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.
[image_with_animation image_url=”9204″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Yesterday I posted a fragment of a sculpture and asked you to guess when it was made and who made it. I worded my question to be misleading by asking specifically “who” and “what year.” Some of the guesses I received were: Brancusi, 1952? Isamu Noguchi? Henry Moore late …
I was thankful for the break after the end of 30 days straight in January! I’m restarting the posts now, picking up where I left off with 30SAL Challenge Day 14: Make a transcription of Nicholas Poussin’s The Triumph of Pan. In the original post I mention how Poussin didn’t make detailed sketches of his figures …
[image_with_animation image_url=”7636″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Anni Albers (1899–1994) was a textile artist, designer, and printmaker. You likely know of her husband Joseph Albers, the colorist. No doubt the two inspired each other. I recently ran into a book of Anni’s sketches, each page a sheet of graph paper with a different pattern idea. Most were …
[image_with_animation image_url=”7856″ alignment=”center” animation=”Fade In” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Siobhan Wilder, painting in progress When I was little, before I could write, I would pretend to write in cursive. I’d take a pencil and paper and draw repeated double loops like cursive f’s, and scrawl graceful wavy lumpy lines. That’s what cursive looked like. I’d pretend to …
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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