Camouflage – probably the first thing you think of when someone mentions this word, is the currently out of fashion look inspired by the military.

One easily forgets the real origin and purpose of Camouflage.

Camouflage is the method of hiding in ominous situations and a lot of animals make good use of this effect.

I came across this blog post on web Urbanist the other day, which inspired me to introduce you to camouflage in a new light – as part of a creative concept. Apart from appearing as a fact of nature or even in fashion, camouflage can be a great theme to inspire you to create amazing artwork.

Two prominent artists that like to use camouflage in their work are Desiree Palmen and Liu Bolin.

Both are talented artists and photographers who paint or colour in suits to match them to certain scenes or surroundings, and then photograph the camouflaged scene to end up with beautiful photographic pieces of art. The interesting thing is that even though they start out with the same idea, the results are usually very different .

Desiree Palmen is a Dutch artist and seemingly more inspired by European motifs.

She likes to walk through the streets to get her inspiration and then simply starts painting a perfectly camouflaged suit. With great attention to detail, she finishes up the suit in such a way that they are virtually hidden in the final photographs, making for very interesting artworks.

Compared to Desiree Palmen’s work, Liu Bolin likes to find his inspiration in his Chinese surroundings and is a real perfectionist. He puts a lot of effort into the creation of every single photograph, which sometimes takes him up to 10 hours to get just right.

These two artists provide great examples of how artists can take their creative inspirations from nature.

It’s yet another way in which we can express ourselves. Isn’t creativity a wonderful thing!?

(Please note: this post is written by Miriam, but posted by Maike due to technical issues)