Wednesday 2 May 2007

Canvas Inspiration: Intro

As a designer, I often get asked where my ideas come from. “I love that canvas – where did the idea come from?” is a frequently asked question. It’s always tricky to explain, but one day I had one of our canvases – the "Chocolate Japanese Silhouette" hanging on the wall at home, and on the opposite wall was the Japanese print that it had originated from. I explained: “I took elements that I liked out of the bottom right Japanese Print, made it really minimal, played around with the layout and then added three really complementary colours.” “But it looks better than the original!” she said. I felt a bit embarrassed about that comment, but it dawned on me later that that is what creativity is all about – a kind of looping cycle of creation and recreation. We all get inspired from seeing one person’s creation – be it art, music, films, architecture, poetry, cookery etc. Then if we like it enough, the influence will come out in our work. It’s kind of like sampling art – that kind of sums up how we create our canvas designs at WHoArtNow. Take a little bit of what we like and add our own unique style, colours and perspective to it.


It’s difficult to list all of our inspirations verbally, so I’ve decided to put it in a blog, and just go through a few of the areas of art that we draw interest from. Notably: Japanese Florals, Street Art, Pop Art, Macro Photography and , Retro Kitsch, Music / Movies – just to name a few. I’m going to have a go at describing these categories over the next few months, really just to give anyone an insight into our design process.