Hmong Story Quilt

Title: Hmong Story Quilt,
Date: 1970s
Author/Designed: Bee, Montana USA
Location: UC Davis Art Museum

What comes to mind when you first look at this quilt in terms of design. We see pattern, repetition, and rhythm. There is more but we are only going to focus on these three terms. Where do we see repetition? The two outlines of this quilt are done by repetition. Looking inside the outlines we see different symbols. Each symbol in the quilt has a meaning to it. Will get back to the meaning but let’s pay attention to the different scales of the different symbols that are in the quilt. Notice that they’re few different symbols, but each symbol has a certain repetition with also taking in the consideration of the pattern it’s in. Looking at different patterns we can see the rhythm in the quilt. Using the word rhythm sounds funny because rhythm is used to when expressing sound. But in design rhythm is a visual sensation. In this quilt it has been expressed as the repetition and pattern of different symbols. It gives a unity feeling. Let’s look at it closely ands see what the author trying to show us. It looks like we are shown how the Vietnamese are living. We are not going to go in details in this but now you know how to express rhythm in design.

Interesting Art Work no Focal Point

This piece of art is by by Shari Ulman. Each square has an icon. Notice how she kept a balance in terms of the icons. Most of the icons have different scales. It depended where she had it in this piece of art. Some are very small and solid colors, while others are extended beyond the square with texture. This is all done to keep the balance equally in this piece of art. If you notice how this piece of art doesn’t have a focal point inside it. You can say the piece of art as whole is a focal point. The reason behind this is that the designer used grid to keep the art work balanced. When you use a grid, it creates unity as a whole. That’s why you see the whole picture as a focal point. Looking at the colors in each square, you see some are solid while others are striped. They’re done in this way to keep this piece of art work balanced with the icons that are on them. Notice that the solid square colors have texture icon on it, while the striped squares have solid color icon. Using variety of different icons made this piece of art work interesting.

(Picture taken from: http://myartisticlife.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5538e9181883301156ff9d276970c-800wi)

Interesting Piece of Art from Crocker Museum

Very interesting picture I took at the Crocker Museum. This piece of art has unique rhythm. If you notice that the art piece is made of small squares that are connected to each others. These small squares make the big picture of our old president George W. Bush when you are looking at it from far. As you get closer the bigger picture starts to disappear and you start to notice different icons that are on these small squares. Notice how they’re put in pattern. Each square has a symbol. Being placed in different part of this piece of art gives it a different meaning to it. Let’s zoom in at one part of the image and see what they mean.

We notice a dice that is showing different faces of it and some are repeated, a person being punished, missiles in the air, fire is everywhere, different view of the stairs, and broken walls. It looks like the author is connecting the big picture with these small ones which we can relate to war that our president got us into. Anyway, look at it closely you can see the repetition and rhythm the author uses. This piece of art work is proportional. It is very interesting how he has them connected. That is why his art work got put in a museum.

Mathematics Design

Repetition and proportion play a big role in this piece of art. Let’s take a more depth look on repetition. Repetition is an element that is being repeated. It can be anything, for example, color, shape, texture, or direction. This piece of art is mainly repetition. Look and observe how each hexagon, pentagons, different shapes and sizes of the stars, and even the small negative spaces are connected together and forming a gestalt. If you slice through in almost any place, it will be symmetrical. Let’s take a look at the proportion part of this art. Proportion is defined as the balanced relationship of all the parts to the whole, either visual or structural. Looking at the piece of art you can see it has been well balanced in structural and visual part of it. The shapes of hexagon, pentagons, stars, negative space are proportion. Like we mentioned earlier, if you sliced the art through in almost any place it will be symmetrical. What is this piece of art? Muslims are not allowed to have any illustration of any of Gods creations and so they resort of mathematics to find ways of decorating their place of worship. This is one of the many different designs they use to decorate their mosque.

(Picture taken from: http://www.e-1618.com/muslimart.jpg)

Fine Digital Art

Fine art is always beautiful. Looking at this fine digital art work makes us wonder on how sometimes when we look at a picture we look at main point of the picture first. It’s not necessary to be in the center of the picture. But from that point our eyes flow to the rest of the picture. Every artist decides were does he want the main point to be on the picture. This point is called focal point. It attracts the audience to where to begin in the picture. One way to make a focal point in your picture is to have a different contrast in it which makes it stand out from everything around it. Now, from there the artist directs on how they want us as to flow through the picture. They use different line structure to do that. Notice how our brain groups every two lines together, even though they’re many lines in the picture. Also the lines that are on the top have a brighter color than the ones in the back. Our brain tries always to make things simple by uniting all the similar ones. It groups them by proximity, continuation, repetition and so on. These different grouping all falls under gestalt. Next time you look at piece of art work notice where the focal point is and how your brain unites similar elements together.

(Picture taken from: http://www.ericjhellergallery.com/images/art/exponential.jpg)

2 in 1

Examine this drawing. Notice that this picture is two dimensional. Very simple drawn. Now look at the drawing closely. What do you see? A wine cup or two faces that is close to each others. It’s pretty interesting how your brain can show you two images on a single picture. How you think something like that works? Well….it depends on what you make the negative space. If you make the sides negative you will see the wine cup. Same thing the opposite way, if you make the middle space negative, you will see the two faces. This is called gestalt. Gestalt in psychology is how our minds seek unity when unity doesn't exist. The way our mind groups things Is the way a picture will appear to us. There are many ways to achieve unity. Here are few of them; proximity, repetition, continuation, continuity and the grid, the grid, varied repetition…etc. Take a close look on how simple this drawing is very well balanced. It may look simple, but look on how it meets everything for an image to look perfect. Did you notice that the drawing doesn’t have a border line and it still comes out very well? We will leave this discussion for later.

(Picture taken from: http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~kbroom/images/gestaltpics/vaseface.png)

Interesting peice of Art

Iris Leaves with Rowan Berries, By Andy Goldsworthy 1956

Check out this incredible medium that the artist used. He got his work done on water. How can one someone think of something like that. How can someone do it so perfect? He used Iris leaves to make the design while filing in some parts of it with Rowan berries. To be able to do things like that you have to be really in aesthetics. He has done the six step design process we mentioned in the earlier blog. As you noticed everything is natural in his design. Looking at this abstract design really makes the person wonders. Many artists like to express things rather than to illustrate them. Most designers now days represent both. Pay attention on how the design of leaves is not too little or too much. When something is too little you feel it needs more work done on it. Same thing when it is too much. It starts taking away the point of the art work or it makes it really confusion to look at. Also, you somewhat notice a pattern of the leaves and the berries. As you stare the art work more you get appreciate it and understand it better. That is how we communicate as designers.

(Picture taken from: http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_images/GOLDSWORTHY/575/gold_irisberries.jpg)