Parts of Art

Custard. It's one of the Pantone colors of the year. It's also a warm and creamy comfort food. So here's what I've been cooking up in my studio.  Meet Tribal Custard: I know, I know, tribal and custard don't really go together. I mean one is primitive and edgy and the other is a creamy warm comfort food.  Until now. Tribal meets custard.  I started with a thick variegated chunk of dried acrylic paint. I peeled it off the palette, and then it wanted to be embellished and adorned. So I cut it into slices and arranged them in a harmonious order. Then I added beads of copper, clay and wood. "Just as the name implies, PANTONE 13-0720 Custard is a delicious and delectable yellow.  Sweet and sunny, Custard is a cheering tone that brings thoughts of pleasant relaxation and comfort food. Engaging with its soft and mellow warmth and full of good feelings, subtle Custard has an affable and easy disposition." Leatrice Ei

Last October I shared how our art studio was going through some renovations.  Okay, renovation is putting it lightly. Half of our studio was missing a floor and it was a large mud hole for weeks. My husband did most of the work itself, between work projects. I was pretty concerned about whether we would have it done before winter. Especially because our sole source of heat is a woodstove and there was no floor to put under the stove and therefore no heat.  You can see the "before pictures" here.  We finally opened and enjoyed our first bottle of wine in front of the wood stove in our new and improved country art studio on a cold night in mid December.                                                   In the mornings the studio has wonderful light.  David has recently decided to return to his passion of leatherwork, and he acquired two beautiful stitching machines which we now have in the studio.  We also have room to paint and ha

         Symmetrical balance in visual art is design that has equal areas on both sides of a central line. It may be equal color value, equal amount and kind of ornament, or equal size and shape of components.        Perfect symmetry is a mirror image, where two sides are separated by a central axis and one side is the exact opposite of the other. The best example I know of to show perfect symmetry in an art form is the majestic Taj Mahal.          Here is another example of formal symmetry as an art form, although it is not quite as formal. It is still symmetrical but with variety on each side.  We are symmetrical beings. Our physical bodies are perfectly balanced by the central axis of our spine, with the same components on each side of that axis.  We are designed with symmetrical balance, and so we seek balance in our lives. We seek it, we crave it; that's just the way we are designed. So where is the balance?