When asked about your thoughts on contrast in your work, do you think about your range of contrast or whether your work has high contrast? How about when asked about color saturation or texture?

When talking about concepts that are representative of a range of possibilities in design—contrast, saturation, size, texture, etc.—we often think of those terms as representing one end of the range of possibilities, or maybe more precisely put, what we think is the better outcome. By doing so, though, we may be cutting ourselves off from other wonderful possibilities.

Let’s look at contrast as our example. I think most people assume that with contrast, the broader or bigger the differences the better. It’s true that higher contrast creates more visual energy, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. As always, it goes back to your intention. If you want a piece to be calm or dreamy, high contrast and high energy is not going to relay that very well. Sometimes, subtlety is what’s called for.

Look at the bezeled polymer cabochons in the opening image by Phyllis Cahill. The highest contrast we have here is with those white spots against the pale colors. The evenness of the bezels edge does contrast against the irregular lines in the polymer but that’s also fairly subtle. The cool feel of the color palette borders on warmth as the greens turned yellow but that barely registers. Still, there is some energy in these, in part from the subtle contrast but mostly in the way the element of line shows movement where the watercolor she uses spreads from one section to another. Overall though, Phyllis used elements in simple and subtle ways and it works wonderfully.

Subtlety doesn’t come just in the form of general design elements either. Being subtle is also a choice when using imagery. Creating literal and clear translations of imagery can be beautiful but it leaves less room for the viewer to insert their own thoughts, interpretations, and experiences. Blurring lines, merging shapes and leaving out details allows us to fill in the rest with our own recollections.

I’ve always admired Lorraine Vogel’s work for this reason. She works a lot with floral and leafy imagery but you rarely get the whole flower or the whole leaf. What you do get is elegantly minimalized, inviting you to stay and fill in the rest with your own imagery.

So keep your range of options in mind. When thinking contrast, consider how much energy you want the contrast to add to a piece. When considering color saturation, keep pastels and neutrals in mind. When choosing textures, of course you have many types but even a particular type can be lightly textured if that will better fulfill the intention. And when contemplating imagery, ask yourself how detailed it needs to be.

In other words, it’s not, “Do I have enough contrast, saturation, detail…?” The question is, “How much do I need or want?

The thing is, I’m sure we all know we have these ranges of choice, but do we contemplate the full range when we are working? Sometimes we just need a reminder to look at all our options and, maybe, challenge ourselves to work outside our norm.

Last Week’s Giveaway

Okay, we have another winner to announce from last week’s giveaway!

This last week’s randomly chosen winner was Nicky Moxey! She’s in the UK so I’m sending her a gift certificate. We’ll just have to have another giveaway next month to give that clay away.

I have to point out a fabulous comment Nicky made regarding the work she’s been doing on contrast in colors and thin layers of clay … “I’m making a lot of happy mistakes,” she wrote. That is the attitude! We learn more from our mistakes than our successes and often come upon some of our greatest discoveries when we “slip up”. I just love to hear comments like that!

Congrats Nicky!

This Week’s Giveaway

Thank you to everyone who took part in last week’s giveaway through comments on the post. So, once again, let’s do this!

The Goodies:

• This week I have a multi-pack set of Premo and Souffle plus a set of pearling tools (I LOVE these pearling tools!) and a two sheet texture set with 7 textures. This is worth $49 and you can’t get these multi-packs much of anywhere right now. So here’s your chance!
• If outside the US, I have a $35 Tenth Muse certificate, since it would be such a gamble to ship clay outside the US.

How to Win:

• Put a comment in the blog comments* (below), telling me what design element you think you need to pay more attention to– marks, lines, color, shapes, form, size, or texture? You can leave a one word comment or an explanation of what you want to work on with that particular element. Remember, not only are you getting a chance to win some goodies, you’re taking the time to stop and consider how to improve your own work.
• Note: It can take some time for a comment to appear if you’ve not commented before since, due to annoying spamming, I may have to approve it .

• Giveaway winners will be chosen by random—it will NOT be based on your answers.
• And let’s say you can only win once this month so we can spread the love around.
• Get your comments posted by Wednesday March 24th at midnight Pacific time to get in for the raffle.
• I’ll announce the winner here on the blog next weekend!

I’ll put together yet another pack of goodies for a giveaway in next weekend’s post, so stay tuned here!

You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like…

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…

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 …

So, here we are, finally, at the last lesson in the design series I started last February. Although it has taken a year to go through everything, I thought was important for polymer and mixed media creatives to know about design, it will still take some time to master this stuff. So, don’t worry if you feel like you haven’t been able to soak it all in. Just stick with me and, over the coming months, we’ll have a grand old time reviewing and renewing that information so that, by a nearly effortless process of knowledge osmosis, you will continue to learn until it becomes second nature.

Our last lesson is about a pair of concepts that, like the contrast and variety concepts we talked about the previous couple of weeks, you actually already know. Well, you certainly should find them familiar if you’ve been keeping up with the lessons this past year.

They are the principles of Emphasis and Hierarchy. Both lean heavily on the Elements of Design and the other Principles of Design in order to work and have actually been part of our conversation on and off this whole year. So, the goal this week is to just bring them into focus so you have a clear understanding of how they work and why you use them. But first, let’s see what you recall.

What would you say emphasis is about? Well, if you said it’s about the thing that stands out, that is noticed first, or that could be thought of as the focal point in a piece, then yeah, you got this!

What do you look at first in the Laurie Mika piece above? It’s probably the face although you may register the red heart first. We normally just can’t help but examine a face before all else but the bright red among the relative neutrality of the metallics really puts up a fight for center stage. 

If I ask you about hierarchy, and you start thinking about kings and queens or the political order of government, well, those are different subjects but it’s the same basic concept whether we’re talking about art or aristocracies. So, you have some basic knowledge about the concept of hierarchy as well.

You see, you’ve come to this lesson quite well prepared!

Of Power and Priorities

The role of emphasis and hierarchy are quite different even though they work hand-in-hand. Understanding these differences will help you create useful and engaging hierarchies while helping you to position your emphasis accordingly.

Let’s talk about what emphasis is and isn’t first. Emphasis, in its most important artistic role, is about drawing the viewer to a primary subject or the primary section of your piece, often referred to as the focal point. The focal point is usually imbued with the core or starting point of the subject matter, is a key representative of the concepts being explored, or epitomizes your aesthetic in a concise or introductory fashion. Everything else in the design will commonly work in support of that important element or section or will build off of it. The focal point is also generally the top element in the hierarchy.

The primary emphasis does not need to be dramatic or obvious. Carol Beal’s painted polymer pendants don’t have a focal “point” but more of a focal area in each of these pendants. Those areas are the ones that have the highest energy. In both cases it is about a quarter to one-third of the way down where the gold flecks are collected because the gold contrasts with the other colors and the finish of the paint but also because they appear to be layered on top, bringing them visually forward.

But emphasis is about more than just the focal point. Otherwise, why wouldn’t we just call it the focal point? Emphasis is comparative and relative.

You’ll see that in a hierarchy among secondary focal points or other sections. We often decide to give these parts variety or contrast and, in the process, some parts in a piece will stand out more than others. Our interpretation that some parts are more important than others is a comparative process as we determine their importance in relation to each other. So, the use of the principles of variety and contrast can play double duty by emphasizing or deemphasizing parts, something that you have full control over and can adjust as needed.

And once you start making certain elements appear more emphasized than others, you have created a hierarchy.

So, obviously, hierarchy defines where all the elements in the design fall in its visual pecking order. Unlike aristocracies, however, elements won’t be plotting to kill each other off to become the focal point. (But, gosh, wouldn’t that be a funny show?) But why is developing a hierarchy important?

Well, if you recall from my posts on composition, and especially if you were part of one of the clubs and got my step-by-step method for creating a path for the eye of the viewer, you may recall the concept of “leading the eye”. Those lessons were really about hierarchy as developing different points of interest starting with the main focus and defining additional sections with less and less importance is the definition of hierarchy. It’s tied into the viewers visual path through the piece because the viewer’s gaze will generally move around the composition from what is most important to what is least important, barring any strong directional lines that lead the eye around instead.

Although leading the eye is one of the primary reasons for creating hierarchy, you can do a number of other things with it as well including telling a story, developing a message, or giving the viewer an experience through the exploration and discovery you lead them on.

What do you think Laurie Mika was doing in the opening piece? Our eye goes from heart and face down the skeleton to the words below then up the columns of flowers and back down again. Notice how the flowers are just shapes, de-emphasizing them so they don’t fight with the detailed center elements. 

Putting It into Practice

So, if you understand how emphasis works then you can develop hierarchies and if you understand the purpose of hierarchies then you can make intentional decisions about your elements that support these hierarchies.

For instance, let’s say you’ve developed a focal point on a pendant and it’s a red circle sitting at the central position of the Golden ratio. That is an extremely strong color and position so it shouldn’t be hard to create less emphasized secondary parts. But you still have to make the decisions about what those additional parts are and which of those will see more important than the others.

So, let’s say you have three other elements or sections you want to include. What color do you make them? You probably want to avoid red so as not to draw attention away from your focal point. Look to your other principles such as contrast or the characteristics of color that would support your intention to choose the colors for these other sections.

Let’s say you make the other elements various versions of cyan to contrast with the red. Because color has such impact, you won’t be able to create relative emphasis and your hierarchy if you don’t differentiate them with texture, size, proportion, etc.

So maybe you make one of them quite large and triangular and another quite small and circular. Give the large triangle an interesting rough texture and make the small circle smooth. The rough texture will have more energy, not to mention that the triangle is bigger, and therefore it will be noticed sooner than the small circle giving it a higher position in this hierarchy. In fact, the small smooth circle will be noticed last if registered at all because it has so little energy.

But what about that third section or element? If you make it of a medium-size, triangular or square so it is angular (angularity has more energy and feels more forceful than circles), with little to no texture, it will have subdued energy compared to the large triangle but will have a lot more going on than the small smooth circle. That way it should be the third thing noticed in the design.

Now, arrange these items so the viewers eye travels around the canvas in a manner that fulfills your intention. You’ll may to harken back to the lesson on line to really drive home how the arrangement can affect the feeling the viewer has about your work.

If you arrange this hierarchy in a straight line, from focal point to least emphasized element, it is going to feel very strong and fast. If it flows in a circle around the composition that will give it a much slower pace and one that is comfortable and inviting, as curvilinear lines generally are. If you arrange them so the viewer has to bounce back and forth across the canvas of the composition to look at the elements in their hierarchical order, it’s going to feel like a zigzag with more frenetic energy than the other options I just mentioned.

Are you starting to see how all this stuff works together?

Looking for Emphasis

I want to leave you with those ideas for now but I challenge you to start looking at the artwork of others and asking yourself where the emphasis is and what hierarchy has been established. See if you can recognize how it affects the way you view the piece and what you get out of it. Then, start doing looking at your own work the same way.

We will be looking more at hierarchy and emphasis in the coming weeks and then I will start circling back around to review the design lessons of the past year. In fact, although I did say I was probably going to do the blog every other week, I miss you all too much already and I’ve decided that I’m going to continue to write something for you weekly so we can continue to spend a little bit of our Sundays together. Some of the posts might be short but I should be able to get something out every week without it interfering with my personal projects. Sound good?

So, until next week, have a wonderful creative start to your February.

You can support this blog by buying yourself a little something at Tenth Muse Arts or, if you like,  just …