Tag: Mozart

S_V_H Twinkle Little Star Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Twinkle Little Star L44.25″x H65.50″ x D4.25″

I finished Twinkle Little Star, on October 11th.  I delayed this blog entry because my attention quickly pivoted to my next major project, Unbroken, based on the music Will the Circle Be Unbroken.  When I first put together and then started this project, my enthusiasm was high.  That feeling came from my arrangement and from Twinkle Little Star being highly recognizable music.  I felt this artwork would increase awareness and appeal for this art.   Later, after over a month of work, I lost that excitement, except for my arrangement of the music.  You can see those feelings in my final video of Twinkle little star.

What I forgot to mention in the video is my concerned with the dominates of these sculptural artworks by the musical flow while smaller and smaller backgrounds are adding less interest and support to the music.  My direction in 2019 has been to minimize the backgrounds while emphasising the flow of that music.    In Twinkle I have pushed this idea even further with such small backgrounds that add little interest.  Part of why this happened was because of Twinkle’s theme,  Mozart’s piano version number 5, and not today’s version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  I may need to change this direction made obvious by this artwork.  This all became part of my concerned when I found it hard to follow the musical flow while listening to my arrangement of Twinkle Little Star.  Then the question became, why should anyone follow the flow today, if It never mattered before?

From this art’s beginnings I have portrayed a small flow of a particular piece of music, that only a trained musician had any chance of understanding.  I thought nothing of it.  I was creating artworks that contain much more canvas so I could add lots of visual interest and colors to enhance the flow of the music.  That began to change when I took the flow of the music of the canvas and made it three dimensional.  That resulted in a reduction in the background’s value.  I then discovered sound when I added it to a small artwork of the first four notes from Beethoven’s fifth symphony.  Pressing the play button brought smiles.  That caused me to add sound to my artworks thinking this helped the viewer better connect to the artwork.  I then made improvements to the sound and the quality of my arrangements to where I have found it hard to follow the flow and the sound of the music.  It looks like I am back where I started in 2006.

That tells me to succeed, I need to go “Back to the Future.”  I look at it in this way using my mentor Vincent Van Gogh and two of his images, courtesy of Wikipedia  The first is Van Gogh’s masterpiece The Potato Eaters done early in his career:

Wikipedia
Wikipedia

On my art path, The Potato Eaters may be where I am today with this art.

This other image is of Van Gogh’s popular Sun Flower artworks.   The big change is his lightening of his palette.   That is where this art needs to end up.  I thought my “big change” was adding sound.  That may be only part of this story.  There remains some extra volumes to write if I want to reach the “lightening” of this art.

Wikipedia

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Twinkle Little Star image 3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen1 Comment

Twinkle Little Star.  Again, I have laid out the pattern of this four-part artwork on a slanted canvas. I have finished all the major parts of this artwork.  Up next I will connect the sections.

I have been working on this artwork over a month which lately seems to be my current pace.  That includes most of those days in the studio, morning, afternoon and evenings.  Like other images of this artwork, it is disappointing to not see the effects of the reflections of the added mica flakes.  The reflections of the metal flakes add to the “twinkle”  of this musical theme and add to the night sky look in the darker areas.   I also used mica flake on other parts of this artwork.   I did so to add interest and to avoid the use of unnecessary added, in-your-face colors, that are nothing more than fillers.

I can see looking at all four sections of this artwork spread around my tables that it may be time to move in a new direction.  I do not want to abandon how I got to this point, but I would like to see what other ways I can design the look and incorporate the improvements I have made in sound.

Here is the latest version, using the new software, of my arrangement of this artwork’s music.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Mozart K265 Var 5, Twinkle Little Star Image 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

Here are the four sections of this artwork, laid down on a 4 foot by six-foot canvas.  Not seen in the photograph,  the blue stems have an iridescent look when the light and viewing angle changes.  Also, the music is white with a pearl iridescent glossy glaze that adds depth but again, does not show in the image.

I recognize, before even starting this project,  the importance of the music to define the quality of the artwork.  I created the score, with Mozart’s guidance, using the free notation software Musescore 3.  As a first, in the previous blog entry, I uploaded the audio, with the thought it was too good not to show off.  Since then I purchased another notation software, Notion 6.  The advantage of this paid software is the sound library is huge.  I will use both for I have more to learn.  The one goal for the audio is to create a natural and realistic sound equal to the quality of the artwork.

For this artwork’s color choices I will continue to control the use of multiple bright colors. This artwork is a children’s song with a classical musical twist, so the logical range of colors would be bright multiple pure colors to black and deep browns.  For Twinkle, I am using a few pure colors to add and not distract from a general overall soft look of the artwork.  That sounds like a line of art speak found in countless artist’s bios. The next sentences are practical and not art speak.

Next up is to add features to these four panels to fill up space and add interest.  From its earliest days that has always been a necessary step.  So it continues.

Scott Von Holzen