Author: whiteroosterstudio

I woke up earlier this week with an image in my head and ended up re-starting a series that I had abandoned almost two years ago: the Bagua Project.

From Wikipedia: “The Bagua or Pa Kua are eight symbols used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either “broken” or “unbroken”, respectively representing yin or yang. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as “trigrams” in English.”

I only completed 3 of the planned 8 pictures for the original Bagua series, so it will be relatively easy to start over with new project parameters and goals. The original series was designed to be a single picture per nature, 15 x 22 inches – the same size as my I Ching series… and I just feel now that I need to move on from that size. My new Bagua series will be designed to be two 12 x 12 inch pictures that will be displayed as twin pictures, totaling 12 x 24 inches.

I completed one 8 x 8 inch twin pictures as part of my Journal Project last January – “Seven Nation Army” and I have been fascinated since then with the idea of one design over multiple pictures:

I also completed a 4 picture design I called “Totem” last summer that has elements that I a interested in incorporating into the Bagua series. The total size of the picture are four squares, 6 x 6 inches, so the total image is 6 x 24:

The initial design for the first picture in the Bagua series will be Li (Fire):

The picture will also include the trigram associated with Li (Fire) and after looking at the design, I think I am happier with it being portrait instead of landscape.

I am still in the early stages of the picture – still in the design phase – but I feel it is off to a good start and am hoping to be able to push the design to a new level and discover new shapes.

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Copyright @2018 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved.

It’s always exciting to see new items with your designs on them and I am especially thrilled about how the new WRS 6 inch candles came out:

I absolutely love how the design comes together on the back side of the candles:

The candles shown are 3″ x 6″ and are being sold for $35.00/ea. I also have the same designs in a smaller size (3″ x 4″) for $25.00/ea.

I haven’t lit them yet – they look so nice as is! – but the VIDA website states: “As the candle burns, light shines through the custom-printed wax wrapping instantly elevating any living space. Elegant and fragrance-free…” so I will admit that I am intrigued on seeing how the design looks as the candle burns down…  I may just have a to get a 2nd set just for this!

PLEASE NOTE: These candles are heavy, so there is an extra shipping fee to ship.

I also purchased the pendant – I love how the design came out, but I should mention that the chain that it comes with is ~16 inches. I prefer a longer chain, so the picture below shows the pendant on a chain that I already owned:

UPDATE: Turns out that there were technical difficulties with the pendant and VIDA has since corrected it so that the pendant will now ship with the 30 inch chain that they list in the description of the product. They are shipping a new pendant and chain to me 🙂

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Copyright @2018 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved.

A lesson in awareness of your surroundings: make sure that your work is secure before pushing you chair back from your art table… or you will end up rolling over you work in progress as I did below:

I briefly entertained the idea that this picture is salvageable… but now have to admit that I will have to re-do “Autonomy”… once again. The wheel marks from my chair are far too obvious and even if I could smooth them out more, I feel that the result would look unprofessional.

I was enjoying the direction that this new “Autonomy” was going in, so I am sure that it will be relatively quick to recreate the essential design.

This will allow me to try to come up with a better design solution to the “center” of the picture, something I have been struggling with for some time now. I had been trying to allow to design to evolve and not be restricted to the intersecting circles, to allow it to morph into a unique design of its own… and I see that it still needs to be pushed even further to create the effect that I am looking for:

As a result of “Autonomy’s” misfortune, I have revisited “Authority” and have added arcs to the outer portion of the design:

The arcs seem to be adding some balance to the outer portion of the design, but I am still faced with the task of coming up with a solution to the interior of the red circle:

I plan on working on the exterior of “Authority” during the week and am hopeful that inspiration will strike soon 🙂

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Copyright @2018 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Some days, while working in the studio, it can seem as if you can do no wrong. Every mark you make, every decision just “works”…. and then there are others, where things seem to just take a wrong turn.

The original “Autonomy” was started in October of 2017 and had what I had thought was a great start…… and then, just as quickly as it all started, things started to go “wrong”:

And just like that, I was stumped… and this picture ended up hanging on my studio wall so I could look at it and try to figure out a solution to the “problem”. I liked the look of the picture divided into four panels with the curved interior, but I wasn’t thrilled with the areas that had been filled in and after it hung on the studio wall for a couple of weeks, I simply could not see the solution. I have not given up on the design and have every intention on completing the picture, but for now, I have shelved the picture and have decided to try another approach.

I began the new “Autonomy” a week ago and, so far, I am liking the direction that it is taking:

The panel idea has been shelved temporarily, and replaced with what I am referring to as the “iceberg effect”. A couple of months ago, I was walking by a bank of old filing cabinets at work and on one of the sides of the filing cabinet was a picture of an iceberg showing both what is visible above the water line and what is below, which is substantially more that what is actually visible. The idea that this could be translated into my work was intriguing… until it was pointed out that I have been doing this for some time now, still, at least it now has a name 🙂

I have been adding a small amount of red to my pictures for a couple of months now and am toying with adding even more to this one.

For some time now, I have not been happy in how I have been treating the “center” of my pictures, and have allowed the internal sections of the Celtic knot to dictate how it is treated. However, for “Autonomy” I thought that I would be able to “break” that habit and chose to ignore the internal knot and tried to continue the design within the red circle. So far, things seem to be working and I am hoping for a final solution to the final design to “appear” after studying it for a few days:

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Copyright @2018 White Rooster Studios. All Rights Reserved.