Music Inspires Art: The Project
I recently have started a new painting project called Music Inspires Art. For this project it I not so much about the outcome but the process. One day I was talking to a musician friend of mine, I explained to him that even though I can’t play music I feel very passionately about it. The strongest songs to me are the ones that inspire visuals in my mind, certain songs just do that right away whether it be a particular lyric or melody that my brain latches onto from there the pictures just start flooding in.
He explained to me that when he writes music he would see colors, like a certain song could be green or an album of browns and autumn colors. I was absolutely fascinated that music triggered a similar response for each of us even though we experienced it differently.
Now when I paint I create playlists containing particular artists or songs that have produced strong visuals for me.
This piece was my first attempt and it actually just happened naturally. I paint with headphones in blaring music so that the task at hand is the only thing on my mind. The song “People are Strange” by The Doors was a song that has always produced this visual from the line faces come out of the rain. As I was painting and experimenting with my new pallet knives and blending these faces started to appear to me in the paint and I created these heads that can vaguely be seen at the right angle.
This was just an idea I had floating in my head but listening to the music just brought it to life. I began to wonder how cool it would be to work with musicians personally to create an image based on their music.
Faces come out of the rain, when you're strange
I formulated three questions to ask bands that I knew to get a sense of the visuals they had in mind when writing, then I put the song basically on repeat and try to get as much inspiration as I can from their sound while still staying in my own personal style of art.
I’m always looking for bands and musicians to collaborate with so if you know anybody who would be interested in my fun little hippie art project please share, and tell them to get in touch!