This one will be all about subtlety of form and color. It's surprisingly hard to do a nearly monochromatic piece and make it interesting; you DO NOT just slap on a single color, diluted with varying amounts of white. That is a mistake that has been made by countless amateurs since the dawn of time. Also, never build your brushstrokes in the same direction as the form. Why be redundant?
Another trade secret--plain white does not look bright white at all, it looks grayish and blah. Tinting the white makes it look whiter; tinting it with cerulean blue makes it stark, tinting it with yellow ochre makes it warm.
On a conceptual level--this was another one of those cryptic images that just announced itself in my brain. When I analyze it, I think it is about the way Platonic unity underlies the everyday, three-dimensional, linear-time world of our perceptions. The twisted, floating form up top is crucial; I think of it as the edges of the circle, yanked away and flung like a lasso.
This afternoon will be all about the rendering of detail. Life is sweet.
As a complete non-sequitur--am I the only person in the world, aside from my own wonderful sister, who finds the Fixx album "Reach the Beach" to be one of the underrated musical masterworks of the twentieth century? I was playing it the other day, and thinking that I would still like to choreograph an avant-garde dance to the song "Opinions." So many ideas, so few lifetimes.
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