Smell of Toast (Blog Entry Assignment 2)

This class assignment, called 3 Shapes 3 Times, included juxtaposing three forms, three representational shapes, and three abstract shapes. These were the starting guidelines for this project. However, as I was getting further and further into this piece, it became much more than what was asked for in the beginning. This composition was meant to invoke the smell of toast and jelly. My representational shapes included the piece of toast, the toaster, the mouth, and the knife. My abstract forms were the smoke, piece of butter, and the jelly. The three pure shapes I used were the triangles falling out of the jelly jar and the circle that the smoke is entering in the upper right hand corner.

The medium that was used for this piece was ink pens. This medium helped me to experiment with line and definition. This composition definitely has a series of lines with different thicknesses. I used curvilinear lines for the smoke to show the flowing movement that real smoke would have. I used hatching for the crust of the bread to convey the roughness of the bread. Also, I used stippling for the actual toast to give texture to the image as if the viewer was seeing crumbs on the piece of toast. The jelly was very challenging because it is very difficult to convey the stickiness and thickness through line. In the final piece, I used shading and cross hatching to make the jelly take on the characteristics of real gelatin.

One of the main points of this project was to use images that would create tension between one another. This tension was created by using different shading techniques like stippling as well as using different types of lines. Tension can be seen at the top of the image between the smoke, the crust, and the toast. The stippling of the toast is conflicting with the straight lines of the crust and the flowing lines of the smoke. Even though there is tension between these elements, the composition still has a sense of balance.

Before I made this final copy, my first composition lacked a dominant positive shape. My piece was all white and did not have enough black and gray shapes to balance the composition. That is when I added the lips and the tongue. Making the lips black and very large on the page, made it the dominant positive shape and gave the lips definition. Adding the stippling around the lips, gave the composition the gray that it needed for balance. Making these additions also gave me a chance to experiment with texture. I used stippling and cross hatching for the tongue to show how rough it is. Also, I added lines to the lips to show the imperfections and dryness.

I am very happy with this piece but I know I could improve it to make it even better. Instead of using contour lines for the toaster, I could have used line in a different way to show the texture of the toaster more. Another thing I could have done differently was put the toast in the middle instead of the lips. The main element of this piece was supposed to be the smell of toast so it may have been better to put the main element in the middle. Also, I would have changed the sizes of the toast, lips and toaster. They all seem to be very similar in size but it is not as obvious because the toast and toaster go off the page. Over all, I am extremely happy about how the final piece turned out.

Image Essay 5

The figure in Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude is a negative shape. There is a figure/ground reversal in this piece. The viewer can see the negative shape of the body but there is also shapes being formed in the background by that figure. The nude figure has a very curvilinear shape and is asymmetrical. The figure is taking up most of the space on the page but is not confined to the edges. The body’s foot extends off the page and the arm that is going above the head also looks cut off at the top of the page. Because of the way the negative shape is placed on the page, the viewer’s eye moves very well around the whole composition. The eye can start from the right hand corner where the foot is, following the flowing lines of the legs, then up to the face and around the arm and back down the other arm. This piece is very interesting to look at and the viewer does not miss anything on the page. The body is very abstract and the blue color makes the negative shape stand out from the positive shapes that are formed.

Image Essay 4

This image is a perfect example of a figure/ ground reversal. One person can see a young woman with a hat, looking away. Another person may not see this younger woman but an older woman looking forward. It is very difficult to go back and forth switching from figure to ground. However, it is this technique that can make a viewer want to look at the image longer until he or she is able to spot both images. The lines that make up the hat and feather have all the same thickness. If there was a variety of length and thickness to the lines, the viewer would be able to see texture in the hat and the feather. The balance between white and black are very even, but there is no gray to balance this image out even more. The positive shapes of the hat and face are formed by contour lines. If shading were added to the face and the hat, the entire image would look more realistic.

Image Essay 3

This image is meant to represent greed and how far man is willing to go to get everything he or she desires. The skeleton is the area of focus because the pile of money seems to be surrounding it. Also, the skeleton is in the middle of the composition so attention goes straight to this figure. The skeleton is in the foreground, the pile of money in the middle ground, and the flames in the background. The skeleton figure is the most detailed which makes it the dominant shape. The viewer’s eye would move pretty well around the page. Since the skeleton has his arms extended out, the eye moves from the bottom of the composition, following the extended arm all the way to the top of the image. The flow would be a lot better if maybe the arms of the skeleton were bent so that the viewer’s eye would go to one hand and then swing around to the next hand and then come back around to the skeleton’s chest in a circle. There is a lot of shading in the pile of money as well as on the bones of the skeleton. This makes the image look more three dimensional.

Image Essay 2

As I was searching for images that represented freedom, I came upon this image of butterflies. I view butterflies as a symbol of freedom because they are free to wander around and are rarely caged. Butterflies are so symmetrical in shape, but the way they are situated in this image, the composition looks asymmetrical. The butterfly that appears most dominant in size is the blue one in the corner because it expands past the edges of the page. This butterfly appears to be the biggest when the viewer follows the line of the wings out past the edges of the page to predict the actual size of the butterfly. The two butterflies in the middle are subordinate in shape because they seem to be medium in size and are very similar in size to each other. The viewer's eye would move from the dominant butterfly in the corner to the two butterflies in the middle and then up to the smaller butterflies in the upper left hand corner. The viewer's eye does not move around the page because of the way the composition is set up. The eye moves from the bottom right hand corner straight to the upper left hand corner because that is the direction in which all of the butterflies are facing. The wings are accented with great detail which gives the butterflies some texture. Having the wings overlap each other gives the composition a sense of depth. It makes the butterflies appear three dimensional rather than laying flat on the page.

Image Essay 1

In Claude Monet’s The River, Bennecourt, the area of focus is the woman over looking the river. The viewer’s eye moves from the area of focus (woman) to the trees and then to the houses in the background. Monet’s asymmetrical arrangement of this composition keeps the viewer’s eye going around the painting and does not let the eye wander off. This painting is a perfect example of the figure-ground relationship. The woman is the figure and the river and houses are the ground. The viewer would notice the woman first before the houses and the river in the background. The trees and grass appear dominant because they extend past the edges of the painting. The woman and the boat are medium masses so they are subordinate and the houses are accentual in size because they appear very small. The water to the right of the painting is the dominant negative space while the area between the two trees is accentual negative space. In this impressionistic painting, Monet experiments with the lighting so that the viewer notices the reflections made on the water.