Sunday 1 August 2010

Digitally re:Masterpieces - Sunflowers

I said this one was going to be tricky, and I was right. 

It's the first of the month, so it's time for a brilliant (ahem) reworking in digital photography of a masterpiece, and this month I've set myself Sunflowers.  And to be honest, I'm not very happy with it.

Vincent Van Gogh came up with this:


Can't be that difficult to recreate that, can it? It's just a bunch of flowers.  All I've got to do is stick them in a jug and away we go...

Or not.  Because to recreate it, you've got to actually look at it.  And when you look at it you realise it's much more than a bunch of flowers in a jug.  What's happening to those flowers?  What's going on with those ones that look like those things you put in your hair to make an airhostessy sort of bun?  How do you get a sunflower to do that?

I think I'd always assumed they were seed heads.  And maybe they are.  But whatever it is they are, you don't get to it by leaving a bunch of Lidl sunflowers without water for a week.  All you end up with then is dead sunflowers.

So I'm afraid I've ended up, appropriately enough, with Plan B.

Sunflower (Potted) (2010)


Here's hoping the rest of you come up with something better.... Linky below!

Oh, and next month, I'm leaving the National Gallery, and heading west to the Tate, and doing this, because it makes me feel all teenagery and romantic...


Oh, and that picture's from wikipedia, but the original (or one of them, because there are lots) is in the National Gallery.

162 comments:

  1. At least you tried. And it's a very nice photo. ;0)
    I am notoriously bad at remembering to water anything....plants just don't live in this house.

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  2. It's a rubbish photo, but it just wasn't happening, and thank you anyway!

    Actually I'm heartbroken about a plant at the moment. I've been carefully nurturing some silver birch seeds and they were lovely little seedlings (and I say this as a woman who can't germinate anything - seriously, I killed 20 sweet peas earlier this year), and now I've come back from a week at my parents and they're all dead.

    I feel like I murdered them.

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  3. Whoops - actually that looks like most of the plants in my house. One day I will manage to sustain a basil plant for more than a week without killing it :)

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  4. I actually like it :) if it makes you feel any better, Big M planted a sunflower at nursery and it died a week after coming home. Serious mummy guilt :(

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  5. Haven't ever looked to closely at that picture either, but fairly baffled by the bun-like flowers, perhaps ol' Vincent was using a bit of artistic license so your photo could very well be the spitting image of the sunflowers he was working from! :)

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  6. Oh I so want to join in with this but am stuck on holiday - next month I will be prepared - promise! :)

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  7. Sorry this is very late, but I wanted to say a big thank you for my lovely Secret Post Club gift. Its fantastic and I love it! :-)

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  8. Hahaha! My husband has been doing a series of Blipfotos as paintings too- he calls them "Sweded shots" He's only done two so far but he's got big plans for a Last Supper!

    http://www.blipfolio.com/Meestermartin/famous-paintings-sweded

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  9. lol! I much prefer yours to the original!

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  10. DawnieBrown - try mint instead! Much harder to kill (I speak from experience!)

    Tiddlyompompom - that does actually make me feel much better, thanks! Our nursery sunflowers are thriving! (no flowers, mind, but at least the plants are still alive!)

    What did you do today Mama? - I bet his weren't from Lidl!

    Mrs W - you've got a whole month! And if that's not long enough I'll look forward to seeing what fantasticness you come up with next month. Hope the photo walk was amazing by the way.

    Jo - you're so welcome! Just glad you could read my writing. Had a sudden panic!

    Missy M - fab! (And grr! Someone else thought of it!) Get him to link them over so everyone can see them! I love the skating vicar in partic (I realise it has a proper name, but you know what I mean)

    Livi - there are a million art critics (professional and amateur) who'd disagree, but clearly I think you're right!!! Thank you!

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  11. Конкретный список воздействий, ориентированных на прогнозирование линии жизни, называется ворожба. Гадание руны на соперницу - это надежный порядок предсказать будущее с использованием каких-либо объектов и средств. Загадочны силы и разного рода положения хиромантии учеными не описаны, хотя различные люди доверяют такому. Появление Таро закрыто завесой тайны, так как подлинно никто не представляет, откуда они распространились. Стародавние карты сопровождали род людской в процессе общей истории. Считается, что карты Таро в первый раз появились ещё у истоков цивилизации - Египте.

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I know. I'm sorry. I hate these word recognition, are you a robot, guff things too, but having just got rid of a large number of ungrammatical and poorly spelt adverts for all sorts of things I don't want, and especially don't want on my blog, I'm hoping that this will mean that only lovely people, of the actually a person variety, will comment.

So please do. Comments are great...