15 properties

So in one of my classes we are reading Christoper Alexander's The Phenomenon of Life, Book One: The Nature of Order. Not that I am really recommending the book, but he talks about how everything has a certain degree of life to it; not biological life, but some things just "feel" and "connect" to our souls more. He never really makes this idea of exactly how you decide why things have life. But I think that the concept is really fascinating, especially in drawing, as we are the re creators of a scene:
We get to assign life to objects.
This is his most easily explained property, there is a list of 14 others, and personally I find them very subjective and sometimes represented unfairly in his comparisons, but I think that they can have some influence into how we think about drawing. They are:
alternating repitions
boundaries
contrast
deep interlock and ambiguity
echoes
good shape
gradient
local symmetries
levels of scale
non-seperateness
positive space
roughness
strong centers
simplicy and inner calm
the void

I think that ever since learning about these I think about them more in everything, especially in these charcol drawings we are doing.

Relating

So, I was thinking back on our first drawings we did & how life is like drawings.
It started out really rough and rushed, with gestural drawings.
We kept moving, kept changing. Then we just had to choose a spot because we liked it.
The place we chose we had to stick with and make it more impressive- more realistic.
Then we commit- add paint on and just keep layering.
Maybe receive a little advice and some demonstration.
We weren't supposed to worry about how things were looking at the moment; they were going to turn out recognizable and alright.
We all received the same instructions and they all turned out completely different.

My whole life I've been moving, changing, erasing & all of a sudden I've only got two years to decide what to do with the rest of my life.
So I've committed- Art major, my lines have been refined, no longer gestural drawings.
Now I'm layering on paint: taking my past and my experiences now and creating my future. I've still got time to keep layering, but I hope the finished image comes out recognizable, and I'm happy with it.

The next project that we are beginning to work on can probably be related to life as well, probably more so with the collage element, and the fact that we personally can chose the range of values we want to use. But I'm excited to see how they all turn out and how varied they are.

Relating

I'm having a lot of fun with the drawing we are working on in class.
I find it very relaxing to be able to use paint, and just be working with lines; not having to mix correct values and shade objects.
With this technique I have definitely begun to see the world more in terms of Giacometti's style. I hope I will never be as conflicted as him, but I understand his search for relationships between things.
I notice things as being more geometric and look for lines that cue into that feeling. This has transferred over into my photography projects as well: I seem to be more interested in lines. Also in color theory- my patterns have become all line-based.

I am currently taking IAR 321, Design Perspectives, and we are talking about the broad sense of design and how it corresponds to EVERY other discipline; which definitely includes drawing. We discussed the movie "Powers of Ten"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cmlhfdxuY

At first I thought it was just a scientific movie- just a look at the universe and atoms. But then I started to think about the design of it all. How the smallest things make up the whole universe and how one little change can create a whole different substance. My teacher is big on patterns, and the rythm of the world is quite fascinating when thought of out of normal context. We also related to Philosophy- how do we know we are the only life forms and how could all this specific design be created by one all-knowing being. The biggest impact this film brings is that there is a vastness and we harldy fill up a fraction of a percent of it-so even though in the grand scheme of things our decisions won't impact the universe-but why not still try to change the world?

I think that drawing, for me, is like dissecting this short film: it's very easy for me to derive the basic meaning of a piece, but I need to spend more time at the deeper meanings and the drive behind the work. I think everyone could benefit if they just slowed down and contemplated drawing.