Tag: ART

S_V_H I Will Always Love you image 1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

This is a commissioned work based on the theme I will Always Love you,  a song, written by Dolly Parton but made famous by Whitney Houston. I didn’t think much of this song, that is until I watched the video. For  reasons beyond music a good video can change a good song into a block buster.  Check it out and see what I mean:

They owners of this artwork requested the colors brown and turquoise.  At first I painted the canvases a brown look,  and that failed measurably: I could not see the color brown as a great love song color being sung by a woman.  Maybe,  I needed a different brown,  but I decided to cut-my-loses and repainted the canvas using short vertical strokes off different shades of turquoise. After drying I realize that because of music those lines needed to be horizontal, so I repainted the canvases with longer horizontal stripping.  That did work.  Than, I still needed the color brown, as requested, and I decided to use the color brown for the music. I did change my first brown choice from Burnt Umber light to a more transparent Brown Iron Oxide.  With this brown choice I had better control by being able to apply in layers.

I needed  the colors brown and turquoise to dominated this artwork, but I felt that such a combination was out of my comfort zone.  Judging from past experiences I knew such things is what commissioned works do. They always challenge, with the benefits being both educational and inspirational.

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Bach Chaconne BWV 1004, Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Bach Partita No. 2 in D minor – Chaconne, BWV 1004 with a maximum height of 20 3/4 inches x 29 1/4 inches in length.

Bach’s Partita No. 2 Chaconne is finally done.  The work sheet for this music I dated July 3rd. I mentioned that for it is hard to write this entry for this project has exhausted my love and appreciation for this great music.  Like earlier works this deliberately small-sized artwork continues the trend of consuming huge amounts of time. I don’t expect to shorten production time until this art has fully exploited the current sculptural look.  For me, a three-dimensional look better represents the full range of music.

Taking a look at Bach’s notation from his Chaconne manuscript,  I used his hand writing style to personalize parts of the design of this artwork, and kept my color choices limited to mostly browns and grays.  I added a splash of violet,  to relieve color boredom, which I like doing when a few colors dominate an artwork. After photographing, I spend time cutting out this final image from its background only to discover that I had use Photoshop to paint two small parts,  pale green. Finally, I spend more project time adding two other small pieces to the music that are missing from this final image. Here is a sample from the Bach manuscript:

I was curious about a recent New Your Times article  that maps the musical taste of the fans of 50 current popular musical artists on YouTube.  I wanted to know how out-of-touch I was with today’s popular music. Going through the list I found that I was at least aware of, or have actually listen to the music of 21 artists on the list.  When I checked my iTunes for their music,  that list changed. Putting both observations together,  my a musical connection to today’s popular musical artists expanded to 28 out of fifty.   I thought that was a decent number for only being a casual fan of current music.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H J S Bach Chaconne BWV 1004 Image 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

J. S. Bach’s Chaconne is a small work, under three feet, but is turning out to be a time-consuming artwork. I have mentioned the advantages of smaller artworks, and have created them when needed, but only recently have I known the real need to limit the artwork’s size.

Smallness become the guiding rule as this art evolved from applying acrylic paint to canvas, to  applying acrylic to canvas and then attaching the music as wooden pieces of sculpture on and off of the canvas. By adding this unconstrained extra dimension the amount of extra time needed to completion has greatly increased.  Smallness to save time has become a practical necessity.

Here is a video of Chaconne played beautifully on the guitar by John Feeley:

Scott Von Holzen