Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Altered Page: Buried Treasure

The Altered Page: Buried Treasure: The Continuing Education of a Perennial Art Student . . .Lesson Learned: "Deluge After Drought"


Here is a piece I struggled with for quite some time.  It has quite a few more layers of various papers and paint than I frequently use in my work, and at several stages in it's creation, looked quite different than it looks, above, in it's final incarnation.  At times I thought that I had "overworked" parts of it, and I also kept fighting the urge to give the piece a strong focal point of some kind (even in my non objective artwork like this piece there is usually some sort of center-of-interest), as I really wanted to focus on texture, pattern, and repetition, here.  I put the unfinished piece away for a month or more, and thought about elements that would  bring the composition more in line with the mental image I had of it.  When I hauled it out, again to work on it, I only ended up changing things slightly by adding several new elements to the composition.  Having done so, I knew it was complete.  Lesson learned: giving a piece I am working on some time, by putting it away and leaving it in an unfinished state for awhile, helps me to process, and can actually give the artwork the space and time it needs, as well, to tell me what needs to happen next!

4 comments:

  1. Robert, Just stopping in from Seth's Buried Treasure and enjoyed seeing your treasure. Your style is so outside the box which I love and I enjoyed visiting your blog.
    :) Chris / CS Designs

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    1. Thanks so much Chris! Your comments are very much appreciated!

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  2. Your piece reminds me of looking out of Terry Garrett's windows into the birch forest. Love the feeling of texture in this piece.

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    1. Thanks for the comment, John! I understand that you were recently at Terry's place in Bemidji for a week of doing art together. Sounds like it must have been great fun! I assume you got a chance to work with monoprints on Gelli plates. I recently got an 8" x 10" Gelli plate, and have just started experimenting with it! Terry was just telling me that he recently went on his bicycle through local woods that were heavily damaged by storms a year ago. He says the pathway has reopened, but since they had to alter it's placement somewhat, it was a bit bittersweet, because he and Ron had such fond memories of the way it had been before.

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