A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

The Tentacled Forest digital abstract art
The Tentacled Forest

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” So said the bard William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. But when it comes to giving a work of art a title, the name is important. A name can convey meaning, an idea, an emotion. It can be descriptive or suggestive.

I'll let you in on a secret. I usually find it much easier to create art than to name it. There are times when I know the name for a piece even before I have finished it. There are other times when the right name comes to me upon completion of the art. But most of the time I just sit back and scratch my head. One thing I refuse to do is cop out and name one of my pieces “Untitled“. I just can't. If I can't come up with a name then that image remains in existence only on my computer's hard drive until such time as I do come up with a name. This is one reason why there is far more art on my computer than on my web site.

When I was working on The Tentacled Forest I was going for a dream-like fantasy forest effect. The trees are too few to constitute a proper forest but I felt that to add more would have detracted from the clarity of the form of the trees that are present.

I completed this piece on June 6 but couldn't come up with a proper name. Fantasy Forest? Alien Forest? Dream Forest? And there were others but none of them appealed to me. Revisiting the image today, I hit upon the name The Tentacled Forest.

So I give you the latest addition to the Artsnova Abstract Gallery, The Tentacled Forest.

Enjoy, Jim.

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 pmand is filed under Digital Art.

2 Responses to “A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet”

  1. Mike Darnell says:
    July 4, 2008 at 3:27 am

    I really liked the pastel coloring and relaxed atmosphere.

    I bumped into your site by following a link on the Digital Art blog news feed I'd just added to my online index of digital artist..

    If you want to visit the index and check out the news widget be my guest:
    here

    : )
    Mike

  2. Plaxco says:
    July 5, 2008 at 7:59 am

    Hi Mike,
    Thanks for the compliment. I did have fun creating the piece. Of course this is true for all my art. I actually find the creative process to be very relaxing.

    Also Mike I converted your link text into a true link as it's length was too long to fit inside the page column. You have a nicely done site.

    Best Regards, Jim