The Infinite Colors of Nature
August 8, 2013
Inspirational Art
I grew up in California, in a coastal desert region where natural color commonly comes in muted tones. In art school, though, I was exposed to landscapes from the southwest that were painted in all kinds of bright and what I thought were unnatural colors. It wasn’t until I actually moved to New Mexico that I saw, even though I was in another desert, that the landscape paintings I witnessed were not an exaggeration. Those deep pinks and oranges, the brilliant greens and purples … they existed even there. It was then that I realized every color we know exists in nature. So thinking that a natural color palette should be restricted to earth tones is really selling nature short.
The other association with nature which is also incorrect is thinking that the natural world is all about growth and life. It is, but life is not all about growth. There is a cycle to it and part of that cycle is the mortality of all elements, the breaking down and return of things both living and inert to the earth and to their most basic components. There is such beauty in this part of the cycle–rust, cracks, crumbling, even organic decay reveals textures and colors to be appreciated.
I have to say, this kind of natural beauty is well represented in polymer. Who doesn’t love a well-done crackled surface or faux patina? Ivana Brozova from the Czech Republic has a body of work that looks to be quite heavily inspired by this side of nature. She combines crackling with some of nature’s more brilliant colors in this pendant.
If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, you should go do so. Compare this pendant, which is very similar in basic design, to the pendant from yesterday–a domed form with a single large gem for a focal point. They are both working with organic elements, but with quite divergent styles. Ivana uses a faceted gem (which, if you recall from yesterday, I said would kill off the sense of nature in that pendant) and bright colors here, but they still evoke a sense of something more organic than man-made. Chances are, if someone is asked what is represented here, I think the most common answer would be sun or sunlight. There are few things more natural than the sun, the one thing that allows nature and life to exist.
But the same goes here as with yesterday’s piece: if the surface treatment of this pendant had been some well-defined graphical pattern with perfectly straight lines or a machined look, the idea of sunlight would not have been conveyed. Cracking is a natural, organic pattern which helps keep the ray-like lines and the sparkle in the faceted gem well within our sense of natural sunlight.
Ivana has a truly lovely collection of work both similar and quite different from the piece here. For a truly special visual treat and great color inspiration, spend some time on her Flicker photostream.
Crackly Goodness
December 29, 2012
Inspirational Art
I couldn’t let the last days of the year go by without stopping to admire a little crackle. These sumptuous discs here are the work of Barbara Fajardo. She developed a technique that layers alcohol inks to get a multi-dimensional texture with, of course, lots of fine crackle.
In this case, the polymer is a carrier rather than visual element, but even without knowing the particulars of Barbara’s technique, it’s unlikely that there is another material that could be paired with the inks and manipulated so as to develop the light crackling effect. These are some of the most magical aspects of our medium–the plasticity and ability of polymer to take on a wide variety of other mediums.
Even though color is what often draws us to polymer, it’s the physical characteristics of the material that make it so versatile. One of these days I’m going to count how many ways we can use it just for crackling.
In the meantime, we hope Barbara has the opportunity to develop a class for CraftArtEdu on this beautiful technique. She has four other classes available there right now. If you want to see more applications of Barbara’s crackly goodness, take some time to look through her Flickr page.
I grew up in California, in a coastal desert region where natural color commonly comes in muted tones. In art school, though, I was exposed to landscapes from the southwest that were painted in all kinds of bright and what I thought were unnatural colors. It wasn’t until I actually moved to New Mexico that I saw, even though I was in another desert, that the landscape paintings I witnessed were not an exaggeration. Those deep pinks and oranges, the brilliant greens and purples … they existed even there. It was then that I realized every color we know exists in nature. So thinking that a natural color palette should be restricted to earth tones is really selling nature short.
The other association with nature which is also incorrect is thinking that the natural world is all about growth and life. It is, but life is not all about growth. There is a cycle to it and part of that cycle is the mortality of all elements, the breaking down and return of things both living and inert to the earth and to their most basic components. There is such beauty in this part of the cycle–rust, cracks, crumbling, even organic decay reveals textures and colors to be appreciated.
I have to say, this kind of natural beauty is well represented in polymer. Who doesn’t love a well-done crackled surface or faux patina? Ivana Brozova from the Czech Republic has a body of work that looks to be quite heavily inspired by this side of nature. She combines crackling with some of nature’s more brilliant colors in this pendant.
If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, you should go do so. Compare this pendant, which is very similar in basic design, to the pendant from yesterday–a domed form with a single large gem for a focal point. They are both working with organic elements, but with quite divergent styles. Ivana uses a faceted gem (which, if you recall from yesterday, I said would kill off the sense of nature in that pendant) and bright colors here, but they still evoke a sense of something more organic than man-made. Chances are, if someone is asked what is represented here, I think the most common answer would be sun or sunlight. There are few things more natural than the sun, the one thing that allows nature and life to exist.
But the same goes here as with yesterday’s piece: if the surface treatment of this pendant had been some well-defined graphical pattern with perfectly straight lines or a machined look, the idea of sunlight would not have been conveyed. Cracking is a natural, organic pattern which helps keep the ray-like lines and the sparkle in the faceted gem well within our sense of natural sunlight.
Ivana has a truly lovely collection of work both similar and quite different from the piece here. For a truly special visual treat and great color inspiration, spend some time on her Flicker photostream.
I couldn’t let the last days of the year go by without stopping to admire a little crackle. These sumptuous discs here are the work of Barbara Fajardo. She developed a technique that layers alcohol inks to get a multi-dimensional texture with, of course, lots of fine crackle.
In this case, the polymer is a carrier rather than visual element, but even without knowing the particulars of Barbara’s technique, it’s unlikely that there is another material that could be paired with the inks and manipulated so as to develop the light crackling effect. These are some of the most magical aspects of our medium–the plasticity and ability of polymer to take on a wide variety of other mediums.
Even though color is what often draws us to polymer, it’s the physical characteristics of the material that make it so versatile. One of these days I’m going to count how many ways we can use it just for crackling.
In the meantime, we hope Barbara has the opportunity to develop a class for CraftArtEdu on this beautiful technique. She has four other classes available there right now. If you want to see more applications of Barbara’s crackly goodness, take some time to look through her Flickr page.
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