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.
Take a class with SAL – anywhere! A while back I was Looking Closely at JS Sargent’s Portrait of Henry James. In the post I guessed at Sargent’s palette, his brushes, and a bit about his process. After I wrote that post I continued thinking about his process, did more research and more thinking, and …
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. SLIMSY : flimsy, frail Slimsy is a blend …
A Frenchman, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was the leading painter in Rome during the era of Baroque art from the early to mid 1600s, until he rejected the decorative and emotional style in Baroque so he could develop his own style that combined the values of the Renaissance with classical antiquity. If you’re looking at a …
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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Take a class with SAL – anywhere! A while back I was Looking Closely at JS Sargent’s Portrait of Henry James. In the post I guessed at Sargent’s palette, his brushes, and a bit about his process. After I wrote that post I continued thinking about his process, did more research and more thinking, and …
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Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. SLIMSY : flimsy, frail Slimsy is a blend …
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A Frenchman, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was the leading painter in Rome during the era of Baroque art from the early to mid 1600s, until he rejected the decorative and emotional style in Baroque so he could develop his own style that combined the values of the Renaissance with classical antiquity. If you’re looking at a …