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
aRT iN mUSIC 