Saturday, May 30, 2009

back to the future



For some time, my blog has featured photos from nature, sprinkled with a few pieces I have created in my Digital Painting class. I've been in studentland, teacherland, gardenerland, and nonproducingartland. But with this new project, all my art neurons seem to be firing on overdrive. I'm baaaaaaaaaaack...

...so much so that my arise-early-girl circadian rhythm is on interruptus status, much to Amazon.com's delight, which received my 1 a.m order for Masterpieces of Japanese Prints: Ukiyoa from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Why am I ordering a book on Japanese woodcut prints? Well, this is a long story and I will share part of it (so as not to bore you with details). First, a tease.



This is a zoomed-in crop from the image at the top of this blog entry. I am studying these woodcut versions of my image in order to consider the issue of texture in my piece. I "read" these woodcuts as textural renderings and they will help me translate my flat photograph into fiber and glass.

Ah, there's the next issue for me. Glass. It's always a question -- whenever I insert that medium into my art, there must be a justification. "Just because" I can is not a reason.

Okay, another picture is in order. Check out this glass.



This is not stained glass, but fused glass that I will fire in my kiln into a shape or shapes. This glass looks perfect for the sky, yes?

And...back to texture...I think it would be swell to use fused glass in part of the sky. The texture seems justified -- at this point, I don't know if the glass texture would work in the rocks. But I haven't decided how 'literal' the piece will be yet (I'm still in the cogitating stage).

Compare the photo and the woodcut version:
Photo of sky:



Woodcut version of sky:



Now consider just the element of texture: fabric vs. glass, type of fabric, type of construction, varieties of surface design...

Now try to sleep.

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