Taste + The Golden Mean

Sweet

Salty

Sour

Abstraction: Taste

Sweet, Salty, and Sour. The shapes I chose were triangles, squares, circles, and four pointed stars. The image that I feel rings most true to its taste is Sour. I positioned the stars and triangles in an overlapping diagonal to create the illusion of movement, or activity. That quick sting on the tongue. The diagonal consists of triangles and stars, with acute angles creating the sense of the sharp pain that sour gives. The circles and squares are lined up vertically to indicate a falling motion indicative of the almost pleasurable feel of salivation. I chose this one as my favorite because although the citrus colors help with reading it more clearly, I do feel it may still work on a grayscale. It is difficult to see this from any other cultural mindset, but if you are from a culture who reads vertically not horizontal, the blue lines of shapes may seem different. Or if you are from a culture where the four pointed star means something religious or political, then that would have a whole other meaning.

Flatland and The Golden Mean

I remember reading the book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott about twenty years ago. Although it was clearly fiction, I was completely frustrated with the nonsensical idea that “dimensions” exist. I am grateful that this is the first thing Leborg tackles in Visual Grammar pointing out lines are just points connected, planes are lines connected and so on. Once again I am learning more of vocabulary. Concepts and visual tools I’ve always known existed but never knew there was a name for. I had never heard of the Golden Mean. The Golden Mean describes the perfectly symmetrical relationship between two proportions. This can be represented by the ratio 1:1.618. That crazy Fibonacci. Also, I didn’t enjoy WTF do the Symbols on my Shirt Tag Mean? I think I just didn’t understand it. Symbols used to indicate how to care for clothes that are antiquated and vague…and…? However I really enjoyed learning about the peace sign and I’ve been drawing a lot of upside down peace signs lately for Universal Disarmament. Also maybe learning the semaphore alphabet would be fun.

Cat Man Magazine

Black + Blue

My swatches

Black + Blue Swatches

Right away I knew I wanted my swatch themes to be black and blue. I had a fun time hunting around for a black or a blue what-not that felt right. I thought it was interesting that putting them next to each other in swatches helped me to see them better. Lining up all of the blacks helped me understand how similar the textures were. Plastic, rubber, smooth yet with various patterned ridges. I realized so many utilitarian objects are black. Cords, tires, technology….uh, black licorice? Alright, candy is the exact opposite of utilitarian, but to be fair, black is definitely a rare color for candy, and the licorice does have a similar texture of the cords and rubber tires.

The blue swatches seemed to have a theme of home for me and have more variety in texture. Bumpy stucco, scratchy rug, quilted potholder, and acrylic paint on canvas. These swatches easily lend themselves to some crazy ideas of materials not normally being used for certain objects. Stucco rug, quilted outside walls of a house, painted canvas potholders. I feel as though if I walked around school with my swatches, it would be a lot easier to find similar textures and colors with the black plastic like swatches than the blue ones. The color blue and cloth rugs and fabrics are not as common on campus. That actually would feel very strange if universities decorated and furnished their campuses like homes. Instead of utilitarian, modern and practical spaces, what if they had elaborate designs with curtains, wallpaper, patterns, rugs, and color.

I am drawn to the black swatches because that smooth thick plastic makes me want to run my hands over it and even…BITE IT…even the tire.

Gestalt Theory Principles + On Texture

I am enjoying learning about Gestalt Theory Principles. For me it is one of those things that I always saw and knew existed but never knew had names and a whole lot of discussion. I’ve been reading a little more about these principles and found that supposedly there is another principle that has been added on called Common Fate. It is the idea that humans tend to perceive elements moving in the same direction as being more related than elements that are stationary or that move in different directions. The reading, The Senses: Design beyond Vision by Ellen Lupton was a great reminder of the power of texture. Although this is one of the basic principles in art, it is one I often don’t give much thought about. These are more tools in my toolbelt. And once again I am reminded about the benefits of taking time and thought with the process. It’s amazing how many ways a creator can manipulate something, color, texture, angles, negative space, etc. to get the person experiencing the art to feel a certain feeling or think a certain way.