This is Ann’s partner Gary, wishing you a warm ‘Hello!’.
Last time we spoke, did I not promise that BIG changes were coming? Well, today we get to ‘spill the beans’!
To many of Ann’s existing subscribers, this might come as unexpected, so I’ll make this brief…
By the time you read this, Ann’s website – over at www.AnnRichmond.co.uk – will have CLOSED.
WE NOW HAVE A NEW WEBSITE:
www.Otherwurlde.com.
That’s a massive change on its own, let alone everything else that’s going on, so I’ll be brief….
Many of you might not be aware that, since April this year, I’ve been displaying my own work alongside Ann’s, at our regular slot in Cirencester’s Corn Hall. Six months on, I’ve got to say that the reception has been amazing. Truly amazing…
Why? As someone just starting out on their own creative path, the notion of assuming the role of ‘artist’ can be overwhelming, if not a little daunting. After all, I live with an amazing woman who surprises me everyday with her flair and artistic nous! She is the best teacher and mentor anyone could ever hope to have in their life and I remain hopelessly grateful for Ann’s support over this year.
This edition of the Newsletter (issue #35, if you can believe it!) is going to showcase a few images from my first three Collections. I’ll talk a little about each one & explain my process as we go. Hopefully, by the end, you’ll have a better idea of the How’s, What’s and Why’s!
To those of you coming fresh to the Newsletter – and there are several hundred of you – WELCOME! I only hope it was worth waiting for… There were times when I thought that this day would never come, but we’re here now!
Oh, and fear not: we have new artworks from Ann awaiting their turn: issue #36 will be along very soon, I promise 😉
Okay. Let’s get started with a heartfelt Thank You for all the support!
Gary
The First collection I’d like to show you today, is Fauna. It’s an ever-expanding range of super-cute, baby animals, each with fabulous colour-tinting…
The first thing I want you to know, is that NO ‘real’ animals were cajoled to sit underneath hot studio lights, whilst I sprayed weird & wonderful colours onto their fluff & feathers!
That’s right. All my work is entirely digital in-nature. It’s all created right here, in my little office on my computer.
Instead, the process runs like this: I use ‘AI’ (‘Artificial Intelligence’) to create a ‘base’ image of an animal that I can use as a starting point for everything that follows.
Amazing, right?
Yep. Since November 2022, I’ve been knee-deep in the software; trying to understand it. Working to coax something out of it, that I could put my name to.
For the past thirty years or more, I’ve been working in and around ‘the Arts’. I’m a published author. Games designer. Art agent.
But until now, there hasn’t been a field of the visual arts that I felt able – or confident – of exploring under my own name. Exploring as an artist in my own right.
The advent of AI has liberated me. Suddenly I can get the ideas out of my head. I can build Collections of those images.
Not just that: I’m not compromising on ANYTHING.
These images are EXACTLY what I wanted to see. What I wanted YOU to see.
You are looking into my head, heart and soul.
Be gentle with me…
It all starts with me feeding a string of English commands (known as ‘prompts’) into my computer. Over the countless hours I’ve put into this process, these prompts have become ever-more sophisticated, to the point that each one is almost the length of a short story, as I describe every nuance – every detail – to better help the AI deliver what I see in my mind’s eye.
And how does it ‘do it’?
You know those websites where you’re asked to verify your identity by ‘clicking on all the images of traffic lights’, etc?? What we’ve ACTUALLY been doing, over those billions of clicks, is training systems to recognise objects for themselves. By this point, the particular ‘AI model’ I use ‘knows’ how a baby fox-cub should look. If you ask it in the right way, it’ll even ‘draw’ one for you, that matches your request.
Ah, if only it were THAT simple…
To get each piece looking the way it does, takes me several dozen hours. First within AI, to persuade it to generate what I want to see, not what It wants to show me… Then, it’s onto Photoshop, to create backgrounds & add tints. All being well, I end up with an image that can be printed at a large scale, without showing pixellation or other unwanted artefacts.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Straightforward? If only.
People see the headlines and think that AI is going to steal our jobs, culture & civilisation away in the night, but take it from me: on the evidence I’ve seen over a year of working intensively with the tech, it remains as dumb as a bag of spanners!
The Donkey Foal was an interesting experiment, as it marked the first time that I was able to generate a portion of an animal, rather than the whole thing; as difficult to do, as it is easy to say…
Doesn’t he look great!? You just want to smoosh your hand through his fur. Sometimes I have to pinch & and remind myself that these images are all generated. That they’re not real…
Getting them to look as if they’ve all been photographed in the same studio, has been one of the highest hurdles I’ve had to cross.
Nothing comes easy…
I suppose the only question remaining, is ‘Why Baby Animals?’
To which I would answer: ‘Why not!?’
I wanted to find something which would work as a popular theme. Something that had no agenda and just one underlying intention: TO MAKE YOU SMILE 🙂
What I’ve ended-up with, is something truly unique.
Strikingly different.
Confident.
So, yes…
It feels FANTASTIC to finally share my Fauna Collection with YOU, today.
For my second Collection Daughters of Eve, I turned to our mythological past for inspiration…
Consider the Gods & Goddesses of old…
No matter where you come from in the world… No matter the culture you most identify with… Our society shares a common root.
And at its core, are ‘the Gods’. Mythical figures of antiquity that our ancestors invented, as a way of explaining the inexplicable.
For example, take the natural phenomenon of thunder. Our science tells us that it’s caused by lightning. As a lightning bolt fizzles through the sky, it heats up & expands the air around it, causing a sonic boom. But to someone living in Ancient Rome? Well, it’s simply Jupiter, God of the Sky, lobbing out thunderclaps in furious anger!
And it got me thinking…
Imagine if our everyday life RIGHT NOW had assorted deities living amongst us…
If they were real…
How might they look to us?
For a start, they might look VERY different to the superheroes that’ve plagued cinema the past twenty years!
So I thought I would start with Goddesses.
In particular, with this one thought: that if they were real beings then they, too, would have two sides to their characters: Just as we do.
After all, if the God(s) made Mankind in their own image, then it follows that not only do we look like them, but we must think, act and behave like them too. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?
Which in-turn made me consider how I might show these different sides to their characters. How could I show their beneficent side, as well as the vengeful?
Then, like the proverbial thunderbolt, it hit me: I could show a split down their features, from top-to-bottom. Couldn’t I?
Each side might reflect not necessarily a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ side, but perhaps different attitudes or moods. Different states of being.
As I worked on these ideas, a couple of elements crystallised in my thinking.
First and foremost, was the notion of having the AI compose strong, characterful women (for this initial approach would feature ‘Goddesses’ only) from a few key areas of the world, rather than indeterminate, generic (and, dare I say it ‘bland’) subjects.
After much soul-searching I went with Namibia, Seville, Nepal & Oslo for my initial Collection. As time passes, I aim to both expand the offering from each of these regions, as well as explore new territories.
I couldn’t be happier with the reaction these ‘Daughters of Eve’ have received since they first debuted earlier this Summer.
Within each one, I’ve managed to draw-out a distinctive character possessed of both attitude and poise, assertiveness and grace. These are beautiful, self-contained and confident figures all and sit at the pinnacle of my vision for this project.
I will be thrilled to share more of these with you in the coming months, but for now please enjoy & consider ‘Daughters of Eve’…
For my third – and Final – Collection today, I present ‘Cotswold Dreams’
I grew up with ready access to the countryside of North Wiltshire, here in the UK. The surrounding Downs, with their gentle rolling hills and dramatic open skies are as much a part of me today as they’ve ever been. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
And yet…
It was only once I met Ann and got to see her own stomping ground, around the steeply-sided valleys of Stroud, in adjoining Gloucestershire, that I came to appreciate that particular slice of the Cotswolds…
While I fully expect to use AI to capture something of the Downs and their magic later on, I thought to kick things off I would explore both the Cotswolds and another of my (many) obsessions: the idea of ‘Secret Gardens’, although that’s not really doing it justice, if I’m honest.
If I boil things down, I love surprises in the natural world. Whether it’s the notion of ‘something tantalising’ that’s always just out of sight. Or round the next bend… Or the gasp of delight when you see a formal garden for the first time and realise that – YES! – someone’s had the vision to build a folly there. Or a ‘secret’ garden, tucked away amidst something larger and more ramshackle.
My guess, is that there are more than a few of you who LOVE the same sort of thing: and it’s for YOU, dear Subscriber, that I made these ‘Cotswold Dreams’.
To get the particular look of these images, I researched several late-Victorian & Edwardian painters of both floral subjects and bucolic scenes. Once I had a workable spread of names, I then ‘taught’ the AI to generate scenes using a little bit of each of their styles…
You’re looking at the results. Knowing their portfolios as I now do, I’m amazed at the results. It’s as if I travelled back a hundred & fifty years and commissioned them in-person. It’s remarkable.
What has impressed me most about these ‘Dreams, is just how ‘painterly’ all the pieces look.
The AI has demonstrated a remarkably deft touch when it comes to gauging how objects, i.e. flowers or stone buildings, should be ‘assembled’.
Yet, as I explained earlier, to get them looking like this has meant dozens, if not hundreds of hours revising & iterating on possible candidates. Every aspect had to be considered for the AI to have any hope of delivering the end-result. Everything, from lighting to the season of the year had to be tweaked & refined. At every step, the software wants to show – wants to impose – only WHAT IT WANTS TO SHOW YOU. At some point in the future, I expect the process will be made easier, but right now it’s a constant struggle.
I’m therefore proud – and not a little relieved – to be able to share my Cotswold Dreams with you today…
We’ll be back at the Corn Hall, Cirencester EVERY weekend from now until the end of December 2023… We’re unsure how much space we’re going to get, so every weekend promises to be a journey of discovery: do pop-over and see us if you can: you never know what we might have!
Moonflower…
Well, that’s it for now: thanks for sticking with it to the bitter end! Ann’s got some new work lined-up and ready-to-go, so the next one will be out very soon!
