What inspires me the most about Studio Arhoj's products are the mixture of bold and pastel colours used in mainly block shapes. This is a style that really relates to my own style, one which I can appreciate.
I also love how Studio Arhoj creates characters out of their objects, giving them facial features and expressions, making you feel like they have feelings and emotions and are real people. This fascinates me as I have a thing for things with faces on them, whether that be a mug or a pepper grinder, if it has a face on it I will undoubtedly find it cute and suddenly need it in my life.
Studio Arhoj's studio is also open to the public so you can go in and see how they make their products, which would be amazing and so interesting to see how they do it.
Their products take form before function, so some of them have no real use, but that's the point, as long as they look beautiful. This is something that is great for me to hear, as a lot of the time I am afraid of making tings just for the sake of it, if it has no real use or purpose, so it's very inspiring to see a whole studio making things for the purpose of being beautiful and fun first, and functional second.
Below are some examples of Studio Arhoj's work that I have found particularly inspirational, whether that be in the colours that they use, the application of pattern, how the ink/glaze drips down the object, the shape of the objects themselves, or just because they have faces.
In hindsight, the colours and patterns on some of these objects reminds me of mirror glaze cakes:
After spending a good while looking through Studio Arhoj's website and products and dreaming about buying them all, I decided do some some painting and artwork inspired by what I have seen on Studio Arhoj's website.
This is the result:
Experiment #1
These were the first initial experiments where I was mainly focusing on the shape of the objects, and the addition of patterns and lines onto the object. I also experimented with the two colour designs as well, both horizontally and vertically, which produced some interesting results. The addition of facial features and outlines came afterwards using a fine liner to achieved even, more controlled lines. The flowers down the right hand side and splodgy colour thing in the right corner were a result of having excess paint and needing to use it up somehow, along with wanting to experiment in finger painting slightly, because, why not! I found that by outlining the colour splodge it made it much more graphic and interesting, highlighting shapes within it and transforming it into some weird galactic form.
Experiment #2
This experiment was done mainly to explore patterns and shapes and colours. The initial intention was to cut it up and either weave it combined with brown recycled paper or to collage using it, however I liked the end result too much to cut it up, and felt like I wouldn't improve it by cutting it up and collaging with it.
Experiment #3
In this experiment I explored the use of colour and blending such colours together. This was also to use up excess paint as well, and to reflect upon a previous style of work I produced during my A Levels. The addition of beige circles makes it appear a little more space themed as well, as if they are flying through space.
Experiment #4
I wanted to explore circles a little more (and again had excess paint to use), so produced this experiment, which initially I thought looked like octopus suckles, however I decided it looks like red blood cells instead. I really like how the colours blend into one another or there are slightly different shades of circles randomly depending on where I got the paint from on the blob (not mixed very well). This gives it a more natural, sporadic feel which I like, and helps differentiate between the circles too so they don't just look like a mass. Outlining some of the circles also adds to their definition, so you know this is lots of circles, picking some of them out. This could also work quite nicely as a pattern.
Experiment #5
I just fancied painting some boobs. I had the right colours on my palette and it just happened. The bold, graphic, simplistic style of these boobs was also in fitting with the bold style of Studio Arhoj's Ghost series too, mainly their eyes, which was a small inspiration.
Experiment #6
This experiment was more directly inspired by Studio Arhoj, the shapes of these character, the split colours, the use of facial expressions. The idea wasn't to simply paint Studio Arhoj's characters, but to be inspired by them and create almost a cousin family. The use of the lighter green shade on the top works really nicely, and in hindsight I wish I'd of included it in more of these characters, however it was too late when I got to this colour.
Experiment #7
This was done purely because I had way too much paint, and needed somewhere to experiment on facial expressions. This created a great platform to try out different expressions and to see how they worked together and as a unit, and made me realise that the different products can interact with one another, not just be standalone objects. This also made me realise the power of eyes, and what they can do to change an atmosphere. They are a powerful thing.
Experiment #8
This was literally to use up paint, and I tried to replicate what I did on Experiment #1, however paint was much more limited so came out a lot more scrawly, and I don't really like it because of this, however it was good to experiment with. I also managed to squeeze a pair of eyes in too.
Experiment #9
I really wanted to do something with some marbling I had previously done, and saw this as a great opportunity. I created a collage piece using this marbled paper and other coloured paper, adding on stripes, and also outlining the marbling in a black line in the same was I had the splodge in Experiment #1, which made the marbling pop out from the page a lot more. I really like how the pink picks out the colour in this piece, being just that bit warmer it works great as a highlighting colour.
Following on:
This was initially undertaken as a day of fun to rejig my creative juices but I had so much fun doing these experiments, I ended up working for 10 hours straight, which is the longest I've worked straight in a while, running purely off enthusiasm and Spotify. This made me rerealise what my creative style is, as I often feel like I lose sight of it when producing work to fulfil briefs rather than for my own enjoyment. Following on I am going to produce more work in this style, and try to only do briefs I am really passionate about so I try and prevent falling into an uninspired creative rut. In this spirit, I loved creating these funky characters, so am going to try and produce one character a day until submission in whatever medium I feel fit. They don't need to be perfect, and could just be a sketch, but I think this will keep me ticking over, and give me one thing a day to produce I am doing just for the fun of it. I will document this on Instagram as well to promote my 'brand' more, and to become more noticed and out there.
I was also thinking how I could incorporate the work I produced here into a brief I'm working on or a totally new brief, and thought perhaps I cold make a character profile publication, or just compile the image into a publication in general. Or maybe I could use these experiments as a base for the UK Greetings brief, as they could lend themselves well to card designs, but for what purpose, who knows? Either way, I want to think of an appropriate way to use these experiments in future work somehow, even if they're just for initial experiments or idea formation.
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