"A Peaceful State"

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"Music has the power to bring the soul to a peaceful state." Isn't it surprising how quickly a sad mood can disappear when music fills the air. We all need to remember how powerful it is and let the music play when stress and sadness come.

This is another 4 x 6 give away for an upcoming exhibit. It has been interesting to work in a format that isn't square. I would like to say a few words about some of the design issues in this piece.

It began with a blank sheet of 140 lb HP. I adhered a fragment of a concert program from 1935. You can actually read the date in some of the translucent black area. It was adhered with gel matte medium right out of the jar and dried with a hair dryer so I could immediately do the pouring medium.

What can happen when using black is that it can do what some people can do....suck up all of the oxygen in the room. In this case, I ended up with more black than I really wanted. The solution to this problem is to select another collage item (preferably something opaque rather than silk tissue prints) and place it somewhere in that block of color. This will break up the surface tension and then the black color block acts as a frame around the collage. The selection of the collage is very important and needs to echo the colors and theme of the piece. In this case I referenced a piece of music from medieval times where the music notation was a lot different from what we have to do.

Another more complex part of this piece is the idea of placing collage on the paper before the pouring medium to create a semi "veiled" effect. That effect combined with the transparent and opaque collage on top of the pouring medium creates a lot of depth and interest. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.