1. WHAT IS DESIGN?
a. FORM: the total appearance, organization, or inventive arrangement of all the visual elements according to principles that will develop unity in the artwork; composition.
b. Media: the material or technique with which an artist works (i.e. the medium of oil painting).
c. THE ELEMENTS OF ART: line, shape, value, texture, color.
d. THE (7) PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION: guide the artist in developing the elements into a visual order:
1. Harmony: pleasing relationship between different parts of the composition, using: repetition, rhythm, pattern, gravity, visual linking
2. Variety: a factor of visual differentiation between different parts of the composition, using contrast and elaboration.
3. Balance: gravitational equilibrium of a single mark on the picture plane.
4. Proportion: ratio of individual parts to one another or to the whole.
5. Dominance: developing areas of focus.
6. Movement: visual pathways within the composition.
7. Economy: compositional efficiency; saying more with less.
e. SPACE: the result of elements + principles.
f. VISUAL UNITY: a sense of visual oneness-- an organization of the elements into a visual whole; visual unity results from the appropriate ratio between harmony and variety.
DESIGN is the process of composition as outlined above. It is an act of organizing, of structuring.
2. WHAT IS THE "RELATIVITY OF CONTRASTS"?
A basic recognition method by which you can understand the building blocks of structure. Contrasts within a composition are relative. A line seems long or short as it is related to a shorter or longer line. A large dark form can become more significant if it is opposed by a small light form. Finding and enumerating the various possibilities of contrast can help you establish a dialogue or conversation between component parts-- understanding how areas relate within a whole.
3. UNDERSTANDING YOUR MATERIALS
Helps you to better formulate these contrasts within your own compositions. By understanding what a medium such as paint can or cannot do, how it reacts to your touch or the paper or board you are painting on, allows you the further knowledge of complex contrasts of color, form, texture, etc.
4. WHAT ARE THE (3) PERCEPTION METHODS?
a. environmental (nature)- the study of what is outside of yourself; your surroundings.
b. self (nature of self)- the study of what is within yourself (emotional/intellectual)
c. historical- the study by example of prior conceptual precedents.
This is a model to help guide your daily observational inquiries. Think about this model when approaching your work (art or otherwise). Apply the relativity of contrasts to pose more meaningful questions of these three areas.
5. WHAT IS INTUITION?
Throughout this course you will be asked to balance a rational approach with that which is intuitive. Not only will you apply historical models to your thinking with conceptual parameters to work within, but you will be guided by another model of perception: knowing or sensing without the use of rationalizing. That is, intuition. Intuition is intellect + emotion. It is immediate cognition, rather than delayed rationalization. It is action and reaction on a gut level.
Consider the model of perception mentioned above, along with the understanding of your materials, the relativity of contrasts, and the difference between rational and intuitive thinking, and you will have the means by which you will produce images. If you do so, you will engage in making work that is interpretive not imitative. By cultivating awareness and building off of that, you will not be simply imitating and repeating what I tell you to do, or what others around you are doing, but operating independently according to the dictates of your own strengthened creativity. One of the main objectives of this course is to coordinate your awareness on many levels, so that you may balance outward-directed forces with inward-directed forces and channel this equilibrium into your work.
