Food is Art

Food is Art.. its a technique with flair, its an expression of creativity.. its something that not only should speak to you visually but using all of your senses. The sound of the sizzle as your cooking, the smell of garlic, basil, turmeric, or rosemary (insert your own favorite ingredients here) The way its presented.. I work in a restaurant and from what i've encountered people are just as impressed with the presentation of the meal as they are with the flavor and the aroma. The lavish colors of the Mediterranean Cuisine lend a sense of awe to the whole dining experience. I personally love a hybrid meal.. something that encorporates full flavor combinations that are mismatched from around the globe. Give me a burger with carrots cabbage and cucumbers smothered in a Thai peanut sauce on a sweet Hawaiian roll and a side of edamame beans in a light soy sauce and i'll be in a flavor basket headed for heaven. Each meal that is created.. each and every one that is put together by someone who loves their craft of culinary artistry.. is a new masterpiece. Enjoy some food people..!

Here is something I decided to add my artistry to... Corvina (seabass) with artichoke pesto served over wild rice and garnished with a zuccini and sweet onion mix. I added pine nuts to the garnish and let the corvina speak for itself... This was a great meal.

Til next time... I'm going out for some Charcoal grilled yumminess this afternoon. :)

Karaoke is an art?

There's winners and there's losers.... but that ain't no big deal... play that Funkey music white boy.. seems at some point.. drunk people will do some whatever just to get people to either laugh or sleep with them. I gotta say.. it's amusing... but karaoke is not an artform... it's pure b.s.... especially when the songs that pop up are crap.

Sitting in bed and writing a blog

Usually.. I'm sitting at my computer as I write... but seeing as I have just received my new smartphone yesterday I thought I'd give mobile blogging a shot. Expect more activity and art soon!

Sunset

I was coming home from work and this image hit my eyes. Now.. I would have to say that it is not abnormal to come across a sunset, it is however an amazing sight to see every time you see one. I've been working a lot recently and haven't blogged much this past week or so.. But i don't want to give up. Its good to see that within' my first month of true blogging I've gotten quite a few more hits than I expected, and hope that some of you are liking what you're seeing here. If anyone has any questions or requests for tutorials or techniques, i urge you to comment. I'll be posting my next #Mundane picture soon.. but for now here is an extraordinarily normal sunset that we are privileged to see most days. Enjoy.

The Mundane #1

#1

Sewer Pipe

I've been watching one of my favorite illustrators and motivational inspirationalists <is this even a word??> over the past few years, Her work is amazing and I'm humbled to have her as my mentor. Patricia Saxton (visit her blog here) has a very focused lifestyle when it comes to creating artwork. She is way more focused than I am. She inspires a  creativity in me from her artistic style, and from her dedication. She smiles across the digital plain of our current lifestyle and shines her brilliance onto everyone I've ever talked with who knows her. Not only that, she's family and that warms my heart.

She has a focused project called 52 Weeks of peace that is now at week #71 and is working on another series called a plethora of P's which is just as impressive from a design and artistic creativity standpoint. I revere her dedication and would like to start my own dedicated series.

This Mundane Project is now underway and I'll be focusing on taking photographs, designing posters, creating illustrations of things we see everyday and overlook the artistic value of their functionality. My goal is to inspire art and show that even the most trivial things can be viewed in a slightly different way... an artistic way. My hope is that through this i can inspire everyone to not take the things we have in our life for granted and appreciate the everyday with a bit more of an open view.

Now I admit, that as of now my artistic style is very retro washed-out. Instagram.. I was making pictures like this before it was cool, that's just how photographically hipster I am. :\ but that's besides the point. I don't really need to prove to my audience that i can do this.. I want... in fact, I need to do this for myself to prove that i can still live in this hectic world and have a focus centered on my passion for art.

Patricia, if you're reading this, THANK YOU!! You inspire more than you can ever imagine, and I can't wait to see where this project will lead me.

Inspired and excited....

John-

Creativity of art - Ideas for inspired art

There are many ways to come up with creative art ideas, and there are many articles on creativity that you'd be able to find out there. Inspiration for art is sometimes very difficult to come by especially when you have artist block. Getting over the hump and finding this is what makes a good artist.

I for one have found many ways of becoming inspired to create and i'll share a short list of the things I do to come up with these creative art ideas in the following article.

1. How do you feel?

• Lean on your emotional state to find the inspiration. if you're happy, sad, angry, desperate, lonely, excited.. GO WITH IT. You'll be designing inspired artwork that is based around these emotions and it will be easy to just flow into a piece.
• Think color! What color would you associate with this emotion? Use the base color to continue your inspired art project. Also think of what would have caused that emotion, it could end up being the subject of the art piece you are about to create.
• Don't be afraid to delve into that emotion a bit and find other art that draws that emotion out of you. For instance, if you have a serene and humble emotion at the beginning of your artistic exploration you might want to go check out some calm landscape paintings, or some japanese art pieces (i've always found japanese prints to be serene). 
• What other activities can you imagine that would center around that emotional state that might give you some creative art ideas? Perhaps if you're angry you might listen to some heavy metal music, or think of someone who really angered you off in the past. 

In short, the way you feel really plays on how your art will turn out, so no matter how you feel, use it to your artistic advantage and you'll be creating masterpieces in no time.

2. OTHER ARTISTS

• I'm not suggesting you recreate and plagiarize from an other artist. That would be a very expensive art mistake and could land you with a hefty copyright fine. who wants that??! What I mean is the styling's of some of your favorite artists can inspire a creative art piece. Just be humble enough to know that you most likely wont be creating an expensive art piece that sells for millions of dollars at an auction just because you followed the style.. though you may.. who knows?
• Talk with other artists, go out and find an art forum to discuss and ask questions like what you're trying to find here. "What are your inspirations for art?" "What helps you to focus on your creative ideas for art?" "Where do you look for art inspiration?"... Things like that can be asked and most artists I know are willing to help with some tips and tricks that will help create inspiration for your own pieces.

There are a lot of creatives in the world and a lot of people that are willing to help, look around and you'll start finding inspiration through this community.. we're all kind of nice people.. well most of us are, anyway.

3. The things you read can inspire.

• They say (I don't know who they are, but i'm sure they do say it) that a picture paints a thousand words. Sometimes the opposite can be true and you might find inspiration in a thousand words, then again you may find it in a six word quote. I've found inspirations for art in the strangest places; writing on bathrooms walls, an excerpt from a food recipe, the tagline for a beer commercial.. What i'm saying is that the words that you read on a daily basis could help you become inspired in some very unique ways.
• A good source of art inspiration has come from poems, and great literary works. Perhaps the book you're currently ready does a magnificent job at defining a scene that it burns an image into your mind. Remember THAT IS inspired art. Your mind created that imagery through the help of the writers words. Don't discount the way your mind works when it is engaged in reading. Its a writers job to help inspire this creative side of your mind, why not exploit it a bit and pull your art inspiration from this experience?

The older i get the more i read and the more i read the more i become inspired and empowered to create art. 

So there you have it.. a few simple tips to get you started on art creation, art inspiration and finding creativity for art of any kind that you may feel a passion for. Now go out there and get some inspiration.

John-

AMitF #9 Tribute to Carl Sagan and our Universe

Posters

I have been trying to do 1-2 full designs a day if not more.. Here is a recent poster I completed (it will be available for sale soon through my Zazzle Store).. Carl Sagan is a pioneer and an inspiration. His view of the universe, from an existential point of view, is humble to say the least. One of my favorite quotes of his refers to a photograph taken of the earth from the Voyager Satellite in 1990 as it was 4 million miles away..

Pale Blue Dot

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." ~Carl Sagan~

Here's to you Dr. Sagan, thank you for all your insight and wisdom. I hope you are back in the cosmos exploring on a new realm of consciousness that we all will be able to experience someday. Thanks to you I feel insignificant, yet somehow magnificent.

John-