Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Dickens is in the Details

Sometimes, despite having the 'big picture' in one's mind, seeing that transformed onto the support for rendering is a slow process - primarily because the dickens is in the details... it is, especially when doing work from within one's mind, sometimes the case that there lies some fog on the mental landscape, just as is sometimes in this world - and it takes effort to 'see' thru it, often such that one has to wait a bit for it to lift so that one can then see further into the distance in order to get any more rendering done... such is presently the case with my ongoing project, "My Big Back Yard"... there is a temptation to just forge ahead and transfer the foreground and begin rendering that [and indeed, may find myself doing just that] while waiting out the further lifting of the fog - but for now, there is enough to keep me adding more details to the grand landscape, and as such keeping to the sketch... if, however, am finding problems being comfortable with 'seeing' the distance clearly, will then strike out and begin the colored pencil version of this on a 30"x40" illustration board [there will, hopefully, be three - colored pencil, pen and colored inks ["My Bigger Back Yard", 32"x40" on foamcore], and a grand landscape picture window sized one in acrylics on canvas, "The Grandest Back Yard", as if it all may be within a space habitat and a vast view of space is thus seen above it all...

Monday, July 20, 2009

Space Exploration Day...

Today is the 40th anniversary of man's first stepping on the moon.... so, in honor, am running my own space rendering, "View Master", 4'x8' acrylic on canvas.... I well remember the event - and did my first and only photo-taking off the TV with this, catching the first step as it happened live... thrilling moment, to be sure...

This is also the day now to be sought as officially Space Exploration Day, a non-paying official holiday same as Flag Day....

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Crops

One of the delights in doing imaginative rendering is, to me at any rate, the almost imperative happening of variations coming to mind... this not only is in regards to the major participants of the original, but at times the theming itself demands other thoughts on the same material - both to such an extent at times that a whole closet full of variations in one respect or another can come from the one singular rendering... then there is an offshoot - which, in its turn, also gives off vibes of variations, and the process can at times be like an avalanche of ideas which may seem like is threatening to drown the artist in an abundance of percolating thoughts that seem to have no end... this is a lot like Camille Saint Saens' remarked of in his saying he 'got ideas like plucking apples off a tree' [disgusting, no doubt, to those others who sweated to little avail at times in coming up with even the simplest of compositions]... but which is why I actually do not know what an 'artist block' is - the notion is simply foreign to me...

This is not to say, tho, that all of these ideas and variations are good, at least as they first present themselves to my consciousness... I have had a number that, in doing the rendering, have found to be of less than desired in how they came out, or discovered they needed more to the developmental aspect in my mind than was willing to engage in... this is where 'crop' has another meaning, as in to cull - and is of equal value in the artist's arsenal, and as often not used to its most effectiveness... but there is a necessity of it, as one only has so much time to place in doing these renderings, thus needs to weed out the lesser ones for the sake of those which more show that manner of importance which is what the showing is all about... and this is sometimes something I overlook, and find myself fretting about - until another idea pops into mind and am off again to pursue the consequences...