When It’s Done
February 28, 2021
Design lessons, Ponderings
Is this fantastical coral sculpture by Lisa Stevens complete? When I first saw it, I felt like the orange fans needed to encircle it more. Then, after looking it over, liking it regardless of that initial thought, it struck me that it is as complete as it needs to be. It’s representative of coral, which is never complete in the real world. It is an organic structure that is constantly building itself and so having this open side gives that room for that potential growth, conceptually speaking, of course. And it scores well in design elements and principles!
When do you know a piece is finished? It certainly can’t be that magical moment when it comes out just as you hoped, just as you saw it in your mind. When does that ever happen? And it’s not like there’s some established design tenet or measurement we can take that tells us, yes, this is done, this is perfect, there is nothing else you could do to make this better. Because, chances are, we will forever look at it and see the bit we aren’t happy with, contemplate what we could have done better, and see it as lesser than what we thought it should be.
(Not that we aren’t sometimes over the moon with what we create. They are rather like children to us, aren’t they? So, we don’t always mind the flaws, the incongruities, the less-than-perfect execution. Sometimes we love them for it. Luckily, most of our viewers and admirers don’t see the imperfections at all.)
The fact is, no piece of art is ever completely done because no piece of art is perfect. Yet, we usually equate completion with perfection. Well, we also equate completion with deadlines, throwing up our hands and saying, This is all I can do. It will have to be good enough.
But, barring those deadline driven ideas of completion, how DO you know when your work is done? Well, you can ask yourself a few questions:
- Is the design of working? (Use your Elements and Principles of Design lists to check off on each of the elements and concepts if you are uncertain.)
- Is the composition balanced with a path for the eye to follow, a path that is supportive of the piece’s intention?
And, most importantly…
- Is it expressing, showing, or representing what I set out to share in this piece?
If you can answer those three questions in a positive manner, it may be time to put down the tools, the paintbrush, the colorants, or whatever else you are about to accost your piece with, and step away. At least for a time.
If you wonder if it’s done but are uncertain, it likely is done or is close. So, this would be another occasion where it would be best if you set it aside, out of sight, so you can move onto the next thing and give yourself some distance from it. If you step away from it for at least a week, that would be best. Longer would be ideal, but even overnight would be better than continuing to hack away at it. That time away should allow you to see it with fresh eyes so you can better identify anything that’s missing, needs to be changed, or needs to be taken away.
If you’re on a deadline and have no time to gain that distance from it, take it to a mirror, turn it upside down (if you can), and analyze it from this new view.
More coral sculptures from Lisa Stevens to contemplate. These are porcelain and/or paper clay but I thought they could be quite inspiring for some of you polymer clayers as well.
The danger we are trying to avoid here, of course, is overworking it. Sometimes you are just too close to the piece after working on it for hours and days, or maybe even weeks, and either you can’t see what it needs or think something is a problem when it’s not. So, pull away when you start to think it might be done, or close enough that it would benefit from a fresh look after some time away. It is better to stop too early than work a piece to an irreversible point. Just repeat after me… stop early, not late.
I know that advice is not some kind of magic spell that will allow you to always know when to stop. But, remember, this is art, not a math problem. There is no final version of a piece where it will be all it can be. I think artwork is just like us—it becomes what it needs to be, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. It’s just a question of whether the improvement is needed.
Make sense? Great. Now, let’s go finish some work!
Clay Time!
I’m speaking of myself as well on that call to go finish some work. I’m going to run off and actually work at my studio table. I’ve been designing some deceptively simple necklaces and earrings, even though I had intended on starting some wall pieces. You just can’t tell the creative mind where to go or what to do, can you?
But also, Polyform has a ton of new clay colors they just sent me, so I’m playing with a few. There are quite a number I’m not likely to use for my work, so I’m going to pack up a few boxes this week to raffle off next weekend. Do come back and join me for that.
And if you are having a hard time finding some basic clay colors, I checked on Polyform’s site yesterday and they seem to have a lot in stock so check them out if you are running low on your favorite colors.
In the meantime, I hope you have a beautiful, cozy, safe, and creative week.
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…
Complex and Simple
February 21, 2021
Design lessons
Alev Gozonar makes simplicity seem complex. With little more than lines, color contrast, and oval cane slices, she creates an energetic and tension filled canvas. The complexity comes from the quantity of the elements and the high contrast of color. Additional elements would feel overdone, busy, and probably chaotic. This sits on the edge of chaos but comfortably, giving us time to catch the half faces peeking out on every third or so cane slice. Do you recognize the focal point? It doesn’t yell “Look at me” but we land there anyway because of the sharp angle and the density of the canes in that one spot. It’s a simple focal that keeps the eye moving instead of hovering on it.
What kind of work you prefer to do? Intricate and multilayered pieces with lots going on or simple, understated pieces? Or something in between?
Although our personal preferences dictate, in large part, how busy or complex our pieces are, the concepts we are exploring should also have quite a bearing on our approach. However, what often happens is that we do whatever gets our initial thoughts down without too much wrestling with the design. More often than not, this results in pieces that are busier than they need to be.
Now, I know it sounds strange that a more complex piece would be considered the easier way to go, but the truth is, simple is difficult to do well. This dovetails into last week’s post about looking at your work in terms of what you can take out, not just what you can add to it. This time I am raising the question of how complex your piece needs to be and what should determine that.
Whether you work free-form or make intricately planned sketches, I’m sure you could save yourself a lot of frustration later on by asking yourself if the ideas, concepts, emotions, or experiences that you are bringing to the piece would be best relayed by simplicity or complexity or something in between. The work just needs a moment of your time to consider it.
Now, if you don’t know what you’re going to make when you sit down to create, you can save those questions until you recognize where you are going with your work. There is always some point at which the direction of your piece becomes apparent. It’s at that time that you would most benefit from such questions.
Let me further amend what I said above about choosing complexity. I do think we tend to go for more complexity when we think something is not working (or we aren’t sure what we are trying to do), but I also think we commonly stay within a range, a kind of comfort zone of complexity. Very few people are into the intensity and work required for really large complex pieces like Heather Campbell’s or can unearth the sophistication of simplicity that is the genius of Genevieve Williamson. Most of you probably float somewhere in between. However, especially if you’ve been creating for a while, you will have a relative range that includes your version of simple and complex creations.
Black and white and shades of gray, scratches and smooth sections, layers that move and layers that stay put all on shapes that ride between the organic and the geometric… Genevieve Williamson creates mood, energy, and grace with a dichotomy of simple elements.
So, when you are pondering the complexity or simplicity of the piece you are working on, don’t think in terms of what other people do. Look at your body of work and consider what your range is. If it’s a pretty slim range, some stretching of those creative muscles could bring about some grand discoveries.
If you’ve been a bit sluggish on the creative front, maybe now is the time to try something that runs in a more simple or complex vein than usual. Challenge yourself to go as super simple as you can or take it up a notch and layer on the complexity but with purpose. What ideas, concepts, or experiences of yours would be easier to bring out in your work if you push it one way or the other?
Does that get your creative wheels turning? If pondering this doesn’t immediately bring up some ideas, just observe the work you come across over the next week or so. Ask yourself what the simplicity or complexity of the work conveys or supports in the piece you’re are contemplating. You might come up with some surprise answers, maybe even a new view of the piece, as well as a new perspective in the studio.
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…
Necessary Things + 25% off Site Wide
February 14, 2021
Design lessons
You know how you reading a book and there’s this one line that pops out at you just can’t stop thinking about it? I have been doing a ton of reading lately by some very smart people so I actually have quite a few of these lines bopping around in my brain but there was one in particular that hit me a few days ago because I think it can apply to art as well.
Diana Athill, a renown British editor and writer said, “Only by having no inessential words can every essential word be made to count.”
Replace “words” with “visual elements” and I think you have a splendid way to look at and analyze your own work.
There is a common phrase that people use when looking at artwork they don’t care for, especially when the artist is present, that may end up misleading us. They say, “It feels like it’s missing something.” This can generally be translated into, “It doesn’t feel quite right but I’m not sure what’s wrong with it.”
But is it always the case that something is actually missing? I wonder if that phrase causes us to look for things to add to a piece rather than looking to see if there’s anything that it would be better without.
Simply put, more is not always better. So, I’m wondering, if we look at our pieces and ask ourselves, “What is essential?” as well as “Is anything missing?” then perhaps it will be much easier to find those changes we need to make the work what we envisioned.
In fact, maybe it should be asking three questions:
- What is essential?
- Is anything missing?
- Does anything need to be changed?
Essential Changes
To demonstrate this idea, I pulled out one of my favorite pieces that, nonetheless, I’ve always felt could have been better. That’s what you see opening this post. With the magic of Photoshop, I made some possible changes.
Photomanipulation is a quick way of testing out design ideas. If you’re not that well versed with the Photoshop tools or don’t have this kind of software, you can do similar things by printing out images of your work and then going at it with pens and colored pencils. Although, just remaking the piece is an excellent option as well.
When I ask myself what is essential and does anything need to be changed, I find myself looking at the denser layers of textured clay. The piece absolutely needs those layers – they are what makes the piece – but maybe I didn’t need so much.
One of my tests to see if a piece works is to see how my eye flows through the work. For me, the diagonal line of gems takes the eyes down to the left and drops you off into the bottom of the piece. In the original, the eye lands on the big chunk of textured clay on the left but there’s nothing much to direct me from there. Maybe I do make my way down to the bottom points but then there isn’t a whole lot to bring the eye back up either.
So, I need to look for opportunities to draw the eye further around the piece. I played around with a few ideas and found that removing sections from the textured clay created what I needed.
I took a chunk out of the interior side of the layer that took up the lower left section to make a smooth slope so that it was more like a wave or the way water might flow into such a space. I also opened up space at the top and to the right of the gems to break up that upper layer of texture.
So now I think the eye will go down the gems and those wavy lines into the lower left texture which, with a new angle, slides the eye down to smoothly follow to the endpoint and backup the right side.
I think that will create enough momentum to take the eye back up where, after pushing the gems closer to the middle to make room on the right-hand side, the eye can go investigate the missing sections on the outside right edge and towards the top.
I then shaped the top space to spill them out to the left with that little bit of texture pointing inward which should bring the eye back to the gems.
So, with those changes, the eye moves around the whole piece, I think, much more smoothly and successfully. And not because I added anything, but because I took things out. There was just too much of a good thing in the denseness of that yummy texture.
Practicing Essentials
Now, it’s your turn. I bet we could all use a little practice asking ourselves what is essential. Just look at one of your pieces and go through every little bit on it, asking, “What part does this element play? Does it fulfill a design need as well as feeding my theme/intention?”
If something is questionable, either take it out or imagine taking it out and see if the piece still works or if its absence makes space for new and stronger ideas. More space is often a very good thing!
Sending some LOVE this Valentine’s!
25% off Site wide!
I’ve a little Valentine’s sale going on this week. I don’t want you all to think that being engrossed in my own projects doesn’t means I don’t think about and miss doing more for you! I appreciate you all soooo much!
So, here’s 25% all non-sale items in your cart for this week. Print, digital, or design supplies … as long as it’s not already on sale, you’ll get 25% off whatever is in your cart.
Use code: SAGELUV
This discount can’t be used with other coupons and won’t discount shipping but it is good through February 21st, 2021.
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like, just …
Of Hierarchy and Uncertainty
February 7, 2021
Design lessons
Have you started to see hierarchy in creative work everywhere since reading last week’s post? Consciously recognizing the hierarchy in artwork not only reveals the path our eye tends to follow around the work but can also tell you a lot about the artist’s intention and themes.
Maybe I’m a weirdo but I really enjoy searching out the hierarchy and the path the eye makes through a piece of artwork. Sometimes, though, the work seems so simple that one might assume there is not much of a path, if any, or that there really isn’t any hierarchy. But there always is.
Let’s do a deep dive on what initially appears to be a fairly simple composition. I’ve got a few surprise thoughts for you on this!
The Eye and the Hierarchy
I found this gem of a piece here a couple weeks ago on Lyn Tremblay’s Facebook page. It doesn’t appear overly complex at first glance, so where is the hierarchy? We probably all can see that the emphasis is on what looks like stitches between the predominantly yellow portion and the striated blue section. But does anything really take our eye around the canvas?
Of course, the answer is yes, there is a lot going on that brings our eye around the entire piece. Let’s map the probably path.
Before you read on, take a look at the piece and make note of where your eyes goes first and how it travels around the work. Then we can see if the likely path I found is similar to yours!
Did you find your path? Ok, great. Let’s do this!
I don’t think that there is any question that we are all likely to go first to the line of stitches and the edges they pull together but, I think, we don’t linger there for so very long. The brilliance of the yellow likely draws us towards the far end where we kind of float around like we are in a warm, comfy pool of sunshine.
However, the yellow’s disintegration into that murky gray-green is probably going to pull us away soon enough because that area has more contrast and there’s movement created by that color change as well as by the lines of yellow we follow back and forth as it tries to break through the gray-green.
The momentum of moving from one side of the yellow section to the other can be used to pull us off into the blue section whose striated lines push our view to the edge where we halt, ready to turn back but instead we may discover the grouping of impressed dots in the one corner, a surprising addition that slows our return so that we can land rather softly back at the stitches.
Of Interpretation and Uncertainty
Now, if you are to consider the hierarchy in terms of what you think the artist might find most important, I think you have to agree that it pretty much follows where the eye wants to go. Having found the path through the canvas and confirming what we believe her intended hierarchy would be, what do you think her intention was for the piece?
Something being held together must be central since the stitches are where the primary emphasis is. And there must be more significance in the yellow than the blue. Do remember what emotions and associations yellow brings up? It generally brings up thoughts of warmth, playfulness, and happiness when juxtaposed with primarily positive elements. (It can be associated with depression, stress, and cowardice is surrounded by dreary or negative elements though.)
So, is she trying to stitch a happiness that might disintegrate to the calm represented by the blue or to the openness of blue skies? She titles it Dream Weaver so could the line be where the edge of her dreams of happiness met the real world? Is that what she meant?
Guess what? It doesn’t matter overmuch what her own specific intention was. The fact is, the piece feels complete and cohesive which is likely due to a consistent adherence to her intention, and If the whole of the design is good enough to draw you in and to have you wondering or making your own conclusions, the artist has done a splendid job.
The composition and sparse elements seen here are enough to create metaphors in our minds, leaving us to fill in the blanks about what it might mean based on our own life and outlook. That’s the kind of thing that makes great design and wonderful art!
Uncertain Orientation
Here’s a bonus little lesson and a different view of the piece found on the same post. I found it really interesting that Lyn posted this piece in both a portrait and landscape orientation. The piece can be read rather differently depending on which way the piece is sitting.
The vertical orientation makes it look like the undeniable presentation of a wish or, not so coincidentally, a dream. On its side, and with the stitches to the right (remember the Rule of Right!), it feels more like a journey or a process as we have a gradual change going from left to right.
It may seem like a piece of art that is presented as not needing to be shown in a particular orientation suffers from a lack of commitment to the artist’s intention. It is the case sometimes but not always. I think in Lyn’s piece, it works both ways since the same basic idea of trying to connect the strange world of dreams with the reality of life, or whatever metaphor you might have found there, is still present although one way shows a strength of position while the other feels open to change.
And I think it works particularly well with the concept of dreams since they are subject to such wide interpretation. So why not allow the owner of the piece to hang it in the orientation they prefer because it best represents their interpretation of it? Kind of cool really.
That doesn’t mean you don’t need to create your work with an orientation in mind. Most of the time you probably should. But, in some cases, if it’s abstract enough, follows at least one of the compositional rules, (we have the Rule of Thirds working here) and it makes sense for the piece, leaving the orientation open to the owners preference can really work.
What Next?
Phew! That was a deep dive, wasn’t it? Were you able to follow my interpretation? I’d like to do this kind of thing fairly regularly, focusing on a different design lesson each time so you have a chance to really dig into the concepts along with me. But if it’s just a lot to wade through on a Sunday morning with the cobwebs not quite cleared out of your brain yet, let me know.
You can reply to this email, if that’s how you get this, or go to the contact page here. I am always thrilled to hear what you think whether it’s a commendation, criticism, or suggestion. Absolutely love getting all of them. It really helps me steer what I create for you.
During the next couple weeks, I think I might steer us away from design and talk about other things that can really help take your artwork up a notch. I’ve been in a lot of conversations and have been reading a lot about novel length fiction writing and I keep finding equivalences to the way one can approach art and so that’s where my mind is and I think some of the ideas might be pretty exciting for you.
So, join me again next Sunday for an easy read and some, hopefully, brilliant ideas. And the meantime, have a wonderful, safe, and warm (or cool if you’re down under!) week!
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like, just …
Is this fantastical coral sculpture by Lisa Stevens complete? When I first saw it, I felt like the orange fans needed to encircle it more. Then, after looking it over, liking it regardless of that initial thought, it struck me that it is as complete as it needs to be. It’s representative of coral, which is never complete in the real world. It is an organic structure that is constantly building itself and so having this open side gives that room for that potential growth, conceptually speaking, of course. And it scores well in design elements and principles!
When do you know a piece is finished? It certainly can’t be that magical moment when it comes out just as you hoped, just as you saw it in your mind. When does that ever happen? And it’s not like there’s some established design tenet or measurement we can take that tells us, yes, this is done, this is perfect, there is nothing else you could do to make this better. Because, chances are, we will forever look at it and see the bit we aren’t happy with, contemplate what we could have done better, and see it as lesser than what we thought it should be.
(Not that we aren’t sometimes over the moon with what we create. They are rather like children to us, aren’t they? So, we don’t always mind the flaws, the incongruities, the less-than-perfect execution. Sometimes we love them for it. Luckily, most of our viewers and admirers don’t see the imperfections at all.)
The fact is, no piece of art is ever completely done because no piece of art is perfect. Yet, we usually equate completion with perfection. Well, we also equate completion with deadlines, throwing up our hands and saying, This is all I can do. It will have to be good enough.
But, barring those deadline driven ideas of completion, how DO you know when your work is done? Well, you can ask yourself a few questions:
- Is the design of working? (Use your Elements and Principles of Design lists to check off on each of the elements and concepts if you are uncertain.)
- Is the composition balanced with a path for the eye to follow, a path that is supportive of the piece’s intention?
And, most importantly…
- Is it expressing, showing, or representing what I set out to share in this piece?
If you can answer those three questions in a positive manner, it may be time to put down the tools, the paintbrush, the colorants, or whatever else you are about to accost your piece with, and step away. At least for a time.
If you wonder if it’s done but are uncertain, it likely is done or is close. So, this would be another occasion where it would be best if you set it aside, out of sight, so you can move onto the next thing and give yourself some distance from it. If you step away from it for at least a week, that would be best. Longer would be ideal, but even overnight would be better than continuing to hack away at it. That time away should allow you to see it with fresh eyes so you can better identify anything that’s missing, needs to be changed, or needs to be taken away.
If you’re on a deadline and have no time to gain that distance from it, take it to a mirror, turn it upside down (if you can), and analyze it from this new view.
More coral sculptures from Lisa Stevens to contemplate. These are porcelain and/or paper clay but I thought they could be quite inspiring for some of you polymer clayers as well.
The danger we are trying to avoid here, of course, is overworking it. Sometimes you are just too close to the piece after working on it for hours and days, or maybe even weeks, and either you can’t see what it needs or think something is a problem when it’s not. So, pull away when you start to think it might be done, or close enough that it would benefit from a fresh look after some time away. It is better to stop too early than work a piece to an irreversible point. Just repeat after me… stop early, not late.
I know that advice is not some kind of magic spell that will allow you to always know when to stop. But, remember, this is art, not a math problem. There is no final version of a piece where it will be all it can be. I think artwork is just like us—it becomes what it needs to be, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. It’s just a question of whether the improvement is needed.
Make sense? Great. Now, let’s go finish some work!
Clay Time!
I’m speaking of myself as well on that call to go finish some work. I’m going to run off and actually work at my studio table. I’ve been designing some deceptively simple necklaces and earrings, even though I had intended on starting some wall pieces. You just can’t tell the creative mind where to go or what to do, can you?
But also, Polyform has a ton of new clay colors they just sent me, so I’m playing with a few. There are quite a number I’m not likely to use for my work, so I’m going to pack up a few boxes this week to raffle off next weekend. Do come back and join me for that.
And if you are having a hard time finding some basic clay colors, I checked on Polyform’s site yesterday and they seem to have a lot in stock so check them out if you are running low on your favorite colors.
In the meantime, I hope you have a beautiful, cozy, safe, and creative week.
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…
Read More
Alev Gozonar makes simplicity seem complex. With little more than lines, color contrast, and oval cane slices, she creates an energetic and tension filled canvas. The complexity comes from the quantity of the elements and the high contrast of color. Additional elements would feel overdone, busy, and probably chaotic. This sits on the edge of chaos but comfortably, giving us time to catch the half faces peeking out on every third or so cane slice. Do you recognize the focal point? It doesn’t yell “Look at me” but we land there anyway because of the sharp angle and the density of the canes in that one spot. It’s a simple focal that keeps the eye moving instead of hovering on it.
What kind of work you prefer to do? Intricate and multilayered pieces with lots going on or simple, understated pieces? Or something in between?
Although our personal preferences dictate, in large part, how busy or complex our pieces are, the concepts we are exploring should also have quite a bearing on our approach. However, what often happens is that we do whatever gets our initial thoughts down without too much wrestling with the design. More often than not, this results in pieces that are busier than they need to be.
Now, I know it sounds strange that a more complex piece would be considered the easier way to go, but the truth is, simple is difficult to do well. This dovetails into last week’s post about looking at your work in terms of what you can take out, not just what you can add to it. This time I am raising the question of how complex your piece needs to be and what should determine that.
Whether you work free-form or make intricately planned sketches, I’m sure you could save yourself a lot of frustration later on by asking yourself if the ideas, concepts, emotions, or experiences that you are bringing to the piece would be best relayed by simplicity or complexity or something in between. The work just needs a moment of your time to consider it.
Now, if you don’t know what you’re going to make when you sit down to create, you can save those questions until you recognize where you are going with your work. There is always some point at which the direction of your piece becomes apparent. It’s at that time that you would most benefit from such questions.
Let me further amend what I said above about choosing complexity. I do think we tend to go for more complexity when we think something is not working (or we aren’t sure what we are trying to do), but I also think we commonly stay within a range, a kind of comfort zone of complexity. Very few people are into the intensity and work required for really large complex pieces like Heather Campbell’s or can unearth the sophistication of simplicity that is the genius of Genevieve Williamson. Most of you probably float somewhere in between. However, especially if you’ve been creating for a while, you will have a relative range that includes your version of simple and complex creations.
Black and white and shades of gray, scratches and smooth sections, layers that move and layers that stay put all on shapes that ride between the organic and the geometric… Genevieve Williamson creates mood, energy, and grace with a dichotomy of simple elements.
So, when you are pondering the complexity or simplicity of the piece you are working on, don’t think in terms of what other people do. Look at your body of work and consider what your range is. If it’s a pretty slim range, some stretching of those creative muscles could bring about some grand discoveries.
If you’ve been a bit sluggish on the creative front, maybe now is the time to try something that runs in a more simple or complex vein than usual. Challenge yourself to go as super simple as you can or take it up a notch and layer on the complexity but with purpose. What ideas, concepts, or experiences of yours would be easier to bring out in your work if you push it one way or the other?
Does that get your creative wheels turning? If pondering this doesn’t immediately bring up some ideas, just observe the work you come across over the next week or so. Ask yourself what the simplicity or complexity of the work conveys or supports in the piece you’re are contemplating. You might come up with some surprise answers, maybe even a new view of the piece, as well as a new perspective in the studio.
You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…
Read More
You know how you reading a book and there’s this one line that pops out at you just can’t stop thinking about it? I have been doing a ton of reading lately by some very smart people so I actually have quite a few of these lines bopping around in my brain but there was one in particular that hit me a few days ago because I think it can apply to art as well.
Diana Athill, a renown British editor and writer said, “Only by having no inessential words can every essential word be made to count.”
Replace “words” with “visual elements” and I think you have a splendid way to look at and analyze your own work.
There is a common phrase that people use when looking at artwork they don’t care for, especially when the artist is present, that may end up misleading us. They say, “It feels like it’s missing something.” This can generally be translated into, “It doesn’t feel quite right but I’m not sure what’s wrong with it.”
But is it always the case that something is actually missing? I wonder if that phrase causes us to look for things to add to a piece rather than looking to see if there’s anything that it would be better without.
Simply put, more is not always better. So, I’m wondering, if we look at our pieces and ask ourselves, “What is essential?” as well as “Is anything missing?” then perhaps it will be much easier to find those changes we need to make the work what we envisioned.
In fact, maybe it should be asking three questions:
- What is essential?
- Is anything missing?
- Does anything need to be changed?
Essential Changes
To demonstrate this idea, I pulled out one of my favorite pieces that, nonetheless, I’ve always felt could have been better. That’s what you see opening this post. With the magic of Photoshop, I made some possible changes.
Photomanipulation is a quick way of testing out design ideas. If you’re not that well versed with the Photoshop tools or don’t have this kind of software, you can do similar things by printing out images of your work and then going at it with pens and colored pencils. Although, just remaking the piece is an excellent option as well.
When I ask myself what is essential and does anything need to be changed, I find myself looking at the denser layers of textured clay. The piece absolutely needs those layers – they are what makes the piece – but maybe I didn’t need so much.
One of my tests to see if a piece works is to see how my eye flows through the work. For me, the diagonal line of gems takes the eyes down to the left and drops you off into the bottom of the piece. In the original, the eye lands on the big chunk of textured clay on the left but there’s nothing much to direct me from there. Maybe I do make my way down to the bottom points but then there isn’t a whole lot to bring the eye back up either.
So, I need to look for opportunities to draw the eye further around the piece. I played around with a few ideas and found that removing sections from the textured clay created what I needed.
I took a chunk out of the interior side of the layer that took up the lower left section to make a smooth slope so that it was more like a wave or the way water might flow into such a space. I also opened up space at the top and to the right of the gems to break up that upper layer of texture.
So now I think the eye will go down the gems and those wavy lines into the lower left texture which, with a new angle, slides the eye down to smoothly follow to the endpoint and backup the right side.
I think that will create enough momentum to take the eye back up where, after pushing the gems closer to the middle to make room on the right-hand side, the eye can go investigate the missing sections on the outside right edge and towards the top.
I then shaped the top space to spill them out to the left with that little bit of texture pointing inward which should bring the eye back to the gems.
So, with those changes, the eye moves around the whole piece, I think, much more smoothly and successfully. And not because I added anything, but because I took things out. There was just too much of a good thing in the denseness of that yummy texture.
Practicing Essentials
Now, it’s your turn. I bet we could all use a little practice asking ourselves what is essential. Just look at one of your pieces and go through every little bit on it, asking, “What part does this element play? Does it fulfill a design need as well as feeding my theme/intention?”
If something is questionable, either take it out or imagine taking it out and see if the piece still works or if its absence makes space for new and stronger ideas. More space is often a very good thing!
Sending some LOVE this Valentine’s!
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Have you started to see hierarchy in creative work everywhere since reading last week’s post? Consciously recognizing the hierarchy in artwork not only reveals the path our eye tends to follow around the work but can also tell you a lot about the artist’s intention and themes.
Maybe I’m a weirdo but I really enjoy searching out the hierarchy and the path the eye makes through a piece of artwork. Sometimes, though, the work seems so simple that one might assume there is not much of a path, if any, or that there really isn’t any hierarchy. But there always is.
Let’s do a deep dive on what initially appears to be a fairly simple composition. I’ve got a few surprise thoughts for you on this!
The Eye and the Hierarchy
I found this gem of a piece here a couple weeks ago on Lyn Tremblay’s Facebook page. It doesn’t appear overly complex at first glance, so where is the hierarchy? We probably all can see that the emphasis is on what looks like stitches between the predominantly yellow portion and the striated blue section. But does anything really take our eye around the canvas?
Of course, the answer is yes, there is a lot going on that brings our eye around the entire piece. Let’s map the probably path.
Before you read on, take a look at the piece and make note of where your eyes goes first and how it travels around the work. Then we can see if the likely path I found is similar to yours!
Did you find your path? Ok, great. Let’s do this!
I don’t think that there is any question that we are all likely to go first to the line of stitches and the edges they pull together but, I think, we don’t linger there for so very long. The brilliance of the yellow likely draws us towards the far end where we kind of float around like we are in a warm, comfy pool of sunshine.
However, the yellow’s disintegration into that murky gray-green is probably going to pull us away soon enough because that area has more contrast and there’s movement created by that color change as well as by the lines of yellow we follow back and forth as it tries to break through the gray-green.
The momentum of moving from one side of the yellow section to the other can be used to pull us off into the blue section whose striated lines push our view to the edge where we halt, ready to turn back but instead we may discover the grouping of impressed dots in the one corner, a surprising addition that slows our return so that we can land rather softly back at the stitches.
Of Interpretation and Uncertainty
Now, if you are to consider the hierarchy in terms of what you think the artist might find most important, I think you have to agree that it pretty much follows where the eye wants to go. Having found the path through the canvas and confirming what we believe her intended hierarchy would be, what do you think her intention was for the piece?
Something being held together must be central since the stitches are where the primary emphasis is. And there must be more significance in the yellow than the blue. Do remember what emotions and associations yellow brings up? It generally brings up thoughts of warmth, playfulness, and happiness when juxtaposed with primarily positive elements. (It can be associated with depression, stress, and cowardice is surrounded by dreary or negative elements though.)
So, is she trying to stitch a happiness that might disintegrate to the calm represented by the blue or to the openness of blue skies? She titles it Dream Weaver so could the line be where the edge of her dreams of happiness met the real world? Is that what she meant?
Guess what? It doesn’t matter overmuch what her own specific intention was. The fact is, the piece feels complete and cohesive which is likely due to a consistent adherence to her intention, and If the whole of the design is good enough to draw you in and to have you wondering or making your own conclusions, the artist has done a splendid job.
The composition and sparse elements seen here are enough to create metaphors in our minds, leaving us to fill in the blanks about what it might mean based on our own life and outlook. That’s the kind of thing that makes great design and wonderful art!
Uncertain Orientation
Here’s a bonus little lesson and a different view of the piece found on the same post. I found it really interesting that Lyn posted this piece in both a portrait and landscape orientation. The piece can be read rather differently depending on which way the piece is sitting.
The vertical orientation makes it look like the undeniable presentation of a wish or, not so coincidentally, a dream. On its side, and with the stitches to the right (remember the Rule of Right!), it feels more like a journey or a process as we have a gradual change going from left to right.
It may seem like a piece of art that is presented as not needing to be shown in a particular orientation suffers from a lack of commitment to the artist’s intention. It is the case sometimes but not always. I think in Lyn’s piece, it works both ways since the same basic idea of trying to connect the strange world of dreams with the reality of life, or whatever metaphor you might have found there, is still present although one way shows a strength of position while the other feels open to change.
And I think it works particularly well with the concept of dreams since they are subject to such wide interpretation. So why not allow the owner of the piece to hang it in the orientation they prefer because it best represents their interpretation of it? Kind of cool really.
That doesn’t mean you don’t need to create your work with an orientation in mind. Most of the time you probably should. But, in some cases, if it’s abstract enough, follows at least one of the compositional rules, (we have the Rule of Thirds working here) and it makes sense for the piece, leaving the orientation open to the owners preference can really work.
What Next?
Phew! That was a deep dive, wasn’t it? Were you able to follow my interpretation? I’d like to do this kind of thing fairly regularly, focusing on a different design lesson each time so you have a chance to really dig into the concepts along with me. But if it’s just a lot to wade through on a Sunday morning with the cobwebs not quite cleared out of your brain yet, let me know.
You can reply to this email, if that’s how you get this, or go to the contact page here. I am always thrilled to hear what you think whether it’s a commendation, criticism, or suggestion. Absolutely love getting all of them. It really helps me steer what I create for you.
During the next couple weeks, I think I might steer us away from design and talk about other things that can really help take your artwork up a notch. I’ve been in a lot of conversations and have been reading a lot about novel length fiction writing and I keep finding equivalences to the way one can approach art and so that’s where my mind is and I think some of the ideas might be pretty exciting for you.
So, join me again next Sunday for an easy read and some, hopefully, brilliant ideas. And the meantime, have a wonderful, safe, and warm (or cool if you’re down under!) week!
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