Artistamps Workshop:
Wrangling Emphasis & Creating Mood
Playing In the Artistic Moods
Harmony in any stamp comes when there is a play between the elements. And emphasis is the way to ensure the playground is fair and balanced.
Giving equal weighting to every element can often lead to disaster. There needs to be a dynamic flow of the elements that draw the eye to each in turn ... like a merry-go-round. When the eye flows easily, it picks up clues and creates a story of what is going on.
If all the elements are screaming at you for your attention first, it can be like walking into a room full of kids all jostling and shouting for you to look at them and hear their side of the story. Chaos, confusion and a lot of noise is the result.
But an ordered progression can have you handed off from one to the next, eagerly awaiting the next piece of the story. And each kid, or element, gets to shine in its own part of the telling of the news.
Telling A Story
And so it is with artistamps ... or any art work, really. If you are telling a story, or the elements in your artwork decided they are ... you want to let them come into an agreement of who goes first, second and so on. That creates an interesting story, as well as a dynamic telling of it. And if the art work is really good, the story holds up to re-telling.
Personally, I think some art, like Ron Weasely's Chocolate Frogs, only have one good telling of a story in them. They are only worth a quick glance as compared to the serious contemplation evoked by great works of art that keep drawing our eyes back to them and speaking to us.
But I digress ... back on topic here ... emphasis. Maybe it is time for some examples ...
Here are two stamps ... very similar but with a small adjustment to de-emphasize the text. Can you see the subtle difference and notice how it changes the way your eye moves around the stamp to gather in all the information?
Take a quick passing glance at the stamps above and below.
Now slow down how you look at them and pay attention to what your eyes are doing.
An Eye Experience
In the top one, my eye first reads the cost, then bounces back and forth between the top right and lower left text (the location name and ocean) ... like a ping pong ball .... a few times before moving on.
In the one just above, my eye sweeps from the cost to the location and then down to the writing in the lower left corner and then goes to the center of the palm trees to take in the image.
So, my eyes are attracted first to the largest text, then work left to right in the Occidental reading direction. * Then they go to pick up the remaining readable text. Finally my eye is drawn to the center where the darkest part of the image holds my eyes as I take in the whole picture.
So, what is the real difference between the two stamps. Actually, not much. I added some "noise" to the 35, cents, Christmas Island, Kiritimati Island and Pacific Ocean text to make it look a bit more scratched. That is it ... but it seems enough to make the visual flow change.
Enhancing Visual Flow
And I am now suspecting that this is one reason we may love certain works of art and not others. Some make us work too hard to take them in ... and others give us a natural flow that guides us subtly around and end up where we belong ... gazing deeply into the heart of the art piece.
So now that your visual palette has cleansed with text, take a look at the stamp below and then compare it with the one above.
How do you react to it? Does this stamp give you a different impression than the one just above?
The stamps are identical except I have darkened the text of Kiritimati Island ... and the ambiance and the mood have changed. The stamp seems a bit more dark, as if the clouds are more of storm clouds.
Now look at the art stamp below.
I only darkened the Pacific Ocean text. That is all. But to me the light has changed and gone out of the stamp ... and I am no longer thinking it is a great vacation spot to travel to. The London 2 Paris text comes forth as readable ... now that the Pacific Ocean is de-emphasized, but I am not sure I care.
I read this as a storm is approaching and the waves no longer seem gentle but more menacing ... larger and encroaching as the storm clouds are on an island paradise which is now a bit washed out. One text change and the entire mood changed subtly. And as you scroll down and the stamp moves up on the page, the clouds seem to darken.
A Balancing Act of Visual Emphasis
So here is a quick example of how changing the balance of light and dark can impact the visual emphasis words have and the clues they give is in how to "read an image" and establish mood.
As an artist, you may only exhibit one variation ... choosing the one that either sells the best or says what you (or the art work if it has found its own voice) want to communicate. But by playing with small, subtle changes ... you can have one piece of your art say many different things ... and work with the eye to evoke very different visual experiences, associations, thoughts, and emotions.
How much you play, and how to establish a creative process that allows for doing (and undoing!) subtle changes, is up to you.
* Note: The Oriental reading direction is right to left in the Middle East and up to down in the Far East, so if you learned to read in these regions, you eyes ... or those of your clients ... may naturally sweep a different path.
