Assignment 2: Composition

The lesson never stopped there people. We were taught a few things related to our assignment:

Composition

The process of placing, arranging, and rearranging text and graphics on a plane. Able to convey the message to the target audience.

Format

There are formats that you can use to depict your design, whether it's in landscape (horizontal), portrait (vertical), and circular.

Layout

Two types which are symmetrical or asymmetrical.

Grid

Order and consistency using columns and rows.

Rule Of thirds

The breaking the board up into thirds and placing elements along the upper lines and at the intersection to avoid discomforting tangents. It also gives the object room to breathe visually by providing more negative space.

The Assignment

The assignment was to build a 12x9 inch and 1.5 inch thick frame from a mounting board. The frame is our viewfinder that we can use to help us in taking a picture with good composition.


We were tasked to choose a subject matter (a doorknob, electrical outlet, and etc) and take pictures of it with the right amount of composition. I choose dustbins as my subject matter and I didn't get as many pictures of dustbins as I would've hoped for. Here are some of the pics:

So we came back to class for our work to be reviewed by Ms. Lisa and my work was okay but there was one picture(which was a very lucky shot) which she said had a very good composition. Also, she adviced me to keep taking pictures like this:

Ta-daa!

Week 5: Composition & Design Lecture

The first question that Ms. Lisa asked us was what do we understand about Design. Knowing absolutely nothing, I tried using my 'not so obviously blur' face to not attract attention to myself in the hopes of not being asked to answer the question (I got lucky, THIS TIME). She then continued on with the lecture by explaining visual aesthetics. Which means how an object looks.

Elements Of Design

She also explained the Elements Of Design and how good elements of design can succesfully convey a message and able to grab people's attention visually. So here are 6 elements of design:

Line

Different lines can imply emotions or behaviour of an object through illusion. Horizontal lines implies a calm and serene situation as it is parallel to our horizon (where the sky meets the earth/sea). Diagonal lines implies power and motion and is usually used to show movement. Different thickness of lines can also depict the characteristics of the object.

Texture

Texture is defined as the surface characteristics of a material that can be experienced through the sense of touch or the illusion of touch. Texture is achieved through imagery such as brick, fur, rock and marble. A good texture is able to show a proper contrast.

Positive & Negative Space

Positive space is the space taken by object at focus. While negative space is the leftover space from the object. These spaces are often used to create optical illusion pictures.

Time/Motion

Motion is the utilizing repetition to create movement. Repeated circles that are increasing in size gives the illusion of something is moving towards you.

Colour

Colour is the part of light that is reflected by the object we look at. Colours can be differentiate by its value, hue, and also chroma (intensity of colour).

Typography

Also known as fonts. The types of fonts include serif (fonts with tails), sans-serif(fonts without tails),

script(connecting fonts), square serif(fonts with blocky tails), decorative(fonts with extra decorative details like flowers, machine, and etc), and custom (your own font).

Principles Of Design

After the 4 weeks of self-discovery, we finally get to know Principles Of Design(the core subject here) through its principles of design.

Unity

Unity is the relationship among the elements of a visual that helps all the elements function together. Through aesthetic unification of design elements or consistent colour schemes in a composition, unity is achieved. Other ways to achieve unity is through using similar shapes, common patterns, space, and using a common background. 

Variety

The adding of a contrast towards harmony to avoid the design from becoming mundane. Variety can be achieved by changing sizes, patterns, inputting different elements and point of views to add interest to a visual image.

Balance

The variety of objects in an image through the sense of equilibrium is the definition of balance in design. Balance is needed to arrange parts of a visual in a manner that the aesthetics looks pleasing.

Scale & Proportion

The usage of different sizes to show distance between objects.

Hierarchy/Dominance

The contradiction of colours, size, and texture between the focused object and the background or other objects in higher numbers to make the object visually grab people's attention.

Rhythm & Repetition

The repeating of objects at different size to give a dynamic feel to its visual.

Each of these elements of design provides us the ways to create a great design. Also with the principles that has been listed above applied to our designs, the visual aesthetics of our design would improve significantly and be deemed successful to other people's eyes. The End. Of the lecture part only. 

Art Movement Project Update #5: Artwork Final Product

If you read my previous posts, you'll know that I'm working on my De Stijl art project. However, if you didn't, "GO READ IT". De Stijl is an art movement in 1917 where the objects' aesthetics are transfigured to its bare or basic essentials such as form (shapes which are usually in squares and rectangles) and colour (usually the primary colours). Other than that De Stijl also represents an ideal Utopia or the representing an object in an idealistic form.

Rationale

It's funny how I got inspired to do this painting from playing Assassin's Creed (the first game in the series). I found the subject of the Templars using order, strictness, and stability to achieve peace an interesting prospect which puts humans on a grey area. Should we let people have this freedom or should we control their lives in hope to maintain peace in the world? It's very interesting as there are lots of arguments to this particular subject.

The rules that are associated with the standard De Stijl painting (red, blue, and yellow) shows a certain type of mindset that the portrait obeys. To me, these rules represent order, stability, and strictness because these rules are set from the early days of De Stijl. Van Doesburg, the original creator dislike other members of De Stijl who tries to bring something new to De Stijl. His stance on it is pretty much similar to that of the Templars.

On the other side of the wood, I painted the mirrored image with green, purple, and red. The reason behind this colour setup is that it represents the real mindset of the portrait or what goes on inside the mind of the portrait. The colour setup represents the Joker mentality. It looks very sinister and unpredictable as it does not obey the rules of any De Stijl standard paintings.

The message that I'm trying to bring is that the use of order, stability, and strictness to achieve peace is hard and may as well be a lost cause. Not everyone has the same mentality, some may have the Mr Bean mentality and someone else may have the Donald Trump mentality. So, getting all these different people with different mentalities to follow on one single path is impossible and might get you killed.

The other meaning of this painting is just the typical nerdy on the outside but crazy on the inside. Which is just a self-preference, and doesn't hold that much ground to it compared to the first meaning. I also needed to write more for this blog so that I won't look lazy to my peers and lecturers. Before I end this update, let me show you a picture I took with the painting.

Art Movement Project Update #4: Artwork Process

If you read my previous updates you'll find that I bought a piece of wood and some white spray paint. I applied the white paint as the base coat once and then coat the wood heavily with the white paint a second time as part of the painting's white background.

 Next, I took a marker and began drawing the horizontal and vertical lines with the help of the 'T' ruler (a special ruler that can stick to an object's side plane). I started from the top to the bottom. This first side of the painting is for the normal De Stijl self-portrait with the use of primary colours which is red, blue, and yellow.

After the first side's horizontal and vertical lines are drawn, I flipped the wood to draw on the next side of the wood. This time the image of the De Stijl self-portrait is flipped making it look like an inside out mirrored image. The choice of colours for this side of the painting is different than the previous side but I won't reveal it now though. It's a secret. For now.

For the first side of the wood, I painted it using the three primary colours (red, blue, and yellow). The elements of each painted rectangle kept their relationship between each other by connecting the painted rectangles together.

 For the other side I used green, purple, and red. This colour choices reminds of the Joker in many ways and I will explain the reason why I choose these colours in the next update.

Before the presentation, I managed to touch up my painting with a little white paint and my markers.

Art Movement Project Update #3 : Idea Reviewed

Some of us we're early today, so why not have brunch first. After brunch, we went inside the studio for Ms. Lisa to review our plans for the Art Movement Project. We had to bring at least 6 sketches and show it to Ms. Lisa. So here are some of the sketches that I made:

First off I will be using wood as my canvas. Both sides of the wood will be painted. It would be like an inside-out mirror. With one side of the painting would be a standard De Stijl painting with its use of horizontal and vertical lines, and primary colours (red, blue, and yellow). Whereas the other side will be given a more contemporary(modern) take on De Stijl. 

This is the standard De Stijl painting that I have sketched out for one side of the wood. I have labelled the colours that I'll be using for this side's painting

For the other side of the wood:

The first sketch is just a mirrored version of the standard painting. Instead of using primary colours, I wanted to opt the secondary colours (green, orange, violet) for this painting giving  it a different look and feel compared to the previous painting.

The next sketch, is me trying to transfigure the portrait even more by separating some of the elements from each other to make a more deconstructed version of the mirrored portrait. The colours would be the same as the mirrored version which are the secondary colours. 

This last sketch is taking the mirrored version of the portrait and abolish it's structure so that each elements stand on its own. I haven't picked the colours yet but I would most propably use the secondary colours as well. 

Verdict:

Ms. Lisa agreed with my plans to use wood as my canvas and do the mirrored thingy that I wanted to do. But............

She advised me to not over-complicate the painting abd keep the execution simple. Her advise was instead of just using the secondary colours for the mirrored version, I should try out different colour combinations. It can be monochrome, secondary colours, tertiary colours, or any colour combinations that suits the painting. So look forward to my next update where I'll show the different colour combinations that I'll use for my painting

Art Movement Project Update #2 : Research of De Stijl

De Stijl which is Dutch for “The Style” was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in the Netherlands. De Stijl was not an ‘ism’ like Cubism or Luminism, nor an arts academy like the ‘Kunstakademie Düsseldorf’ (Dusseldorf Academy). But it was rather a collective project, organized and promoted by Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), a Dutch painter, designer, writer, and a propagandist.

Others involved in the project were painters Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Vilmos Huszar (1884-1960), Georges Vantongerloo (1886-1965) and Vart van der Leck (1876-1958), and architects Cornelis van Eesteren (1897-1988), Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), Jan Wils (1891-1972), J.J.P.Oud (1890-1963),  and Robert Van Hoff(1887-1979). Many of them barely knew each other, never met even and there were never any group photographs of the members, which is uncommon in this day of age where most people have an all-in-one device in their pocket. Nonetheless, they were often aware of the progress of each other’s work and the ones that were produced which have stylistic and conceptual characteristics in common.

The backers(members) of De Stijl were looking to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They promoted pure abstraction and universality by a lessening to the essentials of form and colour in the early aesthetics of De Stijl. Which is simplifying the object’s aesthetics to vertical and horizontal lines, and using only primary colours along with black and white. As defined by Piet Mondrian, the horizontal line is a schematic (or diagrammatic) representation of the earth, the horizon(we learned this in Mr. Ernesto’s class). While the Vertical line is the effect of man on his environment.

However, as time goes by most De Stijl associated artists began experimenting with diagonal elements, removing the black lines, the use of the colour grey and the inclusion of the secondary colours.

Van Doesburg introduced the diagonal elements. In the mid-twenties, he believes that the diagonal relationships realizes ‘the spiritual’ aspect of De Stijl more because they opposed the gravitational stability of the natural and material structures of the horizontal and vertical relationships.

Van Der Leck developed a method of abstraction which he calls ‘decomposition’. He covered over a figure study with white paint until it was reduced to a geometric pattern of rectangular elements that never cross or touch each other. Which are more reductive than early De Stijl works.

To conclude, De Stijl is the deconstruction of an objects aesthetics to its essentials, which is it’s form(shape) and colour. Some works focuses more on abolishing the form of an object to be abstract while some are more of an idealistic representation of an object's aesthetics.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Stijl

http://www.spoonfed.co.uk/spooners/lauren-romano-8167/van-doesburg-and-the-international-avant-garde-constructing-a-new-world-2110/

http://www.triquaddesigns.com/apps/blog/de-stijl

http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/destijl/decstijl.htm

De Stijl by Paul Overy  

The Art Movement Project Update #1

I went to Art Friends to get materials and I still haven't officially become a member even though it's been a week since I registered. I don't know what's wrong with the system but I'm gonna judge them guilty of anything either. Went out and drove on the wrong exit lane towards LDP instead of Penchala Link. Nonetheless, I scraped myself out of the situation with just a few blaring horns aimed at me and got back home.

So here are the materials that I bought. A piece of wood, white paint for the base, and some postal colour for the painting. However, I won't be telling what I'm going to do with these materials and which art movement am going to portray as a portrait of myself. That would be in the next update.

!st Class

We were there early as always thinking that coming late for design would mean heresy in all subjects of FID. But it turns out we were earlier than we expected to be. Yay? The studio was filled with floats and we had to move them. ('we' as in all the girls did it and us boys were like,"Uhm... Should we or should we not move these floats?" True Story)

Ms. Lisa introduced herself as our Principles of Design lecturer/tutor. She begins the lecture with the question that she wants us to answer ourselves,"Who Am I?" 

Basically, the first class is about self-discovery. Asking ourselves what motivates us, what do we like, what grinds our gears, and etcetera. And no design class is complete without it's very own 

self-discovery assignment (Bolded for S#!ts and Giggles).

We had to draw out a mind map and a self-portrait, and present it to the whole class. This is actually awesome because we get to discover ourselves and also know a little bit about our classmates. Clearing out all the small talk like, "What's your favourite colour you like the smell of?"(true story, happened to a friend of mine) and avoids the need to introduce yourself later on. 

Everyone's presentation went smoothly, we laughed, we sympathized, and we cried (there were no cries actually, I just wanted a third adjective to better portray the sentence). 

After that's out of the way we were given our first assignment. Dun Dun Dun.........................................

We were to find an art movement and make a self-portrait. I don't want to go into all the details which means I have to write more but we are allowed a lot of creative freedom in this assignment. 

What materials do we use, canvas, painting or sculpture, and etcetera. Extensive research has to be done and our progress should reported and updated via an academic blog (which is this blog but judging from my style of writing, it doesn't seem to be very academic indeed). The next update of this assignment will be up later. 

Welcome to my humble academic blog on one of the subjects I'm taking this semester which is Principles Of Design. Here you'll find me writing about my classes, my reflections towards the classes and also updates of any projects that I'm working on.