2BD38 : 3-Point Composition

 

For this week's lesson, Kim suggested we set up a 3-point composition.  This is such a simple idea with pleasing results!   I always struggle with the still-life  set-ups, working intuitively, or experimenting until I get something that feels right ...  well, this strategy takes the guess-work out of it.  3-point composition just FEELS right.

Thinking Out Loud :

For this image, I started out thinking about writers and creative people and the blank page.  I've always been very comfortable with the paper aisles in office supply stores--all that clean white paper--so much potential there!  So many blank pages to fill--It's exciting!  No fear of writer's block ...   Then I got to thinking : I wanted this image to tell a story.   Not the idea of someone writing easily and effortlessly.  I wanted to see the struggle ...  Maybe they were writing a letter, confessing something that was difficult to say,  not knowing how to say it.  Maybe it's being written to someone who will never read it, or could never reciprocate ... star-crossed lovers ...  Hence the struggle ...  the page crumbled and tossed, but then retrieved and smoothed out to be reconsidered ...  Doesn't that tell a more interesting story?  A more HUMAN story?  ["Yes, I think you might have something there, Mr Fennyman!"]  "Create" is perhaps not the right word for what I was after with this image ...  Catharsis.  Rumi has a quote ...  something like even if it's hard to say the words, if they come from the heart,  they will be received by the heart of the intended.  Even if the outcome is not what you had hoped.  Sometimes it helps to get the words out, to work through the feelings, even if no one else reads it. 

As for the props : I've been collecting feathers.  We have an influx of Canadian Geese every summer and they drop lots of feathers in the park ...  I actually made the walnut ink a few summers ago ... and the paper was an actual letter to my friend J--Yes, we're old school that way, still appreciating a hand-written letter on fine stationary. ;-)  In the letter, I'm explaining all this to her, but having a little trouble with the old-style pen and ink.  I wasn't actually writing with the feather--the shaft was cracked, so it wouldn't have worked.  I have a glass pen but it didn't have the flair of a feather.   I think the ink needs some gum Arabic to make it write smoother--hence the blotches on the page.

Here's the recipe :

Layer 1 ) Background image

Layer 2) Texture - Kim Klassen's Paper-Stained Light - Multiply Blend Mode; 58% opacity

Layer 3) Texture - Kim Klassen's Silence - Soft Light 30%

Layer 4) Texture - Kim Klassen's Paper & Paste - Multiple 59%

Layer 5) Text -  Create - Zapfino font

Layer 6) Text - Write what's in your heart - Windsong font

I think Paper-stained Light was one of the very first Kim Klassen Textures I ever got.  Still one of my favorites!