The Word Becomes Art

This task follows sections on colour theory and looks at how artists use colour as an element of their personal artist style. A few weeks ago an image came up in my email from Pinterest showing the colour palette of Mucha. This intrigued me, so when I started to research the way different practitioners use colour, I decided to try to make a colour wheel for some of them, using different primary colours to generate different secondary and tertiary colours. This idea came from a book I read awhile ago about modern colour theory (Wynne Conrad, 2021) in which the author, rather than using a traditional colour wheel, and mindful of artist prints, used yellow, cyan and magenta as the primaries for her colour wheel. Having explored that, she went on to create other colour wheels by tweaking the primaries, with the idea that each person could use a colour wheel in this way to create their own distinctive colour palette. I decided to make some different colour wheels to try to get at the colour...

For this exercise there are two parts: firstly, to take a series of photos with diagonal lines, which lengthen the frame, and can either lead to something within the frame or straight out of it, and often convey perspective; secondly, to take a series of photos which use lines to flatten the frame, with horizontals to disguise depth or with close-ups to create more abstract compositions.  I will include more photos than usual in this exercise because, having take quite a number of both types of photo, I’ve learnt a lot about composition by visually researching my own photos. I will include some photos that I would normally discard because they have taught me something about composition. As there are quite a lot I want to include, I will make only brief notes on each one, identifying my main learning point. Initially I was quite pleased with this photo, but, reading the course materials, I can see the way the diagonals lead the eye away from the house   This composition seems b...

 This task is about doing visual research. We are asked to choose a particular area of illustration or graphic design and gather visual examples of it as a way to learn more about it and, perhaps, let it inform our own style of work. I have chosen to look at Art Nouveau posters. I like their combination of striking lettering with flamboyant images, they have a real feel-good factor and hark back to an age when society was loosening up after the Victorian era. New things were possible: going on a train trip or going to see a film. There is a great feeling of hope and joy within these posters.  Here are some that I particularly like.  "Sarah Bernhardt's first Art Nouveau poster created by a then struggling Czech artist in Paris - Alphonse Maria Mucha - 2"   by antefixus21  is licensed under  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-paper-posters-3091203/  Free use "La Dame aux Camelias / Sarah Bernhardt"   by MCAD Library  is licen...