Drawing Hands

" He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. "

Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972)

Abstract

Line (& Shape) Assignment

The Assignment

Design a compelling series of compositions, that possesses unity. Explore the process of taking a chosen object through a transformation from representational to non-objective representation using line.

The Hammer

Composition 1
Representational realism (naturalism)

Composition 2

Texture 

Composition 3

Geometric (Rectilinear) Abstraction 

Composition 4,
Organic (Biomorphic) Abstraction 

 Composition 5
Re- Abstraction

Composition 6
Abstraction through Reversals

 Composition 7

Dominant and Subordinate

 

Composition 8
Non-Objective Abstraction

Final Composition
Unified Hammer Art

 

 

Hire a Architectural Engineer or a Engineerical Architect.

Shape (Triangulation Tessellation) Assignment

The Assignment 

Create a tessellated shape from a equilateral triangle 

and then use the shape in a 11 x 14 inch composition layout.

The Key to My Tessellated Heart

I themed this composition in honor of Valentines Day.
I began my design for this composition in AutoCAD with a equilateral triangle that pointed down.

 I manipulated the left side of the triangle to form half of a heart.  I then manipulated the right side of the triangle so that it would fit the left side.  This allowed the shape to fit together in 6 a piece polar array centered on the bottom point of the triangle.  I then made a copy of the shape, rotated it 180 degrees, formed it to the top of the original shape and removed the overlap.   At this point I had a shape that was tessellated on all three sides.  I then added the protruding key to the left and tessellated the right side to fit.  (Sounds simple doesn't it!)

I scaled the final shape up to fit a 11 x 14 inch sheet of paper.  I then used the original sized shape to fill in the interior of the large shape by tessellating it through out.  With the design finished in AutoCAD, I then exported the design to an .eps file and opened it in Adobe Photoshop.  Using the paint bucket fill tool I added the six shades of red in the appropriate sections.  Last I saved the file as a .jpg image and uploaded to this blog.

Comments
Although this assignment might sound easy, I struggled with it quite a bit at first.
I originally started the design with  Adobe Photoshop.   Having little experience with the program I found it quite nerve racking.  It works differently then AutoCAD for which I am use to.  After fooling around with the program for awhile I have started to get a better understanding on how and when to use it.
AutoCAD is a vector based program and Adobe Photoshop is a raster based program.  Vector based drawings use mathematical equations to form their images while raster uses individual pixels.  They both have pros and cons depending on what type of image you are trying to create or manipulate.  I found that using vector software allows for easier control when editing lines and scaling.  The raster software then allows for refined editing of the color and texture by manipulating the pixels of the image.  Vector based software is excellent for precise clean design and raster in turn, is great for final presentation.  

Fields, Value, Events Assignment

The Assignment

1- Create four 'book pages' using the Book Canon (Van de Graaf Canon).
(Each page should be no less than 11"x7" (1/2 11x14 sheet of paper minimum)).
2- On two of the page layout boxes create mechanical line fields.
3- On the other two layout boxes create offset fields.
(The fields should all be different values.)
4- Create an event at one or more of the golden points in the layout box.
5- There should be some relation between the four layout boxes and/ or the two pages

The Van de Graaf canon

Lines
The theme of this piece is the balance of Yin and Yang.  

  

This design process used vertical and horizontal black inked mechanical lines as the background to reveal 

Yin and Yang.

The lines on the left link the images together, as opposed to the right,

which separate the images from one another.

To have meaning the background needs the images as much as the images need the background, just like the Yin and the Yang need each other.

Offset
The theme of this piece is one and two. 



The design process used blank ink and stamps to create the offset fields and the objects.
Repetitive use of the # sign as a background, on the left example, sets the stage for the number 1 to stand out in its strategically placed golden point.  Your eye is easily drawn to the golden point location.
If the object was placed, let's say in the bottom right hand corner, your eye would still find the object, but may have to scan the entire page before locating it.
The example to the right uses a neutral background of 6's and 9's in a pattern of alternating rows.
I purposely threw the pattern off by changing a 6 and a 9, to a 9 and a 6 at two of the four golden points.
Although these objects were placed at golden points, they still didn't become immediately apparent.
I concluded that because of the objects similarities they became somewhat camouflaged into the background.
It seems that the mind wants to automatically initially group similarities together into the background in order to focus specifically on more important details.
To overcome this I increased the value of the objects by re-stamping them several times.
This gave the two objects a forthcoming presence over the background allowing the eye to pick up on them immediately.

My Intention and Conclusion
In all seriousness, my overall intention on this project is to get an A+.
:)
Fields, Value, and Events all have there place in a 2D design project.
Manipulating them to enforce what you are trying to convey will have dramatic effects, offering positive outcomes, if done properly.

A Rainy Day, The Artist's Tavern at Barbizon

1.31.11

Christopher A. Booker

University of Maine at Augusta

History of Art and Architecture II

Dr. Virginia Goodlett

Formal Analysis Essay # 1

Henry Bacon (1839 – 1912)

A Rainy Day, the Artist's Tavern at Barbizon, 1874

Oil on canvas

40 in. x 54 in.

The Lunder Collection

Colby Museum of Art

Accession Number: 001.1996

A Rainy Day, the Artist's Tavern at Barbizon

One of the many works of art hanging on the walls at the Colby College Museum of Art, A Rainy Day, the Artist's Tavern at Barbizon caught my attention. This oil on canvas painting was created by Henry A. Bacon in 1874 and currently resides as part of Colby's Lunder Collection.

“Henry A. Bacon was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1839. During the American Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army on July, 16 1861 and acted as a field artist for Frank Leslie's Weekly while he served as a soldier within the 13th Massachusetts Infantry. Badly wounded at Bull Run, he was discharged on December 19, 1862. In 1864, he went to Paris, with his first wife Elizabeth Lord, to study figure painting. He was admitted to the National School of Fine Arts and was one of Alexandre Cabanel's scholars. Henry Bacon died in Cairo, Egypt in 1912.” [1]

The painting is framed in a 40 in. x 54 in. darkened bronze colored frame typical of presentations of 19^th century paintings. As you look at the piece, the immediate focal point of attention is on a man dressed in khaki colored pants, sport jacket, and round brim hat sitting on a bench in front of dark red piano. As this singing man plays you notice the other patrons within the room. Behind him is a long table with a white table cloth that has been pushed back exposing the table beneath. Directly behind the table on a bench sits two women. The women on the right in a blue dress seems to be enjoying the entertainment as she leans back with her hands flailed beside her head. The women seated to the left of her, wearing a turquoise dress crouches, covering her ears as if the noise from the standing musician to her left might be too much. Still behind the table to the far left a man sits with his head propped up by his arm while his wife sits comfortably behind him. The whole event is being documented by an artist that sits in front along side of the table. The artist wears a dark jacket with gray slacks and sprawls back against his chair painting the events out of a box containing his canvas and supplies. Two dogs howl along with the music, one black under the table and one white with black spots in the far right next to the piano. Eventually you notice a boy standing to the left side of the dog on the far right of the painting. The young boy wears a blue shirt and backpack and holds a dark hat out in front of him. A clue emerges, because the hat is dripping a stream of water, which makes you realize it's raining outside. The more you look, the more details you see; a man behind the piano, paintings on the wall, wine bottles on the table, a dog bone on the floor.

Everything is captured in a detailed and realistic sense. The two point perspective view is stronger to the right and you can feel yourself drawn towards the center where the action is taking place. The lines in the work are only distinct because of the use of texture and shading. Bacon uses a full array of colors in a dark setting, in which value depicts the lighting, of which the center of the room shines the brightest. I have never painted a portrait, at best a Crayola crayon drawing, but I can still appreciate the talent and skill it takes for an artist such as Bacon. He really brings life to this painting.

In my opinion, and I can only speculate, Bacon seems to be trying to capture life. The painting was made about ten years after Bacon attended the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. He has definitely mastered the art of figure painting learned while under Alexandre Cabanel's guidance. Through his skill he portrays an event that takes place in a tavern on a rainy day and brings it to life with oil paint, a bristled paint brush, and canvas. He has the skill to paint, but it takes talent to capture life.

I enjoy looking at it because of its realism, knowing that its liquid material was manipulated in such a way that can capture a moment in time and harden into a work of art. I appreciate realism produced from skill of the artist and the ability to capture the humanistic emotion within events. There are many different types of art, not all I would hang on my wall. I would be privileged to hang a painting like this on my wall.

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bacon_(painter)