Wings of Victory the School Fight song for Northwest Missouri State University.  After spending so much time with shades green (all the shades of green that I could mix in two weeks worth of effort )  I had no clear idea what I was going to do with the stems.  Generally, with most steps in an artwork, I never have any clear ideas.  The ideas clear themselves, and then I say, “yes, that is what I will do.”

Because I had, for some unknown reason, abandon white for my musical notes, white then became the necessary theme for the stems for these notes.  At first I tried all white stems, with streaks of green, similar to Image 3 of Take Five.  The green dabs looked awful. There was this long pause, along with long stares.  I knew as I looked at this green-shady artwork that I needed a fresh take.  This artwork, and me, where both in a slump. Then a thought occurred.

Towards the end of my two weeks of, lets mix another dozen shades of green tonight, like we did last night, phase I found a green that kinda look like the green of the Schools colors, but that was more fun to look at.  I noted that green, and place a sample in one of my many sample jars that were already full of forgotten lumps of green-shady greens. Eureka, I  then washed the white off of the stem.  I painted that stem that special green. More green was not what I needed, but I knew that this time I was going to doom this green.  Instead of squeegeeing  a little white to add contrast, I globbed it on my special spreading tool, and let it flow across the stem, that I had covered with my special shade of green.  And it worked. I let a little of that green peek through, just enough to loosen up the look of the now all white stems. When done I looked at this two toned artwork, and for the first time I felt good about it.  The work was coming into its own: the painting began to breath on its own. This artwork is starting to let go of me.

Scott Von Holzen