"Grace Note"

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"The grace note of life is a beautiful melody of God's favor and blessing playing in the heart." This is quite a mouthful, yet it expresses the power of God energizing the creative spirit to do what it needs to do in life.

This is a very subtle piece of soft shapes with barely a hard edge or super strong value contrast anywhere. The lettering is definitely brighter than the background, but in hindsight I would have probably written it in the cream color that is present in the piece.

Most of these kinds of nuances concerning edges and values are best learned by simply doing a lot of art. You almost need to see it before it is truly understood what needs to be done. So I am surprised after 445 postings that I am still learning to refine these subtleties and make the piece as good as it can be. And that is precisely why it is so important to do something over and over again until these "nuanced" techniques can be mastered.

Blogging is one strategy that will keep you doing something over and over again, but if that is too much of a commitment, there are other strategies that will work. My personal experience and opinion is that an artist must create something every day. Professional artists often work (8) to (10) hours a day... just to put this whole idea of creating artwork into perspective. So my encouragement is to work out a time and place to be able to spend at least 30 min. a day doing something. That is a realistic strategy for everyone and soon you will want to add to that time allotment. And there you have it....just a few more things to think about.