"Psalm 103" (draft 2)

(draft 2)

Psalm 103 is still center stage. I am going particularly slow with my steps this time to completely show how to combine elements to create opacity, translucency, and transparency. My love for glass is meshing with my love of mixed media. In just a few weeks, I will have completed 800 postings and what I have learned about my own artistic voice is helping me now to completely focus on the above mentioned elements as the core of all my work.

Yesterday's posting was completely easy to do because very few decisions needed to be made. Today, I have cropped that larger section of 300 lb. HP down to a 6" x 12" size. It has not been adhered to the 2" depth clayboard yet. When there are three dimensional inclusions, it is best not to adhere those to the support until the piece is mounted on the clayboard.

My decisions about where to crop had everything to do with the title of the piece. The glass has areas with no darker powders fused so I was careful to make sure that Psalm 103 could be read through the glass. It was also important to include as many of the tabs which create that half moon shape. (A wonderful thing to look for when purchasing very old bibles for this type of work.) It creates a repetitive shape, which in turn, creates rhythm.

Even though you cannot see it clearly in my posting, I also placed some metallic leaf where the glass will be mounted...being careful not to cover all of the text. I also have a piece of plain rice paper which falls underneath the glass to further heighten the value of some of the letters in the glass. So you can see that the process now slows down a bit and becomes much more deliberate.

There will be more plain rice papers added, but I stopped with the sections of metallic leaf and one layer of rice paper to show you the translucent effect that one single sheet of rice paper creates. (Remember that it will not become translucent until sprayed with Krylon Spray Acrylic Coating.) The metal leaf, of course, is completely opaque and covers up everything.

You will also notice that I overlapped some of the plain rice papers over the metal leaf to create interesting values, shapes, and edges. The choice of placement for the metal leaf was based again on edges. I tend to frame things out with my elements (loosely) unless I choose an all over grid format arrangement. Almost all of the metal leaf is position on an edge of the perimeter.

Even though there were not too many additions today, there were many choices made. As I move forward, I will be choosing what part of the text I want to remain translucent and what part I want to cover up completely. And the choice of transparency has already been made with the glass. One other thing...if you are not into glass fusing, you can also use stained glass. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"Fragrance of Heaven"

(unavailable)

"The fragrance of heaven is found in prayer." When any kind of stress overwhelms us, it is prayer that transports us to a quiet place of peace and power. It calms the storm.

This visual, along with others I've posted, has a strong repeated design element. The steady drumbeat of a repeated element will always bring calm into a piece and firmly ground it and get rid of the sense of floating elements that are vague and ambiguous. It is similar to the steady beat of a drum in musical presentations. Repetition creates rhythm.

Every artist can make their work stronger by understanding this design principle. In all of life we look for repeated patterns (similar to counting telephone poles) because it has a calming effect on our psyche. And the good news is that there are many different ways to incorporate repetition in any piece of art. It can be a repeated line, color, shape, value, or texture. Because of the strength and boldness of moving color, I have chosen to use a repeat pattern that is bold and strong as a counterpoint to the moving color.

One good way to understand the power of repetition is to look at other artist's work and see how they handle repetition. By narrowing your focus as you study another artist's work, you will be able to observe this particular design principle without the distraction of trying to notice everything at once. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"Listen to the Music" (unavailable)

 

"Listen to the rhythm of the music in your heart." Scott Joplin is the king of Ragtime Music. It's "catchy" and has a definite jazz feel. Each of us has a definite rhythm that could be compared to a style of music. What is your style? (This is piece created for a give away at an Opening Reception this Friday.  Details can be seen at (http://www.pactofaustin.com/).

Rhythm is best described visually by repeating one or more design elements. In this piece, there are repeated verical bands and also repeated lines, color, and texture. As in music, rhythm can be very regular (like a march) or it can be syncopated. Syncopation happens when the strong beats become weak and vice versa. Visually, it can be described by throwing in an unexpected interruption in the repeated design element. In this piece, the line in the background that has the word listen is a very strong departure from the straight and softly curving lines. So in essence, the principle of design is to repeat an element of design with variation to achieve a sycopated rhythm. Just something to think about.