Sunday, December 25, 2011

mini 22


Baking - another one of my favorite things (actually, the part I like most is the decorating).  These are my take on gingerbread men - they're gingerbread emoticons.  If you've ever gotten an email from me, you may know that I love emoticons.  I think I like them because they represent a way of inserting a picture into writing.  Now, while I actually can justify my love of emoticons, given the chance, I know that chance won't always present itself; so, I treat them as an artistic tool - I remind myself that the potency of an artistic property is inversely proportional to the frequency of its use (i.e. one bright color in a gray+ painting can be more powerful than all the colors in a painting which is vibrant throughout).  So the technique I use for dealing with my love of emoticons is one of erasure.  I use as many emoticons as I want, and then go back and edit them down to the most important one (or none) before hitting send.  

Now, you may be wondering how this relates to the mini for this week (bear with me here...)

First off, mini 22 is on gold ground, and metallics do not photograph well (the grainy texture is the result of light reflecting back to the camera at slightly different angles); however, the fading which occurs toward the lower right corner isn't a trick of the light.  I made the drawing in several layers and used aerosol paint to cover over some areas.  Loosing information and work/ labor time can be hard because it requires faith that it will lead to something better without any assurance that it will work out (and sometimes it doesn't, and there's no going back).  But, hopefully, sometimes it all works out for the best.
Miniature #22 - December 19 - 25, 2011, 7 x 5 in, charcoal and paint on board

On that note, mini 22 is the last mini of 2011.  There will be no mini next week, but it's not because I'm giving up.  As laid out in the initial project proposal (http://klacsmann.weebly.com/miniatures.html ), my goal is 50 miniatures in a year, with one week off between Christmas and New Years and one reserved for dealing with a non-art emergency (hopefully that won't be necessary, but just in case...).  So no mini next week. Thank you for following in 2011, and I hope you'll stick with me for the second half of the project in 2012!