Value Activities Critique

The value scale and composition activities were both useful means of exploring the concept of value and the effects that can be achieved by employing differents types of value contrast in a drawing. Creating a value scale is always harder than it looks and requires a fair amount of tweaking and adjusting in order to get the correct progression from high key to low key. The value composition was very enjoyable, as it can be intimidating to approach a blank piece of paper (or canvas) with no restrictions on what can be produced in terms of composition, materials, color, etc. Approaching a drawing with a more narrow goal (in this case, exploring value contrast) can be oddly liberating, as the weight of infinite possibilities is lifted to some extent. The value composition also was instructive in the powerful effects that can be achieved simply by the use of value contrast without any color being used at all. It made me think that doing a value study/composition might be a good first step to approaching a painting or other work that ultimately will use color.

Value Composition

Line/Shape and String Activities Critique

The line and shape activity served as a valuable exercise in breaking down a composition into its most basic visual elements and being deliberate about the use of these elements as such, regardless of the subject matter of a composition.

The string activity was intriguing on several levels. It was good practice in using line three-dimensionally. Seeing the patterns that were created with line in three-dimensional space was enlightening and could, perhaps, unlock new ways of thinking about using line in two-dimensional art. It was also a useful exercise in creating art spontaneously by reacting to what is being created before you rather than having a set idea ahead of time of what the end result will be. This aspect of the exercise was enhanced by the fact that the project was collaborative, requiring us to react not only to what we were creating ourselves, but also to what was being created by others around us. The task of undoing the string was also interesting, as it allowed us to revisit and reflect upon each step of our own creative decision making, exactly reversing the creative process.

Line/Shape Critique

All of the images could be characterized as either a line or a shape. They are lines in that they appear to have direction and motion. They are shapes in that they could be seen as being contained, defined images in space.

Lines are uncontained markings that move from one point to another point in space. They can continue infinitely outward from the beginning and ending point. Shapes are contained, stable images in space. Lines convey the sense of motion, whereas shapes convey the sense of stabililty.

Critique: Beatriz Milhazes Painting

This painting by Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes contains a complex layering of organic, decorative and geometric forms. In the background of the painting is a solid circle in bright red, the intensity of which is tempered by other solid circles and straight-edged geometric shapes in muted shades of blue, yellow, gray, and brown. Layered atop this largely subdued background is an explosion of shape, pattern and color. Circles of varying sizes are embellished with detailed patterns resembling the embroidery on Indian sarees. Overlapping these circles are brightly colored flowers and graphic black ornamental shapes resembling jeweled necklaces, earrings or chandeliers.

Milhazes' painting plays with numerous tensions and contradictions. It is suggestive of Baroque opulence, but the geometric shapes and graphic quality of the work give it a distinctly contemporary feel. The shapes and patterns symbolize feminine decor and adornment--jewelry, wallpaper, embroidered dresses, flowers, chandeliers--but the deep blues, grays, browns and blacks that dominate much of the painting are traditionally masculine. Most intriguing is the elevation of decorative motifs into the realm of fine art. By removing these forms and patterns from their traditional context of decor and fashion, the viewer is allowed to examine them as wholly abstract shapes and lines.

For me, Milhazes' painting succeeds both as a lush and sensual work of pure beauty and as a thoughtful juxtaposition of apparently contradictory symbols and ideas.