CJ posted a very valid question about whether I listen to music while I work, which ties up nicely with this post… so thanks CJ. I thought I would write about my latest piece of work Dantes Prayer by Lorreena McKennitt. I suggest that after you have read the blog post you go back and click the link and listen to the music and lyrics (in a separate window) while you read the lyrics on the photo graphs. They ‘should; be able to be enlarged…I say ‘should’ because one never knows with google! Hopefully his will give you some idea of the ‘Spirit’ and ‘Essence’ that ends up being contained within the piece. First off I type out the lyrics. This makes it personality-less, quite dead and without preconceived ideas. Then while listening to the song over and over and yes over again, I make scribbles on the sheet that probably make no sense to anyone but me. This enables me to get a feel and flavour of the song. Which words need to be large, which words need to be strong, which are quiet, loud, subdued or even extended.
Then comes the colours. Listening through the track again I scribble down the colours that the words bring to mind. This particular piece evolved colour wise all by itself. I must admit I wasn’t expecting a rainbow! A chalk pastel background was laid down and blended carefully. I should tell you at this point that the sheet of paper is a full sized sheet of Saunders Waterford.
It always pays to do a test piece. (Thanks Suzi for reminding me of what I preach to my students!) In this case I had bought new chalk pastels (caran Dache) and it was disastrous! I usually use Inscribe for pastel work and have never ever had a problem. These were greasy and oily and a right pain in the asse to write on. Never mind, we calligraphers have tricks up our sleeves to enable us to write on most surfaces. I cut the pastel back with pumice powder and it seemed to work, albeit with extreme difficulty still and the writing was painfully slow. After starting to write it out I lost patience very quickly and shelved the whole thing and decided to rework the background and start afresh.
When writing the piece out I play the CD, line for line, checking and rechecking for those loud parts and extended words while I write, stopping the CD at every line….just to make extra sure. I don’t always get it right, but that’s all part of being human.
The final touches are when you then incorporate the background music and instruments as part of the whole piece. In this case the piano was symbolised by watercolour squares and the no verbal vocal (don’t know what else to call it!) was shown as a silver thread, running upwards at the rise and downwards at the fall of the ‘whatever you cal it’.
My son has bought a DVD burner and has a video recorder. I really want to have him to video the words, play the music over the top and then edit it as a whole piece. This way the music and the calligraphy become one… and hopefully the effect will be amazing. Overall I love this piece. It’s still new, so it’s my baby and not for sale. It’s proved to me that I can still do large pieces of work despite the difficulties with my eyes and I know that through the music I can make my letter live. This kind of work is specialist. As calligraphers and Lettering Artists we get used to doing the mundane, run of the mill but keeps wolves from the door kind of jobs. This is what we trained over 10 years for! Yes folks you can become a brain surgeon in less time… and it’s a long standing joke with calligraphers. So go on…. What music inspires you? Have you created art to music and if you have, can you link to it on the comments and direct everyone to your blog? Go on, put on some music, pick up your paints, pens or whatever medium you use, dance like a deva and create!And the next 3 pictures are the detail of the whole song, preferably looked at while the song plays in a seperate window..... here's that link again Loreena McKennitt Dantes Prayer.... ENJOY!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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