Thursday, February 21, 2008

Tasks at Hand

Visual_design Here are the results of an exercise on line and shape from Dunnewold/Morgan/Benn's book on Visual Language.  What was reinforced for me in these examples was how to use line and shape to move the eye across the surface.  I'm still struggling with intentionally conveying emotion in lines and shapes...everything I start out with appears so cliche.  Maybe this is my metaphor for breaking down the wall until I come to a complete breakthrough.  I'm going to try again and I'll post to get some responses here.



I also played with the Shiva paintsticks Dscn2749and did a little sketching...Dscn2775 Self_portraitI'll eventually add other layers to the cloth when I have more time and space to not worry about leaving a mess.



I really need a haircut...



How would you convey magical realism in a quilt?  Crystal does writing prompts on her blog and the last one she did was for conveying magical realism and now I'm pondering how to convey that in cloth...Kathy Nida, an artist in the art quilt ring came to mind and also Faith Ringgold's and Betye Saar's works. 



Fear, mystery, whimsy, etc. are descriptives that can be applied to magical realism...I would go for welcoming and mysterious...something that would make myself or viewers want to stay in the piece but yet not quite sure why or what they are seeing...today I'm going to work on creating some images and more ideas for this idea.













































































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6 comments:

  1. GerrieFebruary 21, 2008 at 7:47 AM

    Faith Ringgold is speaking at Reed College on Sunday for Black History month. I shall be there. She also has some work in the gallery which I hope to see before then. It is only open Thursdays - Sundays. I will report on this on my blog - check in.
    I love your line and shape exercises. I was thinking I might be able to attend the workshop at the Crow Barn as we are going to be in Indiana for Mr C's 50th high school reunion in September, but it is too early and I can't justify to flights to the midwest in the same month. Shucks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. karodaFebruary 21, 2008 at 7:56 AM

    Wow, I'll definitely check in next week! And so close but yet so far...where and when in Indiana?

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  3. jenclairFebruary 22, 2008 at 5:44 AM

    I love the work of both Faith Ringgold and Kathy Nida! Magical realism is a perfect description. I wasn't familiar with Betye Saar, but thanks for the link, I enjoyed viewing her work, too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. lyric kinardFebruary 26, 2008 at 5:13 AM

    beautiful blog. The joy is in the journey of discovery as you work. Sometimes it takes a long time of just plugging along and tweaking before that breakthrough comes but the journey is worthwhile.

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  5. PaMdoraFebruary 26, 2008 at 12:16 PM

    That book sound really interesting, I'll keep an eye out for it. BTW I love your self portrait. It's so expressive and personal. I much prefer that to straight realism.

    ReplyDelete
  6. kyraMarch 2, 2008 at 5:54 PM

    Hello! Nice self-portrait! Just posted about it - inspired after reading Gwen's blog on the topic.

    ReplyDelete

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