Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Constructing Art





Mary Green has Deconstructing Art, so I figured I could have Constructing Art!

I’m going to participate in my very first Quick-Draw/Quick-Finish event on the 7th of August and my second on the 8th. So where to begin?

I was notified a couple of weeks ago that a couple of pieces of my art work on old paper had been juried into the Blackfoot Valley Art Auction. The notification came in the form of a nice letter and a business envelope with a corner card. They also invited me to participate in the Quick-Draw event, and I reluctantly said yes. The reason I say reluctantly is because I’d never done it before, and I have no idea if I can actually finish something in an hour! Because both letterhead and envelope had a Western Swallowtail Butterfly as part of the design, I at least had somewhere to start.

I decided to do a Mini-Poster because although most of my art work takes at least a day, there are a couple of things I can do fairly well including a generic landscape of mountains and trees. I started with a palette on which I put the particulars for the event using a couple of vintage lettering styles. All of my design and preliminary work is done with a pencil. I did perhaps six layouts in pencil of the palette and lettering before I was satisfied with what I had. I left the day area of the date line blank, intending to do the same basic thing for both events, but change three things: I’m going to use a different Red Rose Tea Trading Card, the day will be changed, and the landscape – trust me – it will be different. I simply can’t repeat it.

I purchased some heavier 30# scrapbooking paper in ivory, scanned my layout, and printed two copies of the layout. I proceeded to complete the lettering on the palette and since I used two different trading cards, the color of the lettering will follow the colors present in the butterfly wings.

Using the template again, I produced a layout on the same ivory paper, and did forty-five minutes worth of ‘landscaping’.

Using the Bog Fritillary butterfly wings as a color key, I finished the lettering on the palette for the Friday Night Event, and using the Western Tiger Swallowtail as a color key, I completed the lettering for the Saturday Night event.

The third image is as close as you or I are ever going to get to seeing what the finished piece looks like, or at least I hope it is. I realized by the time I was done with this one that I need more trees in the landscape, but that's easy to do.

Hopefully, it will walk out the door when the Auction is over!

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like congratulations are in order. It is always fun to get your work accepted, first, and then into shows, second, and best of all are the pieces that sell for Cadillac prices.

    I wanted to tell someone who understands more about photography than just pushing the shutter button that your visit will count and help make history. Pick a Peck of Pixels

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  2. I like the way you take us through the process here...

    And congratulations....

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