Gestalt

Image of "Sky and Water I" by M.C. Escher from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_and_Water_I.
Gestalt is a configuration of lines and shapes to form an overall image that has various parts that can be looked at and interpreted different ways. There are several different properties to Gestalt, such as emergence, reification, multistability, and invariance. Multistability is the one that is frequently referred to in images such as the wine glass with the two heads, and the lady and old woman. However multistabilty is only one aspect of Gestalt. The other elements are also very important to this concept, and learning how Gestalt makes the eye move in such ways that the mind implies and creates the images.

Value Composition

Value Project Blog

I wasn't very excited to start this project, since I had already drawn ten different value scales for my drawing class a few days before. However, this probably helped me complete the scales quickly, so I then had more time to work on my value composition. The scale drawing was a little tedious, since I was trying so hard to keep all the edges clean and to clearly differentiate each value block. I constantly had to keep going over parts of it with the kneadable eraser until each shade was solid and had no darker or lighter spots. After that, I moved on to drawing the outline for my value composition, which was far more interesting than drawing the scale. I tried to make it a somewhat abstracted form based off of a tree branch. On the left I had the shapes more geometrically based, and I had them progress to more organic shapes on the right, which all together made up the entire composition. I used a full range of values, with some of the shapes dark grey, and others completely white. It became very hard to try to make sure the values didn't blend into each other in the composition, so I just began to pick shades that contrasted somewhat next to each other. Overall, it was a pretty decent activity.

Line/Shape drawing activity

This activity really made me realize how closely lines and shapes are connected. It became difficult to try to distinguish the lines from the shapes that I drew because all the lines formed shapes, and all the shapes were composed of lines. However, I found that putting the paper down and stepping back to look at it from a distance helped me a lot. Then I could see better how the lines and shapes formed the overall continuous design. First I thought about it then penciled everything in to get a composition that i liked, and even after I started coloring it with the marker I kept erasing pencil and redrawing it in differently depending on how I saw it with the black marker. When I was done I was actually fairly pleased with the final outcome, although if I could do it again I might have done a few things differently, such as try to fill more of the page.

String blog

At first I was a little confused by the string activity, since the instructions were so vague; we were told to just do whatever with the string, as long as it was away from the computers. So when i grabbed the ball of string i just tied it to a stool leg and started dragging it around toward other chairs. I wasn't really planning or thinking about the designs at first, then eventually I began to experiment with some line designs and shapes, like making "X" shaped designs by repeatedly pulling the string around the chair. I decided it wasn't a great idea to get my string tangled in the giant knot forming at the other end of the room, so i continued to connect the string around a cluster of desk chairs, and then continued to create some more of the "X" shaped designs. Eventually I definitely saw the point of the activity and I undertood how it related to our study or lines and shapes, similarly to the artist who made the pictures with lines of the playboy models and other women. Even with our activity you could still begin to see how the lines of string created the positive and negative spaces around them and how you could change them my changing the direction and placement of the string. Overall, it was a fairly fun activity and it did surprisingly really demonstrate the point of the lines and shapes lesson.

I think they're are lines.
I think they're all shapes.
I think a line is made by a relatively direct line that can vary in size, thickness, and direction. It can curve or create angles.
I think a shape is made by lines that converge together somewhere to make a form. When multiple lines come together and meet to form positive space, it's a shape.

Critique 1

This Courbet painting is overall a horizontal composition, due to the general shape of the outline, however it also seems to have some vertical elements, such as all the people standing, and the cross that's being held on a pole. These people with the strongly vertical composition contrast against the sky, with the long horizontal composition and clouds. The crowd in this picture seems to be gathering around some sort of pit or grave in the ground, and to the left of the pit are the more important looking people, and to the right and center are all the people dressed in black observing whats taking place. The people to the left are in red or white clothing, which contributes to a slightly asymmetrical composition.

The left of the picture feels like the more important side, not only because of the colors of clothing the people there are wearing, but also the cross is on that side. The painter might have intended the cross to be one of the main focal points of the picture, since the skyline there is larger than it is anywhere else in the painting. However, my eye was immediately drawn to the white cloth object with the "X" looking symbol on it. Also, I think the painter might have used the red clothing on the two men near the center as a dividing point for the picture, since the people to the right are all in black, and they seem to be separated by the red color on the two men from the more religious and important looking figures to the left. However, he balances the paining by having the light part of the sky behind all the dark figures, and the darker part of the sky behind the light figures.

At first I thought this painting looked a little jumbled, and slightly confusing due to all the people, but then I examined it more closely and identified some of the compositional elements, such as some of the focal points, and I then found it to be far more clear, and that I did actually like it. I also liked that the artist used mainly muted subtle colors, instead of overly bright and bold ones. Overall, I found it to be a nicely composed and well thought out piece, but still not a very emotionally expressive one.