Text as texture

I have been experimenting with some abstract layouts using text as texture. The image above is one of the sketches from my journal. This is actually my least favorite and I'll tell you why. It's too clean and orderly. There is some contrast in value but not near enough to be pleasing. You know what they say, "The artist who can control contrast can control the world!" Or something like that.

I will post several of these to show what works and what doesn't work for me. Then I hope to take the best one and recreate on a large scale.

Thank you

Thank you all who have followed along

on my journey of experimenting and

working in calligraphy 

and the calligraphic arts.

I am truly blessed to 

be able to pursue my passion

and to share the things

 I learn and create

with a such a supportive

 group of individuals.

My gratitude goes out to you!

Commission

I had the wonderful opportunity to create this birth gift. It was a fun and refreshing commission. The name and date are written in pressurized Roman Caps with sumi ink and a watercolor shadow. The middle text is brush lettering in sumi ink with watercolor washes in between.

Black Arches Cover - Con't

It was a work of art from Glen Epstein that got me going on the black Arches cover paper. Mr. Epstein was a marvel of an artist and calligrapher. You can see his work here, if you have never seen it before.

So in the style of Glen Epstein I created this piece. The text is a translation from a portion of "The Extremes of Good and Evil" by Cicero written in 45 BC. The picture above has the text only written. The picture below has the addition of the colored pencil between lettering. The color pencil adds to the vibrancy of the piece but also tames any hot spots of black in between the letters. 

I really had to concentrate on keeping the counter spaces and the letter spacing tight. I actually started with the bottom block of text, which unfortunately, has larger spacing between letters and words than the top. I was able to tighten it up as I wrote, but it could all be tighter still. 


The piece was lots of fun! 

Black Arches Cover

Well, I have to say, I feel a little behind the times. Having read many times about black Arches Cover paper and having seen many works of calligraphy created on this paper, I have never tried it myself. And I have never worked with watercolor on black paper. For some reason I had it in my mind there had to be a preparation trick for watercolor on black paper. So I came across this long, thin scrap of black Arches in my scrap drawer and thought, "I will give it a try".

Oh my gosh! I am so excited! I know you all have probably already worked with this combination and are thinking, "I can't believe she is just finding this out!"

      

I created this little sampler of color this past weekend. Isn't it pretty?! It is an accordion fold with 5 pages of color combinations on one side and technique trials on the other side. I did find out that the more opaque watercolors show better on the black paper. Although, some cool effects can be achieved with the transparent colors as well. I tried to use masking fluid but it did not work; the masking fluid soaked into the paper and would not come off cleanly. When I rubbed hard enough to remove the masking fluid the watercolor around it rubbed off also. (See below.)

I have been having loads of fun working with my watercolors on this black paper. I will have more samples of work with this combination of materials in the future. Until then,

How do you know? Unless you try.

In the last post, I was debating whether I should try to cover up a mistake in the gilding by adding black to the piece of work. It had been suggested to me to make a high quality print of the piece and try the black on that first. I tried to do just that, but I found it very difficult to print out the gold to my liking. So, whereas, making a print is usually the best way to try something you are unsure of, in the case of gilding I found it did not work for me. Since this piece was started as a final 'draft', I decided to just go for it. Below is the result. It is definitely different from the previous version. And even though it is not bad, it is not the look I want for this piece. So my final will be as in the previous post, just gilding on vellum.

That's the great thing about art. Some things work, some don't, but you can always try again. Sometimes I get bogged down in the fear of messing up. Then I freeze and cannot create anything, instead of just trying.

Artistic decisions

I am in a dilema. The attached piece is completed as I had it in my mind. But there are a couple of mistakes with the gilding that I would really like to cover up. So I am debating adding a black border around the areas where the 'letters' are gilded. To tie that in so it doesn't look like I am just trying to hide something, I am thinking of filling in the 'letters' with black. There is a beautiful piece of work on Georgia Angelopoulos' website that has gilding with black and I love the look. (The work is at the bottom of the page.)

It has been suggested to me to make a copy of my piece on good matte paper and fill in to see if I like it. This I am going to do. But I wanted to get your opinion and see how you determine these things. What is your method for choosing the next step or deciding if the piece is complete?