Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Pieces of the Pie

For years, I’ve struggled with a major issue in regards to my artwork. I’ve always had problems with composition. The other day, I had the good fortune to (re)encounter a man who is a trained and accomplished artist while I was at work. He spent some time with me, evaluating some of my pieces, giving me some solid and remarkably pertinent information that addressed that exact issue (even without my mentioning that this was a known weakness).

One painting he looked at and pointed out that the image looked exactly like I was painting the subject, instead of creating an image. And he was right. And I knew that. I had actually been taught that principle decades ago. To create art, you need to break out the components: the negative space around the subject, the bits of color that lie within the general color, the shapes of parts of the subject, etc.


High Clouds
©2011 BEDeuel
9x6 Watercolor
 The whole is never just a whole.

The whole consists of so many elements of line, color, shape, shadow, movement, that to try to create anything without breaking down those elements is impossible.
While thinking about all of this, I realized how much this principle applies to so many aspects of life.

In high school, I was not even close to being a “cool” kid. I was the definitive “loser” in social circles. But that observation has come in hindsight, because, I did belong to a group of people. And it was a fun group that shared a lot of life and love. We were all different from each other, too. Some brainiacs, a lot of musicians, actors, shy kids, and just-plain-kinda-weird kids. All pieces that came together as a wonderful whole.

Even now, I can say, with pride and gratitude, that I have several true friends, who can mingle beautifully as a group. Yet, each of us has a unique bond between each other that is different from any other bond amongst us. Each friend is my best friend, because each friend completes my world in their own way. They are all equal parts of the whole which is my world.


Wild Flowers
©2011 BEDeuel
4x6 Water Soluble Pencils
Marriage is not just about love. It’s about commitment, family acquired, family spawned, paying bills, creating a home, problems and joys. Yet, there is a single, whole word, marriage, that describes all these bits of an such an important relationship.


The elements of work, home, friends and family are all parts of day-to-day living and the most difficult elements to coordinate to create a balanced whole. Often one of these parts starts to crowd out the other aspects of the whole that is one‘s life. It can take time and effort to reconstruct a well-composed picture again.

When this happens, which it does quite a lot, I want to try to remember the lesson I re-learned this week: Break out the pieces and construct your image (or life) from the pieces. If all you see is a whole, you’ll be overwhelmed and everything can become muddled.

I think it will work very well!
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 Hmmm....

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful, and beautifully written! Wow!
    (Was I the "brainiac" or the "just-kinda-weird"? Or a bleeeeeeeeeeend ...:o)!!!

    Joan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just stopping in for another browse. Your kittie is so cute, I agree with the sentiments too. Love your work, beautiful!

    ReplyDelete

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