Color Wheel

Since we're about to start making color wheels, here's a creative take on the concept.

Project 2

The theme for my project was jewelry and my inspiration was basically any jewelry I saw online that was more decorative or special. The picture to the left was one of my inspirations. In retrospect, I feel that my theme probably was not as emphasized or cohesive as it should have been. My thought was to stay away from simply cutting out pieces of jewelry but go beyond that; I guess I took it too far.

1) Emphasis and Economy (top left)
This was a double strand pearl bracelet with some ornate jewels acting as maybe a clasp. My goal was to draw peoples' eyes to the flowers . I did this by drawing the pearls to the flowers and by making the extending pieces somewhat curl into the flowers. I think the fact that there was so much black also made the flowers more noticeable. I has a little trouble cutting all the little pieces out so it doesn't look as clean as I want it to but it looks better when you see it from far away.

2) Balance (top right)
So, I think I may have misunderstood what "balance" meant. I thought it meant to make the piece so that one looks at the picture as a whole, not having any particular focal point, which is why I made the crown so big. The crown is actually the Rolex sign and it was inspired by Bart Exposito's work. I tried to make it more balanced by having a lot of interesting things going on so that you don't really focus on one point; you have to look around to see everything.

3) Repetition (bottom left)
These are bead bracelets that I had made by women in Uganda. They actually do come in multiple strands, which I though would be nice for the piece. Obviously, I repeated the beads over to show more repetition, but I tried to make it more interesting by alternating the black color blocks. I don't think it looks as polished because I think maybe some strands are a little crooked. Maybe some more variation with placement would have been better.

4) Movement (bottom right)
This was inspired by a necklace I saw. The circle is supposed to be the pendant. I tried to layer the piece more by having the flower grow out of it and have leaves go over it. I tried to get more movement by making the stems curve and look as if they are growing out of the picture. I suppose the idea of jewelry does not come across though, which was probably a weak point in this piece.

Project 2

INFLUENCE
My artistic influence for this piece was the artist Shepard Fairey, for his ideas on propaganda and sending messages to viewers.  I am very interested in social propaganda and the 

thoughts that it provokes in people, and a lot of the artwork I do is based off of this fact. Since I had the opportunity to wor

k in a subject I really love, I used Fairey as my influence. He has some

 very interesting designs especially with striping so I tried to utilize this in  my piece that reads "BE HIP."   

REPETITION

In this piece, I depict a simplistic sheep which has been tagged by the farm owning it. The text reads "BE HIP GET TAGGED." It is meant to bring into light the idea of people following crowds and going with the masses. It is putting a negative connotation on trends and sarcastically telling people to be themselves.  The repetition of the stripes was meant to shadow the way Shepard Fairey puts these in his pieces. They make the subject of the image pop more. 

BALANCE

In this image, I made a imaginary monster that is very simplistic and made him holding text that reads "IMAGINATION IS DEAD." His face is very sad making it seem that something is wrong with the fact that people do not use their imagination enough. The arms almost make it look like a scale weighing two equally balanced things, which in turn makes this piece literally "balanced."

EMPHASIS IN ECONOMY

In this piece, simplistic design is what makes it so economic. It shows a clock, and Peter Pan flying Wendy into the night. The text on the clock reads "THEY LEFT AND ARE GONE" meaning all hope for childhood and innocence has left this world. It works for social propaganda because it makes someone stop and think about taking a second to appreciate life and not take everything so seriously. 

MOVEMENT

In this piece, a sea monster is attacking a pirate ship. The text reads "IMAGINATION IS DEAD" but instead of the emphasis being on a self created monster like the previous piece, this one is placing emphasis on monsters that people have claimed to exist but won't believe in. The piece is under the category of movement because of the waves that the monster is creating in the water and is about to knock over the ship. 

Project #2

My theme for this design project was how communication occurs. I eventually narrowed down this topic to the concept that communication, regardless of whether it is between people, objects, or places, is ultimately presenting an idea or message that intends to be heard.

1. Emphasis and Economy:

For the composition, I kept it simple because my emphasis was on manipulating the flexibility of the headphone cord to spell out “talk”. Because the constraint was economy, I was concerned with keeping the piece dynamic while minimizing the number of displayed elements so I tried to do that by separating the piece into three uneven parts at the top, cutting off the top of the headphones, placing the end of the headphones at 1/3 of the page down, adding movement to the cord, and placing the headphone jack at the left to maintain balance in the image. My overall message is that the headphones are a medium for communication, or music, and hence they generate “talk”.

2. Balance

My method of achieving balance was to play upon the battle of ink vs. paint. I made the two distinct by making ink black and paint white, or in this case, black outlines. Also, I tried to incorporate the natural characteristics of the two mediums by showing how ink drips down the page and how the edges of the letters in the ink are uneven and curvy. As for the paint, the paint splatters and the letters are implied through the grouping of the paint spots. I was careful in balancing the number of ink drops and paint spots on each side of the piece so that they were not symmetrical, but that they carried equal weight. Also, the paint tube is black, though not completely, so that it could balance the weight of the black ink spill at the top right of the piece. The meaning behind this work was that paint and ink could also be a form of communication as long as they are applied with an idea.

3. 3. Repetition

In the earlier phase of this project, I had the misconception that repetition was simply repeating a certain pattern. After learning that this produces a static composition, I tried to vary the length and direction of the lines, as well combine several roots together to create density. To relieve some of the weight where the roots and rectangles are, I made some of the rectangles into black outlines while I added more lines to the right of the composition so that the elements of the piece were evenly distributed. I was also trying to make sure that in maintaining this balance, I would not compromise the focus on the roots, so contained most of them to the left side of the page. This piece is probably the black sheep of the set, but nevertheless, the idea is the same. The background pattern is similar to what you would find on a microchip, a symbol for information. The roots draw this data from the surface of the chip and bring it to the surface, communicating a message that was once obscure.

4. Movement

Though one can say that there is an element of movement in all the pieces, I tried to emphasize this by exaggerating the curves so that it would make up most of the composition, hence encouraging the viewer’s eyes to travel over the entire image. I also tried to highlight movement by juxtaposing the movement of the lines with the stationary position of the cassette tape. Also, I wanted to avoid a static composition by arranging the “a” to end at 1/3 of the page down instead of the top right corner which would form a straight diagonal. Using the cassette ribbon, I spelled out “idea”, with the “I” implied to show how the cassette is an unlikely though effective tool for communication.

Artists, Themes and Greek Mythology

For this assignment, we were given a list of artists to take inspiration from. Before planning I did a bit of research, and looked at artwork from each artist on the list. I noted down the ones that appealed to me or seemed to match my own personal style, I also considered which artist’s style could be translated into a black and white composition since that was the requirement of this assignment. The artists I minimized down to were Aubrey Beardsley and Paul Morrison as their work were in black and white. I wanted to incorporate both of their styles since Beardsley’s work was too complicated while Morrison’s style was very solid. I wanted to achieve a style that was intricate yet simple.

Next I decided on a theme. I had a lot of ideas, but settled on visually portraying various Greek Myths. I wanted to choose 4 myths for each principle however a lot of the myths were difficult to translate into a visual representation except for 2: Daphne’s metamorphosis and Leda and the swan.

Brief background of each myth:

Daphne’s metamorphosis:

An arrow from Eros struck Apollo when he discriminated Eros’ skills with the bow and arrow. The arrow caused Apollo to fall deep in love with the nymph, Daphne. While an opposing arrow struck Daphne to caused her to feel a deep hatred towards Apollo. Apollo chased Daphne while she fled. In an act of desperation, Daphne called her father Peneus for help, as the river god he transformed her into a Laurel tree. Her skin turned to bark, her hair into leaves and her arms into branches. She stopped running as her legs became rooted into the ground. Apollo continued to love and idolize the Laurel tree that was once Daphne.

Leda and the Swan:

Leda and the swan is a motif in Greek mythology where Zeus came down to earth in the form of a swan to seduce and rape Leda. Leda bore 2 children from Zeus, Helen and Polydeuces and 2 more from her husband Tyndareus, the king of Sparta.

1.     1. Balance: Daphne’s Metamorphosis

Of course when it came to making compositions with this theme of a woman turning into a tree, I would have trees come out of a female human figure. But I also wanted to play with negative space. I drew a silhouette of the female body, but I cut it off at the top and bottom so the image did not fit perfectly in the frame, which is why I liked it. I had branches grow out of where her hand would be, and instead of repeating it with the other hand, I drew some growing branches over her shoulders on the top right to balance out the branches on the bottom left. I really liked the addition of the vines in the center of the body because it allowed me to minimize my cutting as well as add more intricacy and detail into this composition.

2.     

Movement: Daphne’s Metamorphosis

For this composition, it was a literal transformation of the female figure into a tree where I isolated the arms lifting high up above the head and turning into branches. I positioned the body so it is viewed from the back and not perfectly diagonal to make the composition more dynamic. However I failed to portray the falling leaves. Something I could have done was give it depth and distance by making certain leaves smaller to portray the distance and certain leaves bigger to emphasize how close it was to the viewer.

3. Repetition: Leda and the Swan

This may not be the best representation of repetition but I wanted to make a very simple composition that anyone would recognize with one look and adding some falling feathers to balance the big solid composition in the back. Perhaps I can incorporate the same improvement of the previous composition to the feathers.

 

4.     Emphasis and Economy: Leda and the Swan

This composition I feel shows more of Beardsley’s style however I may have made the composition too spread out to really portray emphasis and economy. I enjoyed coming up with this composition but the end product was not as successful as I thought it could be. I wanted the emphasis to focus on the point where the female face meets the swan’s head but the other lines in the composition constantly distracts the eye. Maybe if this composition was kept to a minimal, the principle of emphasis and economy can be picked up easily by viewers. 

Speaking of Mugs...

peter bruegger: moustache mugs

Opening Tonight

Opening of AIGA USC Exhibition- Reuse Remix Repeat this tonight, 5-7pm, in Lindhurst Gallery, USC Roski School of Fine Arts. Check out our take on design sustainability and multiples and enjoy refreshments with us!

Hating on my own work. or as some people call it, critique

Problems:
biggest issue was the theme. it needed to be tighter. Mine was 'postwar ideas of the good life' but it could have been a lot tighter, or been made a lot easier to understand. Narrowing the theme would have resulted in my producing less sketches, but would have made for a more cohesive final product.
Second issue was the choice of artist. Karl Benjamin was an abstract artist, and focused heavily on forms and colors to make his paintings work, so my initial sketches carried a great deal of abstraction. Good for keeping in the theme, bad for making things identifiable.

How did they go over (and photos are forthcoming, because I'm the only American who doesn't have a camera on their phone)

Emphasis and economy:
It's a close-up of an armchair. I like the way the form carried elements of Benjamin's work. This piece was probably my favorite, but wasn't easily identifiable.

Repetition:
Its a silhouette of stools at a diner juxtaposed in front of a checkered background, representing a diner floor. The idea was solid, but in execution, I should have 1. made the stools more separate and 2. made the checks more even. Still, the checker motif was inspired by a Benjamin work, so I think it did have one good thing going for it, even though it works a lot better in color than in black and white.

Movement:
The idea is people rushing on a sidewalk. In cutting out the piece, I learned a valuable lesson about xacto knives: cut the inside stuff out first, because if its delicate, you will mess up otherwise. The abstracted figures are inspired by a motif Benjamin used in a painting. Were there better ways of representing my theme? yep. Should I have done those instead? Yes. Is there a reason why I did not? I liked the idea.

Balance:
Let us not mince words - this one was crap. Representing 'balance' in the most rudimentary sense, not at all holding to Benjamin's style and poorly executed in craftsmanship, if there is a just God, this piece will spontaneously combust, never to be remembered again. Were I to do this again, I would have found some better way of representing both 'the swimming pool', and 'balance', preferably in a way which held to the style of Benjamin much more clearly.

four principles go punk rock

For project two, my four pieces had the theme of punk rock, and were influenced by the style of art nouveau. Coming up with a theme was one of the hardest parts of the brainstorming process. (Note: I say this now, but I will take it back very soon.) At first I thought of circles or eyes, but that got boring after about six boxes. Then I decided to do something that I’m more interested in—rock music. As for deciding a style, I had researched a bunch of styles and picked out several I liked, but was able to choose one or two that I thought would be the most complimentary with punk rock. I decided on art nouveau after looking at a bunch of posters in books and online.
Once I decided on my theme and style, the images and research I did had me going over the top. I was renting books by the armfuls from the library and downloading way too many pictures to my laptop. This made the next part of the design process even harder…the dreaded 200 squares. This, was one of the hardest experiences of my life. I went 3 days non stop on these squares…NOT NECESSARY! My body has never been more sleep deprived or cracked out on coffee in my life. But I couldn’t find any other way of going about it. I had so much material to look at and I was so obsessed with coming up with a complete picture, I ended up spending 20-30 minutes per square instead of per page. Now I know for next time…But I guess it was a good creative/brainstorming experience, and it left me with plenty of options for the final sketches, which we can now move onto…

Emphasis & Economy:
For my emphasis and economy piece, I used the image of a converse sneaker, but kept the lines to a minimum, not shading in the fabric of the shoe, but using enough lines to show that there is material there. I could have used designs in the background, as I did for a lot of my sketches because I was so focused on the art nouveau style, but then I realized a lot of art nouveau was also simple, more natural lines. So the lines of the shoe aren’t exactly as you would have them with a real converse, but instead have more animated/natural lines.



Balance:
For balance, I have an image of the side of a skull, the eye socket filled with a design inspired from a French art nouveau poster, as well as the word “punk” tracing along the side of the skull, the letters inspired by an art nouveau-type Pink Floyd poster. I created balance in this image with the contrast between the stark white skull bone in the top right corner, and the black background in the bottom left. The piece is further balanced with both spaces containing designs within them of opposite values. Though the sides are not perfectly symmetrical, there is still a balance between the two spaces.


Repetition:
Repetition was by far the easiest principle to handle. My image is a close up of one of the Ramones’ leather jacket and striped shirt, repetition already occurring within the striped shirt and zipper teeth. The curved lines on the shirt repeat, though they are not all going the same way, and the zipper occurs more than once, though in two different ways, with one a closed, full zipper and the other the open half that can be seen, which also does not continue in one direction but changes. So though the lines are similar, there is still a little bit of variety within the repetition.


Movement:
For movement, I had to do a bit of reconstruction with a couple of squares I had. Each had some movement within them, but also had some major problems with diagonals or some parts staying too static. By combining the image of the rocker with the downward lines of one square, and incorporating an electric like shock design from another, I was able to create a sense of motion, originating from the player and his guitar. The lines don’t all go in one direction, but move in all directions, intensifying the image and the sense of electricity coming off the player.

Project 2

Michael Craig-Martin

Damien Hirst

The theme for my Project 2 is prescriptive drugs. I was mainly inspired by two artists: Michael Craig-Martin and Damien Hirst. My designs reflect the clean, precise lines that are seen in both artists' work. Damien Hirst's pharmacy series use pills and capsules to build installations and I was wowed by the dramatic effect they can achieve. I was also inspired by a piece that I saw at the British Museum earlier this year. The installation is call Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia and the piece incorporates a lifetime supply of prescribed drugs knitted into two lengths of fabric. Each length contains over 14,000 drugs, the estimated average prescribed to every person in Britain in their lifetime (see British Museum website). The piece draws emphasis on how our lives and society are saturated by necessary or unnecessary drugs. Viewers are shocked by the amount of drugs that we take in, and we are made to rethink the over-celebrated medical advancement.

Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia

I also want to explore similar ideas in my designs. I use a lot of clusters of pills in my drawings to imply that we have become too dependent on prescriptive drugs. Medical advancement could be a double-edged sword that works both ways: to improve our health and to destroy it. Additionally, for the four designs, I tried to accentuate one of the four design elements – movement, repetition, balance and emphasis&economy - in each piece, although all of the four elements can be found in different pieces.

Movement

For this drawing, I tried to capture the moment of capsules fall from the sky and the content is pulled out by gravity. I wanted it to look like a still frame from a continuous film and the capsules will continue to fall if you hit the “play” button. In addition, I used lines and values on various parts of the drawings so that the blocks of black will move your eyes around when you look at the design.

Repetition

For this design, I applied principle of repetition. I created clusters of pills of different kinds to convey the notion that our society is over-saturated by prescriptive drugs. I played with scale and used pills of different scales to create layers. I also put a letter “D” on one of the pills to create a focal point so that can make repetition more interesting.

Balance

For this design, I tried to emphasize on balance. The drawing has one large capsules in the foreground and a few smaller pills in the background. These two almost feel like the same weight because the number and size of the pills balance each other out. The black space at the bottom and at the top of the drawing also implies a sense of balance. I also tried to add some interesting features to the drawing so I created an imaginary lighting that gives the two piles of pills opposite shadows. The shadows will not make sense in the real world so they add a sense of fantasy to the otherwise “realistic” objects.

Emphasis and Economy

For this drawing, I tried to draw viewers' eyes directly to the cluster of pills while keeping other parts simple. My idea is that, people are normally curious about what's there behind closed doors, so their eyes will go directly to the objects (the pills) behind the semi-open doors. Therefore putting the drugs “behind a door” could help me create a focal point that draws most attention from the viewers. However, I could have further simplified lines on the door to exaggerate the effect, as the contrast of the cluster of pills and the minimal representation of the door could better direct viewers' eyes.

Project 2

The theme of my project is cars. The inspiration is Bridget Riley. Although my work do not necessarily show that much op art, it gives little hints of it. I like Bridget Riley's op art because there is some sort of illusion going on. My designs are different parts of a car that shows a depth in space. There is a pretty balance contrast between the black and white, which was similar to Bridget Riley's work. In many instances, I tried to incorporate a circular pattern optical illusion into my theme, but it just didn't seem interesting and instead looked really awkward.


For this design, I used the principle repetition. This is basically the side grill a car, particularly model after the BMW M3. I repeated the three strip objects that are attach on top of the grill and also the little dividing parts within the grill itself. For this, I tried to add op art, but instead focused more on contrast between the black and white to show deth.










For this design, I applied the principle of emphasis. I zoomed in on the rim and the spokes to show the details of thickness and three dimensional space. I applied a little bit of op art into this design with the contrast of black and white to define the space and how deep the spokes are converging inward.











For this design, I applied the principle of movement. The strips on top of the mirror is suppose to represent the op art illusion of space. It should show how the car is at fast speed and the reflections from the surrounding lights. Also, the strips represent how the mirror curves, detailing a three dimensional object. The reflections within the mirror show how fast the car is traveling at.










For this design, I applied the principle of balance. I made this one balance because of how still and calm the design is. This is actually the bottom air intake of a car, which is part of the bumper, and the light is actually a fog light. The lines shooting out of the center of the light is suppose to show an illusion of space. The viewer's eyes are suppose to be drawn into the center of the light.

Project Two

My theme for this project was a juxtaposition of cities and fantastic animals. In all my sketches, giant snakes and dragons seemed to be the prevailing mythical creature. As an architecture major, I am constantly exposed to so many images of cities at all scales that I lose interest, even though I find all the complexities of a city fascinating. With the addition of an element of fantasy, I wanted to bring the life back to the city, with a twist of imagination. Furthermore, I was inspired by the work of Aubrey Beardsley, who used fantastic elements and a play of solid/line to create visually stimulating and thought-provoking images.

Repetition

For this category, my image consisted of a stacked houses on an island reminiscent of Santorini, Greece. In the composition, the houses, portrayed as repeating linear squares, semicircles, and rectangles, were broken up by the solid black shapes of oversize snakes making a serpentine through the city. The only other solid shape in the image was the silhouette of a hill in the top left of the background. Although I originally made the hill solid black to balance out the business of the linear houses on the right, it ended up being too distracting and drove attention to the background of the composition instead of the foreground. Nevertheless, I liked how the image turned out because it kept the eye interested and moving around the composition.

Balance

My image in the balance category was that of a dragon sleeping atop a series of mountains. The dragon's snake-like body contrasted with the color of the mountain it happened to be on. The very back and front mountains were white, and thus the dragon's body was black, while the middle two were black and the body white. The compositional movement directed the eye in a diagonal from the top left to the bottom right. The balance in the image was created by the equal division of black/white and object/background. To further create depth as well as balance, I added tree details in varying scales to the mountains, with the smallest in the furthest mountain and increasing size and detail in proximity to the foreground. Balance in the image is further enhanced by the use of curvilinear shapes for both the object and background, creating a calm, undulating rhythm.

Movement

The movement category was the most difficult for me with the theme because I was inclined to use perspectival images that did not offer dynamic compositions. I chose my final image because the perspective in it is part of what generates the movement, especially when combined with the flying creature in the foreground. The repetitive details of the cityscape in the background are offset by the dynamic, linear features of the moving object in the front. The use of line and solid shape also combine to create a sense of depth and distorted perspective, suggesting an underlying story or context for the creature who is rounding the corner so quickly that you can almost hear the "swoosh" of its wings.

Emphasis and Economy

Last but not least, my image for the emphasis and economy category was, unsurprisingly, minimal. A pattered ground plane takes up the bottom fifth of the image, and from it, offset to the right, rises a lone TV tower with a spire at the top. A circle made of a line, beginning at the middle left edge, swoops down to the ground, rises back up at the middle right, and curves around the middle top to end in a droplet resembling a snake's head at the top left. The very extremes of the circle are cut off, creating an implied line that the viewer connects visually. The placement of the circle, used as a framing device for the tower, creates visual movement that ultimately always leads back to the main element - the tower. The background is white and all elements are black lines. This further underlines the piece's focus on emphasis and economy. The proximity of the two elements most similar to one another (the tower and the snake's head) creates a relationship of tension in the middle of the composition, leading the viewer to look away and yet be drawn back to it by the framing circle.

Project 2

Theme

I was really inspired during our exploration of good vs. bad design by one of my examples of good design, the Le Smoking suit created by Yves Saint Laurent in the 1960s. In particular, it prompted me to inquire about the boundary between traditional male characteristics and the female persona, which then led me to revolve my drawings around the idea of androgeny. Though somewhat obscure and "out-there", in all four of my paintings, I attempt to explore a slightly varying aspect of the blurry male/female divide.

Emphasis and Economy

I chose to isolate my female figure in regards to centralized and controlling macho-materialistic (I'm not sure if that's a word) tools. Both in a literal sense and figuratively, this piece is a critique on the limitations of female creativity in the male-dominated realm. I'm not trying to advocate equal rights or make a political statement by any means; this is merely a physical representation of my own thoughts on the matter of androgeny.

Balance

This was inspired by taking a slightly religious and more traditional view on male versus female. The tree with the single dangling apple is my interpretation of Adam and Eve, Babylon, Forbidden Fruit, etc, etc, etc. Not actually having been brought up in a religious household, I guess this painting was created with a spiritual lense rather than as a Biblical reference. I liked the idea of having the single apple pulling the eye down and contrasting with the tree that is growing up and outwards to the left. To me, this creates a nice spacial balance to the stark whiteness of the lower right side of the square.

Movement

Perhaps the most literal of the four pieces and the most obvious direction stemming from my theme inspiration, I played with movement by creating the illusion that the coat tails and the train of the dress were spinning. The anonymity of the figure both draws attention to the actual pieces of clothing as well as disguises the need to ask if it is a he or a she. Rather, it does not matter if it is a male wearing a female skirt or a female wearing a male coat (and it's kind of fun leaving it up to interpretation...I still have not decided yet myself).

Repetition

Obviously, the repetition exists on the right side of the painting. However, my favorite part of the piece is the illusion of a very far background with a very up-close figure (again, a genderless unidentifiable). The ambiguity of the gown hides the gender of the figure and makes it so irrelevant to the point of interest. Also, the slight break at the horizon of the one arch creates an interesting (at least, to me) deviation from the redundant nature of the arches.

Project 2

Theme/Inspiration:

The theme I chose for this project was water. I felt that water, which is fundamental part of all living things, would be an interesting thing to explore in the different categories of balance, repetition, movement, and emphasis and economy. I am also taking a class on oceanography this semester, so I guess I have had water on my mind. What especially interested me visually about water was the fact that it is extremely fluid and organic, yet it also behaves according to strict governing properties. My goal was to portray the flowing substance of water using distinct lines and forms. My inspiration for the project was the work of Katsushika Hokusai. I particularly liked the way in which Hokusai often depicted organic things using sharply defined shapes and lines. I felt that this contrast was perfect for the way in which I wanted to illustrate the duality of water within the four chosen categories.

Movement:

For my movement piece, I wanted to show water in its one of its fastest and most violent forms. I also wanted to show water on a grander scale than my other pieces, so I chose the image of a giant wave crashing against a lighthouse. I think this painting is successful in depicting the power and strength of the wave. However, this piece is probably the least effective in terms of its category. The wave is so balanced and given so much weight that it almost becomes static. While a crashing wave is something with a great amount of movement, the image itself does not convey a sense of movement. It becomes confused by the play between content and subject matter. In class, someone suggested that the waves both in the background and foreground move decidedly from left to right in order to convey more movement.

Repetition:

With this painting of water drops on a surface, my goal was to convey repetition without having any objects that are entirely the same. Instead, the sense of repetition comes from objects of similar shape and similar line. A heavier line towards the front weights each drop and there is a pattern to the way the drops become smaller and fade as they go into the distance. I wanted to avoid having the repetition of the piece make it boring, so I varied the shape of the drops and gave a sense of perspective and depth as the drops seem to be getting further away. This also created a bit of movement. While this is probably the simplest of the four, I think this is the most effective in terms of category.

Balance:

This piece shows a close-up of a water drop that has hit the surface of water and caused ripples to form. While the painting is not exactly symmetrical down the center, the two halves are similar enough to balance the piece from left to right. A variety of different weighted lines prevents it from becoming too monotonous and gives a sense of depth to the surface of the water. The thick black line at the bottom might give more weight to the bottom of the piece; however, the drop at the top seems to draw the attention of your eye enough to balance this out.

Emphasis & Economy:

For emphasis and economy, I chose the exact moment when a drop of water enters the water’s surface. Since this is a similar subject as my painting for balance, I chose to show this from a side view. I tried to simplify the image down to the basics while keeping just enough detail to make it dynamic. As was pointed out in class, this piece has more actual movement than my movement piece. Although the drip is placed almost exactly center (which can be boring), the lines of the surface on either side extend upwards and meet the edges at different points which prevents it from becoming to static. My goal was to emphasize the drop as it hits the water by having the three lines of the surface water and the pouring water draw the eye inward. The other drops in the air and under the surface add a bit of variety and further move the eye across the piece.

self-critique on Project 2

The theme I chose for my designs was jellyfish. I explored different types of jellyfish and the different ways they moved. I chose Art Nouveau to study and I attempted to make my jellyfish designs in that detailed way.

repetition: For this piece I wanted to only show a portion of the jellies in different sizes. I think it is plain though. I maybe should not have used just the tops of the jellies, or I could have made them in different shapes rather than ovals.

emphasis and economy: I agree with my classmates when they stated that my piece was too light and did not have enough dark areas. I was trying to make this piece simple in order to show the economy, but it ended up being too light and not enough detail.

movement: I personally liked my movement piece the best, however it had a lot of detail that I was unable to finish before the critique. My movement and balance pieces were the most modeled after the art nouveau style and I think my classmates responded positively to those pieces the best. I tried to create the art nouveau style, as well as keeping the jellyfish theme, but I had a problem with time and it did not

turn out exactly how I imagined.

balance: My balance piece is similar to the movement piece in that I tried to use the art nouveau style as much as possible. Again, this piece was one of the better ones of my collection, however I felt it was not as neat as it could have been.

emphasis and economy: I agree with my classmates that this piece is too light and does not have enough contrast. I think the composition could be better with more black and a better contrast. I tried to create more economy by having a simple jelly, but it came out too simple and not detailed.