Rainy Day

Another tree try-out! Well, this time I endeavoured to take my previous post and bring that around to my earlier stuff. Throw some rain in, basically. I started off with a very rough sketch and then threw it under various distortion maps to ‘glitch it up’, as you can see above and below. Some of these are interesting, though I’m not sure if the sheer randomness of it all might make them a hard to manipulate, should I want to create something more precise.

Do you remember back in the days of Windows 95/98, there was a Windows desktop theme called Rainy Day? It was all murky blue-grey, as you’d expect. I think my dad was obsessed with that, as every time we got a new PC, one of the first things he’d do was switch the style to Rainy Day. That came to mind as I used very similar colours for the following developments; the tree silhouette and the background are wildly distorted, with several layers of noise attempting to look ominous, stormy, perhaps slightly hypnotic – I know I’m captivated by storms. It’s something to revisit, I’m sure.

Ice trees. Because that was the logical progression. In truth, these were supposed to be drops on glass, reminiscent of my previous post, though they do feel more Mr. Freeze to me. Still, it’s a bit weird and that’s usually interesting if nothing else.

It was a shame to hear of Marie Fredriksson’s death last week. Her voice takes me back to my university days: 2011, a mere eight years ago, though it now seems a lifetime ago in several respects. Back then, I often found myself procrastinating by means of old Top of the Pops on YouTube, and on one seemingly unexceptional episode from 1991, who should burst onto the screen? It was Roxette – just a few seconds, in a compilation package. I don’t think I even knew them before that. But damn – that hair! That voice! It was one of those great moments where you hear just a few notes and there’s a need to find out more, and then comes the excitement as you discover as much as you can. It’s the best thing about music. I got no end of stick for liking them, but couldn’t care less – Marie’s voice was worth it. Joyride is pure pop and will always be a go-to should I need a lift, but I think if I had to pick a single track it would probably be Queen of Rain, a beautiful song which very much fits the recent theme, so that’s why I decided to leave a little tribute here. Farewell to a remarkable talent.

• abstract
• Art
• drawing
• glitch art
• marie fredriksson
• rain
• roxette
• trees