"Poetry"

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"Poetry dresses thoughts with words of rich emotion." The reason poetry can reach the deeper levels of the soul is due to the poet's ability to bring the emotion of the thought by careful selection of the words. The background text pages from this week's postings have come from an antique book of Elizabeth Brownings's poetry.

In today's posting, I dropped down the percentage of space that the complementary colors of green, yellow/green, and a red/orange tint occupy. Each of the colors occupies approximately the same percentages with green being slightly dominant. There is also the contrast of the strong color areas to the light color shapes and the black. The light areas are the most dominant in the piece. 

Contrast of size and shape is also important. If everything is the same shape or just one shape, there will be too much harmony and the viewer will lose interest because nothing is standing out as being more important than something else. It is referred to as hierarchy in each of the elements of design. So one color, one line, one shape, one type of texture, one value, and one direction needs to dominate to create harmony. 

However, contrasts need to be present as well. That's why I included straight and ragged edges, very light and very dark areas (values will sneak up on you!), very intense and strong color contrasted with aged and old book pages, surface contrast between opacity, transparency, and translucency. Design is the visual vocabulary of art so it really is important to continue adding more knowledge in this area to your process. And that is precisely why I am experimenting with color percentages. Each small piece teaches me something else about design. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"La Palabra De Dios"

($400.00....18" x 24"....300lb HP  mounted on a 2.00" depth clayboard)

"The Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

(Hebrews 4: 12...NIV)

This is a larger work created for an exhibit for Open Doors Gallery at Hill Country Bible Church.  There is a conversation going on between the colors, textures, transparent prints on silk tissue paper, and plain rice paper over colors and text. I deliberately kept particular areas white or light enough to add some lettering. 

The cool thing about this technique is that if you don't have enough lighter areas at the end of the process, you can simply add some more plain rice paper. Metal leaf or metallic paint can also be added at the end to bring some illumination to the entire piece. In this case, I used one of my favorites...Gold Orange (Holbein Acryl Gouache) which has more of an orange look to it than most golds and creates a nice contrast with the purples. 

It's a very absorbing process and great fun to put together. Preparing all of the pieces takes as much time as adhering them to the board. And it also helps to have an extra table or two to lay everything out so you can see everything at once. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.