Lately I’ve been noticing how many good paintings and drawings use repeating shapes within them, a motif. This motif seems to carry us through the composition, and give harmony and order to the shapes. I recently stumbled across this original drawing by Diego Rivera, posted on Facebook by Paul Hemminger of Bellingham Frameworks. It’s full of repeating angles and shapes. You can see the repetitions in the colored lines I added here:
I’ve emphasized in orange the curve of the worker’s backs, the hats, the hands. The angle of the legs, the tool, the arms, and again the land, all arching at well placed and graceful intervals are grouped, emphasized here in red, green, and blue. Along the orange arches, the green lines fan out a bit, while the red lines stay exactly parallel. The counterbalancing opposite angle in the upper right keeps us in, and loosely mirrors the lines below the left figure. So many repetitions! Lovely piece.
Next time you see a work by a skilled artist, take a look and see how many repetitions you can find within the composition.
Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative, chance-based drawing game invented by the Surrealists in the mid 1920s. Traditionally, each participant draws an image on part of a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal their work, and passes it on to the next player for their contribution. This is a modern version, with the entries …
[image_with_animation image_url=”8093″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Image above from Agora Gallery’s post “How to Recognize an Art Scam” In the last week, I’ve received 2 art scam emails. They read as personalized letters, including the title and size of my painting, mid paragraph. Neither email asked directly for anything, so no red flags, not right …
[image_with_animation image_url=”6237″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Raymond Pettibon Wiki: Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn; June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern California punk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for groups on SST Records, owned and operated by his brother, Greg Ginn. …
Today’s challenge is to draw using a disposable fork. This may at first seem odd and awkward, but if you think about it, a fork offers instant parallel crosshatch marks, saving you the time and trouble of drawing each line individually! Efficient. For this exercise, I recommend you avoid relying on outlines to describe the …
Motif & Repetitions in a Diego Rivera
Lately I’ve been noticing how many good paintings and drawings use repeating shapes within them, a motif. This motif seems to carry us through the composition, and give harmony and order to the shapes. I recently stumbled across this original drawing by Diego Rivera, posted on Facebook by Paul Hemminger of Bellingham Frameworks. It’s full of repeating angles and shapes. You can see the repetitions in the colored lines I added here:
I’ve emphasized in orange the curve of the worker’s backs, the hats, the hands. The angle of the legs, the tool, the arms, and again the land, all arching at well placed and graceful intervals are grouped, emphasized here in red, green, and blue. Along the orange arches, the green lines fan out a bit, while the red lines stay exactly parallel. The counterbalancing opposite angle in the upper right keeps us in, and loosely mirrors the lines below the left figure. So many repetitions! Lovely piece.
Next time you see a work by a skilled artist, take a look and see how many repetitions you can find within the composition.
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Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative, chance-based drawing game invented by the Surrealists in the mid 1920s. Traditionally, each participant draws an image on part of a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal their work, and passes it on to the next player for their contribution. This is a modern version, with the entries …
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[image_with_animation image_url=”8093″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Image above from Agora Gallery’s post “How to Recognize an Art Scam” In the last week, I’ve received 2 art scam emails. They read as personalized letters, including the title and size of my painting, mid paragraph. Neither email asked directly for anything, so no red flags, not right …
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[image_with_animation image_url=”6237″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Raymond Pettibon Wiki: Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn; June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern California punk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for groups on SST Records, owned and operated by his brother, Greg Ginn. …
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Today’s challenge is to draw using a disposable fork. This may at first seem odd and awkward, but if you think about it, a fork offers instant parallel crosshatch marks, saving you the time and trouble of drawing each line individually! Efficient. For this exercise, I recommend you avoid relying on outlines to describe the …