"The Secret Place" (draft 5)

(detail of draft 5)

(draft 5)

Today, I am posting a detail of the lower right hand corner. This is a large piece and the detail gets lost on the blog. It may also look like nothing has changed since yesterday, but indeed there are some changes. The additions you see today are plain rice papers, old book pages and soft pastels added to some of the existing pages.

Since posting yesterday, all of the pieces touching the left hand side have been adhered to the support. This will make it much easier to place the center pieces. So it is not feasible to wait to the end to adhere everything, but the placement of everything needs to be a done deal in your mind before adhering.

In today's posting I have included a detail which shows what happens when plain rice papers are overlapped and some of the gel matte medium seeps out around the edges. Now I always wipe the excess off, but there is still a residue. That residue will show up as a very intriguing shape once you brush on some soft pastels or charcoal powder. Be sure to dry the rice papers after adhering....spray with acrylic coating...dry again....and then brush on the pastels. You will then need to spray again before adhering to the support. 

Another decision I've made since yesterday is which pieces will have text and rice papers and which ones will not. None of the green areas will have text or rice paper. I have reserved most of the gray areas for text. By placing some boundaries on where elements will be or not be is essential to good design. It simply creates chaos to include everything you know in one piece.

In regards to the green color blocks, they will be creating a shape from top to bottom in between the neutral color blocks. That introduces a bit of alternation. If I chose to simply divide the piece into two major areas, I have eliminated a design principle that will actually make the piece stronger. Alternation always creates rhythm. 

I hope this is not moving too slow for all of you, but there are many decisions that must be made in creating a piece of art and it is my desire to clearly show that. In fact, I strongly believe that creating a piece of art will teach more than anyone can possibly learn in a workshop. Workshops are good to learn very specific techniques, but the real learning comes into play when actually making all of the design decisions associated with every single piece. In my mind, mixed media teaches this like no other medium can. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.