creating scentsdesign

Taucherli

Today’s painting (digital, done with ps) shows you what we call “Taucherli”. Swiss German often uses diminutives for a lot from dog (= Hund, Swiss German Hündli) to house (Haus, Huus=>Huesli) and well, “Taucherli” from the verb tauchen= dive. Little black water birds that dive for food. They crossed my way, sort of, when I was  riding home with the bike after a factory afternoon. Every day, I pass over the river Limmat and as the sun was going down, the houses reflected in wonderful colors in the river and the Taucherli were  right in the middle between the reflections from the river’s banks in gold and the greyish-blueish water.

A wonderful moment that I tried to capture with the phone (did not work really) and captured in digital paint this morning.

Of course, as it is spring, we have two Taucherli there. These days, ducks et al are super busy defending their territory and trying to find a mate. What an effort for a short moment of joy…

When painting, less is often more and one -I think- should try to leave things out, like the undefined right bottom corner in the illustration; stop before you plastered it all with colors and lines.  On the other hand, towards the “end” -whatever this means in painting- every line added more sometimes helps to provide depth and contrast and brings out the scene or picture.

A contradiction, right?

In perfumery: Same thing. When to stop?

Like: Place a brave dark line with cistus. And let it sit there, not covering up, not fading it out, not rendering. Just have this line in the base and leave “white fragrant space around it”. And then, contradictory, to what you just did: Work on other central lines by adding more, finest hints, like traces of aldehydes, a whiff spices, a hint of this and a dash of that. They all add up, like fine lines on a painting, and might make all the difference.

This came to my mind this morning, remembering me checking the Vetiver Dance formula yesterday, as I need another batch, in some time. I haven’t checked the formula for quite a while. The head of this scent is amazingly complex. A lot! of fine lines. Don’t ask me whether they are all needed, and whether I might do Vetiver Dance the same way today. I think not. I feel that I tend to leave a little bit more room in my scents these days.

Having said that: No progress on a couple of trials (vanilla scentric) so far. … when to stop, that’s the question. But there is time. Have a great day!