Pixelpaint Customer Of The Month for November 2012

Our buddy EJ has taken out customer of the month for November 2012! We were lucky enough to make it to his exhibition last week and it was off the chain! If you missed it, you can check out his work here.



Where are you from?  I've lived all over Australasia. My whanau are based in the Waikato. Even though I moved to Auckland to study, Wellington has been home for more than a decade now. It remains one of my favourite places on earth.

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the art work you chose? What can I say? Girls grow into woman but boys, on a certain level anyway, always remain boys. I love old toys and most of the tin miniatures that feature in the series The Adventures Of Rocket Racer are from my childhood. The body of work was also inspired by the art of American photographer David Levinthal, a long-time influence.

It’s been therapeutic as an artist to move away from the more serious day to day grind of journalism/documentary style work to the dream-like escapism of staged tableau. The exploration of surrogate realities through regression to a period of childhood innocence has real refuelled my creative spirit. To abbreviate all the art-wank, it was a lot of fun…

What is your favourite thing someone has said about your
canvas? At the exhibition opening a client said the works held a certain cinematic quality to them, especially the way they were lit, which was what I was going for in a 50’s b-grade kinda way. It’s gratifying when critics get where you were trying to go without having to give them directions or a road-map.

What are you planning for your next canvas? That’s a tough call. In the not too distant future I'm looking at a collaborative body of work with fellow Wellington based artists where I'll be working in a more curatorial role.

My next solo show, which probably won’t be until later next year, looks at the resurgence of the art of Burlesque in Aotearoa. So keep an eye out for images of beautiful performance art…

Staff Pick

This weeks staff pick is a beautiful shot taken of the Lunar eclipse in June this year. The photo was taken by Steve Lang of Moonphotos - Devonport Astrophotography. We think it's super cool and kind of amazing.



If you want to snap up a moon photo of your own or see some more work from Steve and the crew at Moonphotos, make sure you check our their website here and like them on Facebook here!

Canvas Inspiration: 5 Photo Series Tips

Lately we've been having romantic feelings whenever we see a good photos series printed on canvas. They look so good that we want to hold hands with them and walk along the beach at sunset. Now that we've released our new square sized canvases, it's the ideal time for you to have a summer affair with a photo series of your very own and get it printed with us.

A photo series (otherwise known as a series of photos printed separately and displayed together) is perfect for those times when you want your photos to 'go' together but you don't want to make a collage. Or those times when you have a lot of wall space to fill. Or those times when you want to try something new and different, because you are bored with your life. I could go on....

Here are some cool photos series ideas stolen from the Internet for you to check out:

Office wall.
Family photos.
Different perspectives.
A mixture.

We also made our own cute photo series. It's called 'the babes of Pixelpaint'.

FYI all of these babes work at Pixelpaint and are single. On that note, here are our 5 photo series tips:

• Choose a theme. Could be puppies/water/the colour blue/food. Pick a theme and make sure it shows through somehow in all of your photos.
• Make sure each photo has a focal point or something interesting in it. Otherwise your series will probably suck! People and interesting objects are a good place to start.
• Make sure the colour tones in all of the images are similar. You want the images to look like they are a set.
• Choose the right canvas size for your image. Square canvases are great for making a photo series, but not every image is going to work on a square canvas. Maybe you want some rectangle action, or a variety of sizes that you can put together like a jigsaw! Make sure you play around with the crop to see which size will work the best.
• Plan where you're going to hang the series before hand. Make sure you measure out the wall space and mark your placements so you know it's going to look how you want it to.

You can find some cool photo series ideas and guidelines here. Check it!