I like detail.
Anyone who has followed Crafted Runes Studio for a while probably doesn’t need me to explain that.
I like environments that feel inhabited. I like depth. I like discovering something in a piece after looking at it for a second or third time.
So one of the more difficult lessons for me has been learning that detail can make artwork worse.
Not because there’s some ideal number of lines or objects.
And definitely not because everything needs to become simple.
The problem begins when the details stop supporting the subject and start competing with it.
That’s a very different thing.
A piece can contain a lot and still work.
Another can contain much less and somehow feel cluttered.
I’ve found myself asking a different question while developing artwork:
Where am I supposed to look?
If I don’t have a good answer, adding another interesting detail probably isn’t going to solve the problem.
This becomes even more important when the artwork moves onto slate.
A screen gives me light, resolution and room to inspect tiny things.
Stone isn’t a screen.
Every mark has to live physically beside another mark. Areas need enough separation to remain readable. Small details have to survive the engraving instead of merely existing in the source artwork.
That has forced me to become more selective.
Not less ambitious.
Selective.
If a detail strengthens the subject, helps create depth, establishes the environment or contributes something to the feeling of the piece, I’ll fight to keep it.
If it’s there only because I can put it there, I’ve become much more willing to remove it.
I’m still learning where that line is.
I suspect I always will be.
But I no longer judge complexity by how much is in an image.
I judge it by whether everything that’s there knows what its job is.
— Rune Master