of death, demons and sin, so I wanted to reflect this on the cover. The characters are complex and well developed through the story so I thought creating more textures and layers on the cover felt right. So normally I create a full piece and don't actually do rough sketches or just practice my technique, so the below drawings are drawn from books I have. 

It was really fun to just focus on minor details instead of considering the whole image as it's already there. I now definitely recommend using references! The books I used are Cabinets of Wonder and Visceral Pleasures which contains Vaughan Oliver's art. These books are great to use as a visual reference, perfect for when you hit an art block and need to get inspired (I also recommend going for a walk!).

Cabinets of Wonder

Visceral Pleasures