£95.00 – £275.00
The Blue Gate opens The Cotswold Dreams Collection. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this abiding fascination with the idea of ‘Secret Gardens’; those special little spaces, forever hidden behind a gate or wall. That idea would soon expand, when I came to this project…
While my heart will always belong to the long rolling downs of Wiltshire, I’ve long been intrigued by some of the tight, wending valleys in and around the old Cotswold mill-town of Stroud… Specifically, how stone walls define pathways or frame gardens… That, and how our imaginations always want to see ‘over the horizon’… I hope that some of these images will spur your own imaginations & offer ‘a wealth of things that never were…’
I utilise ‘AI’ (Artificial Intelligence) to uncover initial concepts for my artwork; whilst a radical departure from Ann’s use of traditional oils, I find AI actually enhances my creative process. However, AI is no ‘magic bullet’ to achieving convincing images. Rather, it requires guidance through select prompts: a time-consuming and frustrating process. Each piece may undergo just a few iterations or several hundred. Trouble is, any learning you might’ve made progress with on one job, doesn’t carry-over! The result? Each new project starts afresh…
After stumbling my way towards a promising image, my next challenge is to enlarge it for printing. The base images are too small to print from, resulting in jagged lines and blockiness once scaled-up. So my next task, is to use my Mac computer to enhance sharpness and detail as images expand. All-round, it’s a painstaking process that AI has yet to master. As a result, I consider each of these images to be products of as much of the same care and attention that Ann puts into her paintings… The only difference, is that where she uses a brush, I wield a mouse!
As a parting thought, I leave you with this: remember that Art is something of a magic trick. If it evokes an emotional response in the viewer, then it’s fulfilling the intentions of its creator and not the tools he used to make it…
Our Fine-Art Prints use archival papers in two weights. For everything up to – and including – our ‘Signature Editions’, we use 210gsm Fotospeed Smooth; a versatile paper that offers exceptional contrast and detail. For the larger ‘Premium Editions’, we use Fotospeed’s 315gsm NST. Thanks to subtle textures similar to traditional etching papers, coupled to bright-white bases, both of these 100%-cotton, fine-art papers deliver revelatory, impactful images that will stand the test of time. Furthermore, we only ever use OEM inks that are rich in pigments & offer a consistent level of reproduction.
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