Black Lightning by C.T. Rasmuss

Black Lightening  C.T. Rasmuss (2013).

If you like the picture of mine above, I thank you, but I'm sad to say it doesn't exist anymore, but it still lives on throughout parts of my Lucid Mosaics, where it payed the ultimate price and has now disappeared into other artworks of mine.  The reason I'm presenting this to you, is for the same reason I took a picture of it in the 1st place; as I saw it as a work of art all in itself, by itself.

When it comes to other artists and my will to create a comrade-re between us artists, on similar missions, I'm all in and hold nothing back, but when it comes to this particular process of my own design(and of course the blessings of a higher design), I believe that I must keep some things to myself.  

My Exhibit at Broadhope Art Collective over the weekend  C.T. Rasmuss (Dec.19th 2014).

So anyway, I was talking to another artist yesterday by the name of Michelle Gravett, and she had mentioned some particular textures that I incorporated in my 'Provincial Orchard', specifically(shown: far, lower right) and because we have different perspectives of my work; me being the artist, and her being an observer, via our conversation I better understood how my "tiles" look to everyone else, and why I now wish to share one of my favorite whatchamacallits:)

She said: "the sky looked like stone", and we analyzed it a bit(so to speak), and is why I had to share it with you, whether an artist, an admirer or just someone curious about art; what I like about my favorite "whatchamacallit", is it's resemblance to Lightning, the natural aspect within a man made process by yours truly, and as we can only emulate life I say: "the truer the better", in this case for sure.

Vincent Van Gogh; Letters to Emile Bernard, and Now a Lucid Mosaic by C.T.Rasmuss.

Upon reading the first few letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his artist friend, Emile Bernard; I couldn't help, but admire one of his sketches that he sent to Emile, in letter III.  The book also included accompaniment of the final painting, in which I only saw in black n white, til now(on purpose, as I hoped to capture as much color correctness through his words only).

Shown above is my Lucid Mosaic, a technique all of my own invention(to my knowledge), and below is the original(in oil) by Van Gogh himself, done in Arles, early April 1888:

And this is the sketch he included in his letter to Emile:

In these two(B/W) renderings of Van Gogh's 'A Provencal Orchard', I was immediately stricken by the intersection of the horizontal garden path(both ends hidden by the fence), and the diagonal "main" path running down and to the right corner(placing the viewer left of this path w/o mistake of their orientation to the entrance of the Orchard), a perfect composition in my mind!

And I was inspired to prove how strong this composition is, I believe it may be an overlooked piece and doesn't have the panache of his more famous iconic ones, but deserves just as much attention, mostly due to its teaching aspects and composition values.

I mainly wanted to give a somewhat ordinary(at first) artwork of his: a "new life", and this actually has opened the door for me to do the same for many other pieces; after succeeding in this attempt, I feel like I can take my technique and give new life to, other Old Masters not so famous artworks, within their oeuvre.  Not that they really need it, but I would like to give attention to, perhaps what the critics, art lovers and contemporary artists may have over looked.

Going back to the process for execution of the mosaic(after deciding what my new mission was, or is becoming), I drew a quick sketch from Van Gogh's painting, followed by an actually thumbnail.  This allowed me to transform his original painting into a template, for the purpose of my technique; and my favorite part of this particular experience vs. previous pieces I've done, was that this was the first time I concentrated on the actual brushwork, I was able to because of the way Van Gogh worked his canvases with heavy impasto.

I've also included the part which he explains the Orchard to Emile if you'd like a sample for yourself:

"Here, by the way, is a sketch, the entrance to a Provencal orchard with its yellow fence, its screen of black cypresses(against the mistral), its characteristic vegetables of varying greens...the whole of the sky has a bluish hue and the greens are either definitely blue-greens or yellow-greens, purposely exaggerating in this case the yellow or blue qualities."

And that is that, and there you have it...and now on to the next one, So...there is a Signac I saw yesterday, and after sketching it I suddenly lost my will, but a few pages later I really got excited again especially after sketching it twice, so who knows..