The Forest using fabric. Day 207 of 2017.
My current series the Forest has been getting some attention in my Instagram account. Even people who have followed me for years said there was something special about this series with the multiple greens and the varying compositions. When I was trying to describe it to one of the commenters the thought came to me I really imagine standing in the forest looking up at the trees with dappled light all around and seeing the blue sky peeking through. I captured the emotion that I use to create the Forest series into words. Sometimes it is hard for me to capture that essence into words and I am practicing doing it. This time I felt like I succeeded. I shared this with one of the commenters and they got it.
Art evokes an emotion. Then what does this Forest series say? The calm greens and blues remind you of the peace you feel in nature as you are standing in the forest yourself.
Now people may say I had no idea it was about the woods since I never read the title of the series. This is the beauty of color. The colors themselves do the calming. You don't even need to have the image of the nature scene in your mind.
This series has been so fun to work in. But I say that about whatever series I am working on. In this case, I do feel that special connection having spent time in forests myself. That knowledge of time spent observing nature comes out in this series.
The Forest using acrylic paint
Last week I was in a bit of a creative slump. As I was talking to one of my artist friends about this she suggested I just go and play around with acrylic paint and the palette knife like I wrote about in Studio Notes last week. I shared an incident last week that a piece of art I made in high school with a palette knife and acrylic paint is similar in composition to what I make to this day. Back then, I thought I couldn't be an artist because I could not draw so I never picked up a palette knife again until Wednesday. At first I hesitated and thought it would be a distraction. It's not my medium and it might muddy my creative waters. But then I said why not. Be adventurous. It sounded kind of fun to do. I found an old paint set that I bought a few years ago thinking it might help my creativity flow by trying a different medium. I guess this seemed to be the time. The odd thing is that the set actually had a palette knife. So I just started by setting up the supplies. But I didn't know what to paint. I realized I had the Forest series color palette and design parameters from my current series. This would be a variation reinterpreted in paint instead of fabric. This experience got me thinking.
If art is about emotion, the medium of that art is just the support system.
The emotion comes from the art no matter the medium. This goes a long way to quelling the issue is fabric art like other art like oil painting or watercolors. Art is art if it is made of fabric or paint or colored pencils. Art is about the emotion evoked in the viewer.