tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40722188561857787702024-03-18T20:48:46.427-06:00Carolyn AndersonCarolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-87221481560192828992019-05-29T12:44:00.001-06:002021-01-25T08:27:21.100-07:00Do your paintings look stiff?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MtiLThYnfOQ/XO7OpSj6vcI/AAAAAAAABVQ/T48Goanv3PY7eE8vaBzZPYdljJiq54g-wCLcBGAs/s1600/Jsargent%2Bdiagram%2Bn.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1530" data-original-width="1050" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MtiLThYnfOQ/XO7OpSj6vcI/AAAAAAAABVQ/T48Goanv3PY7eE8vaBzZPYdljJiq54g-wCLcBGAs/s640/Jsargent%2Bdiagram%2Bn.jpg" width="436" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from John Singer Sargent "The Daughters of Edward Boit"<br />
Note the variety of edge information, especially on a horizontal plane.</td></tr>
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Edges are not arbitrary. They define our three-dimensional reality and are the transitions between value, shape, and color. In painting, edges help to define or diminish form and are necessary in creating the illusion of three dimensions.<br />
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The reason so many artists have problems with edges is simply because <b>edge detection is a major component of visual processing</b>. Detecting figure-ground separation and object separation are a very necessary part of how we see. We need to know where things are. We need to know where we are and where other people are. We need to know where the coffee mug is, or better yet, where the stem of the wine glass is located. We think we see edges and contours more distinctly than they actually are. And that works very well for us most of the time . . . except, of course, when we are painting.<br />
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If your paintings look stiff, if your figures don’t turn, and objects appear flat and look like paper cut-outs, then perhaps you need to reevaluate how you see, not just how you apply paint.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CeQhh7Z3E1w/XO7OpeRqhUI/AAAAAAAABVM/acHrsXPS7QoDRjJMZhUkzQjiCk7Ob0lXgCLcBGAs/s1600/jsargent%2Bfountain%2Bdiagram%2Bn.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1275" data-original-width="1015" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CeQhh7Z3E1w/XO7OpeRqhUI/AAAAAAAABVM/acHrsXPS7QoDRjJMZhUkzQjiCk7Ob0lXgCLcBGAs/s640/jsargent%2Bfountain%2Bdiagram%2Bn.jpg" width="505" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from John Singer Sargent "The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy"</td></tr>
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First of all, do not assume there is an edge. Is there an edge, and if so, what kind of edge? What defines the form? Is it a change in value or color or is it a change in shape? Many times it is a change in information next to the form. A strong light next to a strong dark will usually result in a harder edge. Information turning into shadow will obviously not be as noticeable and will usually have a softer edge or perhaps no edge at all. Look for the doorways that allow one shape to turn into or become part of another shape. Pay attention to the edges opposite one another on an object and compare. They should have variety and suggest dimension. Using the same type of information on both sides of an object or figure, especially on the horizontal plane, will flatten the shape and negate any attempts at modeling and using value changes within the object itself.<br />
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These diagrammed paintings of John Singer Sargent illustrate the variety and complexity of edge information. Sargent, Anders Zorn, and Joaquin Sorolla were all extremely adept at using painterly, fluid brushwork to suggest dimension and movement, while still delineating solid form. Remember that squinting helps us to simplify information and to see value changes more easily.<br />
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According to Buddhist teaching the world we see with our eyes in just a reflection of a reality that we cannot quite grasp. The power of painting is the suggestion that this thing that is a reflection of truth can also, somehow, be truth.<br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-39405841623220306842019-02-14T11:41:00.000-07:002019-02-14T11:41:58.767-07:00The limits of likeness<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In 1954 ethologist Niko Tinbergen noticed that herring gull chicks instinctively pecked at red spots on their parents’ bills to beg for food. At the time, the dominant idea in animal behavior was that learning was more important than instinct. Tinbergen argued that animals are born with instincts already adapted to their environment. His studies proved that gull chicks not only respond to a long stick with a red spot, but become even more excited when presented with three red stripes on a piece of cardboard. Tinbergen called this the “superbeak”, or supernormal stimulus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">More recently, the neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran linked Tinbergen’s work to a related principle called peak shift, or the hard-wiring of the brain to focus on parts of objects that matter the most. Peak shift is important in understanding how and why exaggeration <i>and</i> simplification can often convey more information than accurate representation. Ramachandran described peak shift using the ancient Sanskrit word rasa, meaning “capturing the very essence, the very spirit of something, in order to evoke a specific mood or emotion”. </span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"Since it is impossible in representing an apple to give the image the qualities of tactile appeal, aroma, and taste inherent in the nature object, one must see that the symbol image (no matter how faithful to the object in visual terms) is the weaker experience. Hence the symbolic object must be endowed with special visual characteristics that, in heightening visual impact, make up for qualities it cannot project." <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>Elements of Design</i> by Donald Anderson</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A good example of peak shift is caricature, where certain features, those which are different from the average, are exaggerated to create an image more easily recognizable than a realistic image. Margaret Livingstone, in her book Vision and Art, explains how face neurons (yes, there is a specialized area in the brain for detecting faces) carry information about how a specific face differs from the average face. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We notice what is different and we “see” what we notice, so it makes sense that an exaggerated image would be not only recognizable, but perhaps more interesting. As Henri Matisse said, “I do not paint things; I paint the differences between things.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are also dedicated visual processing areas for luminance, color, and motion, visual elements that artists have used and manipulated for centuries. For example, the change in the representation of reality that began with the Impressionists and their novel interpretation of light and color continued through the Post-Impressionists and their emphasis on pattern and color. This, in turn, inspired the Fauves (including Matisse) to use an even more extreme variation of color and expressive brushwork. These paintings were a precursor to much of the art of the twentieth century.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ramachandran and another neuroscientist, Semir Zeki, both part of the very new science of neuroaesthetics, have written about how visual processing can help explain some aspects of art, but they seem to limit their interest and explanations to contemporary art. One could say it is probably easier to recognize the visual elements of line, shape, value, and color without the parameters of representational imagery. However, before neuroaesthetics was even a word, the art historian Ernst Gombrich examined perception and pictorial representation throughout history with his book Art and Illusion, originally published in 1960. His mention of Tinbergen’s gull studies was probably the first recognition of supernormal stimulus in an art book. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZjQiY_B-hy6Mpz8HsofAh3pPKyUAaltx4FgzwF21DXRaq0pjnMGa01PDZrOTidnuPb_yrkDqKXVxStQpZ7nmzBc1VW01A3vFmI07ZB6jMG3V1GwVxaNz079w45MpMX3uADxQ5eOWHiAg/s1600/Rembrandt+Portrait+of+Jan+Six.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZjQiY_B-hy6Mpz8HsofAh3pPKyUAaltx4FgzwF21DXRaq0pjnMGa01PDZrOTidnuPb_yrkDqKXVxStQpZ7nmzBc1VW01A3vFmI07ZB6jMG3V1GwVxaNz079w45MpMX3uADxQ5eOWHiAg/s320/Rembrandt+Portrait+of+Jan+Six.jpg" width="289" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of Jan Six by Rembrandt</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gombrich recognized that symbolism and illusion are integral to all art. From prehistoric to contemporary art, he was able to recognize the accomplishments and visual discoveries through a lens of tradition and transition. In the chapter titled “The Experiment of Caricature” Gombrich wrote, “We have read Vasari’s comment on the distinction between Titian’s early manner and the loose brushwork of his later masterpieces. Such sublime simplification is only possible on the basis of earlier complexities. Take Rembrandt’s development: he had to learn to build up the image of sparkling gold braid in all its detail before he could find out how much could be omitted for the beholder ready to meet him halfway. In his portrait of his patron Jan Six, one brushstroke is really all that is needed to conjure up the gold braid but how many such effects did he have to explore before he could thus reduce them to this magic simplicity.”</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-swpaBcxLq-k/XGWU0hDI5XI/AAAAAAAABTU/uDLCHOo8CfMvvvgh7cxg3pIbjnuRm4vvgCLcBGAs/s1600/Rembrandt%2BPortrait%2Bof%2BJan%2BSix%2Bcrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="305" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-swpaBcxLq-k/XGWU0hDI5XI/AAAAAAAABTU/uDLCHOo8CfMvvvgh7cxg3pIbjnuRm4vvgCLcBGAs/s400/Rembrandt%2BPortrait%2Bof%2BJan%2BSix%2Bcrop.jpg" width="287" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of Jan Six by Rembrandt</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another one of Tinbergen’s major studies involved the stickleback, a small freshwater fish. The bellies of the male sticklebacks would turn red during mating season and they would attack other males to protect their nesting territory. However, Tinbergen found they would attack anything red. When presented with a series of stickleback models, ranging from a very realistic but colorless model to a very unrealistic blob with a red belly, the fish ignored the realistic model and attacked all the other ones with red bellies. At one point, Tinbergen’s students noticed the fish attacking the side of the tank and they looked in that direction to see a postal van, with red on it, parked outside the window.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Between stories of the stickleback and the herring gulls, I recognized the relationship of supernormal stimuli and the possibilities for walleye fishing. Since walleyes supposedly see the color red, why bother with expensive, overdesigned fishing lures. Anything meant to look “real” would probably trigger an “uncanny valley” response (the process where a near-identical resemblance arouses a sense of unease) from fish that would recognize it as not “real” enough. So I started fishing, successfully I might add, with a single, small, red bead and a hook with a piece of worm. Glass beads seemed to work better than plastic, which might have something to do with variation and reflection, but who the heck knows what it looks like to a fish under 20 feet of water. All those fish needed, however, was something to attract their attention. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jDeC0cE8tZc/XGWWQCeArRI/AAAAAAAABTo/ENbm9mREyPkdH7iOUJFQe4_kySPjvDZCACLcBGAs/s1600/15x10%2BGirl%2BReading.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1090" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jDeC0cE8tZc/XGWWQCeArRI/AAAAAAAABTo/ENbm9mREyPkdH7iOUJFQe4_kySPjvDZCACLcBGAs/s400/15x10%2BGirl%2BReading.JPG" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Girl Reading by C. Anderson</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Peak shift reminds me of the questionable art advice, “If you can’t paint it big, make it red.”</i></span></blockquote>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-53820988453619505202018-11-05T06:53:00.001-07:002018-11-05T06:53:47.872-07:00Willful blindness: the myth of white marble statues<br />
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Modern technology has confirmed an unpopular truth that has
been overlooked or ignored by art history for centuries. The figures of gods
and heroes created by Greek and Roman artists were once painted in brilliant
colors. Marble was considered a canvas, not the finished product.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRNiORrViOElHwc_saPlNYOHnStn5UCZiDn1XNefAY9GA9FLW00UR-W1S4Pou-s8S1WyqQ3sn5XSff7TE7GrvfVTaGCnArPhHFmh_Ml0tX6lLABTTGbQjRd2qSru5FIT4NCkevtXIOdEY/s1600/Picture3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="438" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRNiORrViOElHwc_saPlNYOHnStn5UCZiDn1XNefAY9GA9FLW00UR-W1S4Pou-s8S1WyqQ3sn5XSff7TE7GrvfVTaGCnArPhHFmh_Ml0tX6lLABTTGbQjRd2qSru5FIT4NCkevtXIOdEY/s320/Picture3.png" width="320" /></a>The myth of whiteness in classical sculpture began with the rediscovery
of Greco-Roman sculpture during the early Italian Renaissance. While the
durability of marble allowed the sculptures to survive the centuries, the paint
did not survive. Buried objects retained more color, but traces of paint were
often brushed or washed off during cleaning. The statues were understood to be
from classical antiquity and were regarded as ideal models of artistic
achievement. They had a profound influence, not only on Renaissance artists,
such as Donatello and Michelangelo, but also on all art that followed. The
misinterpretation of ancient sculpture began with an honest mistake, but as new
evidence was found to suggest the sculptures were painted, the myth persisted.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum
were excavated in the mid-eighteenth century, the noted art historian Johann
Winckelmann saw some of the artifacts and noticed the remnants of color, but
chose to ignore the evidence. Instead, he attributed a statue of Artemis, with
red hair, red sandals, and a red quiver strap, as Etruscan rather than Greek. He
declared, “The whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is.” In Germany,
Goethe declared that “savage nations, uneducated people, and children have a
great predilection for vivid colors.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gmIUhVU3jkY/W-BHY2wjNSI/AAAAAAAABS8/H-SGh8zi5fYFwjlMp2lrurJDGgfhRgesACLcBGAs/s1600/Picture2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="628" height="267" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gmIUhVU3jkY/W-BHY2wjNSI/AAAAAAAABS8/H-SGh8zi5fYFwjlMp2lrurJDGgfhRgesACLcBGAs/s320/Picture2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Major excavations in the nineteenth century exposed more
painted reliefs and sculptures, but scholars who tried to discuss polychromy
(the art of painting sculpture) were dismissed. The great sculptor Auguste
Rodin supposedly said, while pounding his chest, “I feel it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">here</i> that they were never colored.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Willful blindness had taken hold and the myth persisted.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Art restorers, art dealers, and even museums felt it
necessary to scrub and polish Greek and Roman objects to a pristine whiteness. The
core identity of Western civilization was built on a story of Greek superiority,
and that included the perception of white marble statuary as a standard of
beauty. Recently, however, modern technology and technical innovation have
reaffirmed what is, without a doubt, the truth: the classical ideal of white
marble statues is based on a lie. Greek and Roman statues were painted.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the 1980’s, Vinzenz Brinkmann, while pursuing a degree in
classics and archaeology in Munich, used a special lamp to highlight the
surface relief on statuary. While finding little evidence of tool marks, he did
find significant evidence of polychromy. He soon realized, however, that this
discovery did not necessarily require a special lamp. He recalled some of the
pigment “was easy to see, even with the naked eye. It turns out vision is
highly subjective.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Mark Abbe was a graduate student working in the ancient city
of Aphrodisias (in present-day Turkey) in 2000, when he first saw statues with
flecks of color: red pigment on lips, black on hair, and gilding on limbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The visual appearance of these things was
just totally different from what I’d seen in the standard textbooks . . .” Now
a professor of ancient art and a leading scholar of Greek and Roman polychromy,
Abbe says the idea the ancients disliked color “is the most common
misconception about Western aesthetics in the history of Western art.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I4eu39UFif8/W-BHYcYitpI/AAAAAAAABS4/x-7asBI4CYEWtJt_nsJ2ZkNvo6Wg7lROgCLcBGAs/s1600/Picture1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="452" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I4eu39UFif8/W-BHYcYitpI/AAAAAAAABS4/x-7asBI4CYEWtJt_nsJ2ZkNvo6Wg7lROgCLcBGAs/s320/Picture1.png" width="244" /></a>In recent years it’s become easier to detect pigments from
the fragments of paint that remain. Brinkmann and his wife, Ulrike
Koch-Brinkmann, began recreating Greek and Roman sculpture with an approximation
of their original colors. “Gods in Color”, an exhibition of these replicas,
began in 2003 and toured twenty-eight cities. Some scholars, however, while supportive
of the work, have noted the reconstructions are too opaque and flat. Plaster,
which the replicas were made of, absorbs paint, while marble does not. They
have also noted the lack of nuance and individual style which they presume
would have been evident in the originals. </div>
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There is optimism that more
information and other types of reproductions, such as digital reproductions,
will permit a more nuanced and naturalistic interpretation of how these ancient
statues once looked. Museum curators are beginning to reevaluate their
exhibits. Enhanced displays, better museum signage, and computerized light
projections will help to correct the misinformation about Greek and Roman
sculpture. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Only time will tell, however, if the myth is more powerful
than the truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture">The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture</a> <i>by Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker</i></div>
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<a href="http://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/en">Gods In Color</a></div>
<br />Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-40420439838202224222018-08-22T12:44:00.000-06:002018-08-22T16:55:01.501-06:00The revision of vision<br />
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I have persistently written about the limitations of vision
and how language can affect our perceptions. In<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-naming-thing-can-be-problem.html"> <span style="color: red;">“Why naming the ‘thing’ can be a problem”</span></a> </span>I pointed out how language defines our visual interpretations.
Another post,<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/07/intuition-is-just-another-form-of.html"> <span style="color: red;">“Intuition is just another form of pattern recognition”</span></a>, was also
about the limitations of language description and the importance of trying to
find new patterns by defining information in a different way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When I posted “Shades of Truth” at the beginning of August
this year, I was reminded, yet again, of the similarities to an essay I came across in the
Disney Imagineering Library in Glendale, CA many years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> The essay was “The Revision of Vision” by S.I. Hayakawa (1906-1992), a linguist, psychologist, and
teacher. It was written as an introduction to the book "Language of Vision" by Gyorgy Kepes. There are many writings that have impacted my interpretations of
painting and art, and this essay is certainly at the top of my list.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Revision of Vision</h2>
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by S.I. Hayakawa, Illinois Institute of Technology </div>
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<i>Introductory essay for "Language of Vision" by Gyorgy Kepes, originally published in 1944</i></div>
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Whatever may be the language one happens to inherit, it is at once a tool and a trap. It is a tool because with it we order our experience, matching the data abstracted from the flux about us with linguistic units: words, phrases, sentences. What is true of verbal languages is also true of visual "languages": we match the data from the flux of visual experience with image-clichés, with stereotypes of one kind or another, according to the way we have been taught to see.</div>
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And having matched the data of experience with our abstractions, visual or verbal, we manipulate those abstractions, with or without further reference to the data, and make systems with them. Those systems of abstractions, artifacts of the mind, when verbal, we call "explanations," or "philosophies"; when visual, we call them our "picture of the world."</div>
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With these little systems in our heads we look upon the dynamism of the events around us, and we find, or persuade ourselves that we find, correspondences between the pictures inside our heads and the world without. Believing those correspondences to be real, we feel at home in what we regard as a "known" world.<br />
<br /></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="color: orange; font-family: inherit;">languages select . . . they leave out what they do not select.</span></i></h4>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
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In saying why our abstractions, verbal or visual, are a tool, I have already intimated why they are also a trap. If the abstractions, the words, the phrases, the sentences, the visual clichés, the interpretative stereotypes, that we have inherited from our cultural environment are adequate to their task, no problem is presented. But like other instruments, languages select, and in selecting what they select, they leave out what they do not select. The thermometer, which speaks one kind of limited language, knows nothing of weight. If only temperature matters and weight does not, what the thermometer "says" is adequate. But if weight, or color, or odor, or factors other than temperature matter, then those factors that the thermometer cannot speak about are the teeth of the trap. Every language, like the language of the thermometer, leaves work undone for other languages to do.<br />
<br /></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="color: orange;">Visually, the majority of us are still "object-minded" and not "relation-minded". </span></i></h4>
<div>
<i><span style="color: orange;"><br /></span></i></div>
</div>
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. . . Revisions of language are needed. Every day we are, all of us, as persons, as groups, as societies, caught in the teeth of what the older languages leave completely out of account. We talk of a new, shrunken, interdependent world in the primitive smoke-signals of "nationality," "race" and "sovereignty". We talk of the problems of an age of international cartels and patent monopolies in the economic baby-talk of Poor Richard's Almanack. We attempt to visualize the eventfulness of a universe that is an electro-dynamic plenum in the representational clichés evolved at a time when statically-conceived, isolable "objects" were regarded as occupying positions in an empty and absolute "space". Visually, the majority of us are still "object-minded" and not "relation-minded". We are the prisoners of ancient orientations imbedded in the languages we have inherited.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The language of vision determines, perhaps even more subtly and thoroughly than verbal language, the structure of consciousness. To see in limited modes of vision is not to see at all - to be bounded by the narrowest parochialisms of feeling.</div>
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<br /></div>
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. . . Purposely depriving us of the easy comfort of all aesthetic stereotypes and interpretative clichés, Mr. Kepes would have us experience vision as vision. (His) endeavor may perhaps best be characterized by the following analogy. To a Chinese scholar, the pleasure to be derived from an inscription is only partly due to the sentiments it may express. He may take delight in the calligraphy even when the inscription is meaningless to him as text. Suppose now a singularly obtuse Chinese scholar existed who was solely preoccupied with the literary or moral content of inscriptions, and totally blind to their calligraphy, How would one ever get him to see the calligraphic qualities of an inscription, if he persisted, every time the inscription was brought up for examination, in discussing its literary content, it accuracy or inaccuracy as statement of fact, his approval or disapproval of its moral injunctions?<br />
<br /></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="color: orange;">Something of the quality of a child's delight in playing with colors and shapes</span></i><i><span style="color: orange;"> </span></i><i><span style="color: orange;">has to be restored to us before we learn to see again . . .</span></i></h4>
<div>
<i><span style="color: orange;"><br /></span></i></div>
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It is just such a problem that faces the contemporary artist, confronted with a public to whom the literary, sentimental, moral, etc., content of art is art - to whom visual experience as such is an almost completely ignored dimension. . . . We have all been taught, in looking at pictures, to look for too much. Something of the quality of a child's delight in playing with colors and shapes has to be restored to us before we learn to see again, before we unlearn the terms in which we ordinarily see.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
...How we deal with reality is determined at the moment of impact by the way in which we grasp it. Vision shares with speech the distinction of being the most important of the means by which we apprehend reality.<br />
<br /></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: orange;"><i>When we structuralize the primary impacts of experience differently,</i><i>we shall structuralize the world differently.</i></span></h4>
<div>
<span style="color: orange;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
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To cease looking at things atomistically in visual experience and to see relatedness means, among other things, to lose in our social experience... the deluded self-importance of absolute "individualism" in favor of social relatedness and interdependence. When we structuralize the primary impacts of experience differently, we shall structuralize the world differently.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reorganization of our visual habits so that we perceive not isolated "things" in "space" but structure, order, and the relatedness of events in space-time, is perhaps the most profound kind of revolution possible - a revolution that is long overdue not only in art, but in all our experience.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-14639225794105988302018-08-01T11:29:00.000-06:002018-08-01T13:03:51.739-06:00Shades of truth<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A while back I posted an article titled “<u><a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/09/do-facts-matter-or-is-truth-just.html"><span style="color: red;">Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?</span></a></u>”. I wrote about our outdated, misleading
primary color system and the confusion it can cause. I also mentioned the inaccuracies
of the most commonly used world map (Mercator) and how its distortions affect
our perceptions. In a follow-up article “<u><a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-win-for-visual-truth.html"><span style="color: red;">A win for visual truth</span></a></u>” I covered a
new design for a world map, called the Authagraph Map – it looks strange, but
is far more accurate than the Mercator map. I don’t know that we will soon be
using a more accurate color primary system, or a more accurate world map, but I
do hope that we can learn new information and resist
the temptation to treat our version of reality as some kind of worn-out shoe that we keep
around just because it’s comfortable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now along comes an article from Wired.com – another great
example of misleading perceptions, how more information is better
information, and how nuance can be as important or even more important than simplicity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
Is the US
Leaning Red or Blue? It All Depends on Your Map</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by Issie
Lapowsky, Wired.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/is-us-leaning-red-or-blue-election-maps/">For the complete article click here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On May 11,
2017, a reporter named Trey Yingst, who covers the White House for the
conservative news network OANN, tweeted a photo of a framed map of the United
States being carried into the West Wing. The map depicted the 2016 election
results county-by-county, as a blanket of red, marked with flecks of blue and
peachy pink along the West Coast and a thin snake of blue extending from the
northeast to Louisiana. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was a
portrait of the country on election night, but on Twitter, it was also a
Rorschach test.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JwXzA6Oyg5s/W2He5_TWHuI/AAAAAAAABRw/ZQ9wLJJnvuMCjaW5oWKBB9TkOhMbTvnBACLcBGAs/s1600/map%2B2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="387" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JwXzA6Oyg5s/W2He5_TWHuI/AAAAAAAABRw/ZQ9wLJJnvuMCjaW5oWKBB9TkOhMbTvnBACLcBGAs/s320/map%2B2.PNG" width="231" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Conservatives
replying to Yingst's tweet interpreted the expanse of red as proof of their
party's dominance throughout all levels of government. Liberals viewed the map
as a distortion, masking the fact that most of that redness covers sparsely
populated land, with relatively few voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In reality,
both sides are right, says Ken Field. A self-proclaimed "cartonerd,"
Field is a product engineer at the mapping software company Esri and author of
a guidebook for mapmakers called Cartography. The problem, he says, isn't with
people's partisan interpretation of the map. The problem is believing that any
single map can ever tell the whole story. "People see maps of any type,
and particularly election maps, as the result, the outcome, but there are so
many different types of maps available that can portray results in shades of
the truth," Field says. "It’s a question of the level of detail that
people are interested in understanding."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It stands to
reason that President Trump would want that particular map hung in the West
Wing. There is an awful lot of red on it. But focusing on that map alone could
lead Republicans to overestimate their advantage, and lead Democrats to
misunderstand the best ways to catch up. That's one reason why Field recently
published an extensive gallery of more than 30 alternative maps designed to
tell markedly different stories about what happened on election night 2016. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"All of
these maps show different versions of the truth," he says. "None are
right, and none are wrong, but they all allow you to interpret the results
differently."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Take the map
Yingst shared, for example. In the language of mapmakers, it’s a “choropleth
diverging hue map.” The term “choropleth” refers to maps that use color or
shading to visualize a given measurement. In this case, the map uses either the
color red or blue to indicate which party won a given county. It’s accurate,
and it’s familiar. These colored county-level or state-level maps are some of
the most commonly used to illustrate the results of an election. But, Field
says, they also lack nuance. There’s nothing on that map to indicate to the
viewer, for instance, that fewer votes were cast in the rural mountainous
regions of Montana than in Manhattan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Understanding
that nuance—or lack thereof—is key heading into the 2018 midterms, when amateur
cartographers will no doubt climb out of Twitter’s recesses to proclaim their
definitive readings of electoral maps. Here’s what we can learn from just a few
of Field’s examples:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The
Pointillism Approach</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8lnXXSQqBEc/W2He5si9VpI/AAAAAAAABR4/fpg_6NdRHpA4DFA5naC0-uBbxOPC4f_ywCEwYBhgL/s1600/map%2B3%2Bdasymetric.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="455" height="227" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8lnXXSQqBEc/W2He5si9VpI/AAAAAAAABR4/fpg_6NdRHpA4DFA5naC0-uBbxOPC4f_ywCEwYBhgL/s320/map%2B3%2Bdasymetric.PNG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Presidential
election 2016: dasymetric dot density KEN FIELD</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To Field,
there's no such thing as a totally comprehensive map, but he says, "Some
are more truthful than others." The so-called dasymetric dot density map
is one of them. The term “dasymetric” refers to a map that accounts for
population density in a given area. Instead of filling an entire state or
county with the color red or blue to indicate which party won, Field uses red
and blue dots to represent every vote that was cast. On this particular map
from 2016, there are roughly 135 million dots. Then, rather than distributing
the dots evenly around a county, he distributes them proportionally according to
where people actually live, based on the US government's National Land Cover
Database. That’s to avoid placing lots of dots in, say, the middle of a forest,
and to account for dense population in cities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Taken
together, Field says, these methods offer a far more detailed illustration of
voter turnout than, say, the map in Yingst’s tweet. That map uses different
shades of red and blue to indicate whether candidates won by a wide or slim
margin. But by completely coloring in all the counties, it gives counties where
only a few hundred votes were cast the same visual weight as counties where
hundreds of thousands of votes were cast. So, the map looks red. But on the
dasymetric dot density map, it’s the blue that stands out, conveying the
difference between the popular vote, which Clinton won, and the electoral
college vote, which Trump won.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Shades of
Red and Blue</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M-VPu7MA3ZY/W2IDv7jnw_I/AAAAAAAABSg/C4ki19OTISgBt3LTi8-BB--Z-GyyGgYrgCLcBGAs/s1600/value%2Bby%2Balpha%2Bmap.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="687" height="195" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M-VPu7MA3ZY/W2IDv7jnw_I/AAAAAAAABSg/C4ki19OTISgBt3LTi8-BB--Z-GyyGgYrgCLcBGAs/s320/value%2Bby%2Balpha%2Bmap.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DAzQzus3-W8/W2Hggmx6DyI/AAAAAAAABSI/PGT0_9pT8HsbtqzaNi0BIkAKJSYnY_xiQCLcBGAs/s1600/value%2Bby%2Balpha%2Bmap.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Presidential
election 2016: Value-by-alpha KEN FIELD</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The
value-by-alpha map is similar to the dasymetric dot density map, and in some
ways, even simpler. It doesn’t account for where votes were most likely cast
within a county. Instead, it uses color to indicate the party’s vote share in
each county, and opacity (in mapmaking, it’s called the “alpha channel,” hence,
value-by-alpha) to indicate the population in a given area of the county. A
bright, vibrant blue indicates a high Democratic vote share in a densely
populated area. A light pink indicates a high Republican vote share in a
sparsely populated area. Purples portray areas where one party or another won
by a narrow margin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What you
notice first when you look at the map is that the solid red wall extending from
North Dakota to Texas on the map Yingst shared is almost white in this
rendering. What you notice second is just how much purple there is everywhere
else. It’s a good reminder of what people often forget about the 2016 election:
“It was very close,” Field says. President Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Pennsylvania, the three states that clinched his victory, by about one
percentage point or less.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The View
from Above</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mZZf20Z3kSM/W2HlMrzss1I/AAAAAAAABSU/C5_cSGoxzfQllySw0mqz4_K5m3542rv8gCLcBGAs/s1600/map.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="401" height="305" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mZZf20Z3kSM/W2HlMrzss1I/AAAAAAAABSU/C5_cSGoxzfQllySw0mqz4_K5m3542rv8gCLcBGAs/s320/map.PNG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>See link to article above for the complete interactive map.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What Field
likes most about the 3D prism map is how people react to it. “It’s just cool.
People like 3D stuff,” he says. But it also illustrates an important point.
Counties are colored red or blue, based on which party won, but the vote totals
are portrayed in three dimensions, where the height is equal to the number of
votes cast for the winning party. Because Clinton predominantly won big cities,
where more votes are cast, it creates a map that looks a bit like a city
itself, with dozens of mile-high blue skyscrapers jutting out from between red
row-homes and strip malls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Click around
the map and you’ll see that viewed from above, it looks not unlike Trump's
map—all in red. But click to tilt the map and it’s mostly blue spikes. It
demonstrates perhaps more effectively than any of the other maps how President
Trump won in 2016, Field says. “You had a Republican who was very successful in
getting the smaller areas to vote Republican, while the larger populated major
cities went Democrat,” he says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-6773481504232618982018-05-02T10:12:00.000-06:002018-09-05T09:36:47.153-06:00Simplicity, complexity, and snowflakes<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cQCENJ21iC4/WunbFQ4wfnI/AAAAAAAABRQ/WrzE_m_QHtwEKaJyW4EpODGKOFkeNz9OwCLcBGAs/s1600/149%2BNikolai%2BTimkov%2BA%2BBright%2BDay%2B1963%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1156" data-original-width="1600" height="286" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cQCENJ21iC4/WunbFQ4wfnI/AAAAAAAABRQ/WrzE_m_QHtwEKaJyW4EpODGKOFkeNz9OwCLcBGAs/s400/149%2BNikolai%2BTimkov%2BA%2BBright%2BDay%2B1963%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nikolai Timkov "A Bright Day" 1963</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Next winter, if you are fortunate enough to enjoy a bright, sunlit, snow-covered landscape, remember you are looking at all the colors of the rainbow. When sunlight hits snow, its full spectrum of wavelengths is almost entirely reflected back at us – every spectral color – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Notes for painters:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<li>Simplicity and complexity coexist, just as light and shadow, and warmer and cooler colors coexist. This is all part of the variety in unity. A memorable painting is one in which all the pieces combine to form something new, one in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.</li>
<li>Complexity does not necessarily mean more detail. Texture, color pattern, and variety in shapes and edges all contribute to the perception of complexity.</li>
<li>Learning to see complexity is a form of understanding; editing the information one sees is the key to a strong and insightful painting.</li>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Science is nothing other than the search to discover unity in the wild variety of nature, or more exactly, in the variety of our experience. Poetry, painting, the arts are the same search for unity in variety.” </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">J. Bronowski (1908-1974) was a British mathematician, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor. He was also the presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary series and accompanying book The Ascent of Man.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">“The measure of aesthetic value is in direct proportion to order and in inverse proportion to complexity.”</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: red;"> </span>George David Birkhoff (1884-1944) was another prominent mathematician who proposed a theory of measuring beauty in the book Aesthetic Measure.</i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BEVW5OGE9Gk/WunPw0l2BQI/AAAAAAAABQg/JtxYGrH4U50v6aLZAo_4rkjgfc3HW6ICgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Aesthetics%2Bformula.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="104" data-original-width="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BEVW5OGE9Gk/WunPw0l2BQI/AAAAAAAABQg/JtxYGrH4U50v6aLZAo_4rkjgfc3HW6ICgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Aesthetics%2Bformula.PNG" /></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Birkhoff defined a typical aesthetic experience as a combination of three successive phases: (1) the act of attention, that increases proportionally to the observed object’s complexity (C); (2) the feeling of value or aesthetic measure (M); and (3) the realization that the object is characterized by a certain harmony or order (0). The mathematical formula he proposed defined the relationship of the three phases</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While the proposal of a formula to measure aesthetics may be interesting to some, most of us would probably just experience an eye-crossing moment of “huh?” But the take-away on this is the recognition of the relationship of simplicity and complexity, or as Bronowski pointed out – the unity in variety. Complexity is responsible for increasing the observer’s attention. Simplicity and the perception of order and pattern trigger a sense of answer or completion – a brief aha moment of “yes, this makes sense”. This is merely recognition of orderliness in a universe that is also dynamic and continually changing. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fedor Zakharov</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Order and change, unity and variety, and simplicity and complexity are complementary. They co-exist in a continual feedback and response loop. How these elements coexist, and in what kind of proportional relationship, determine how a painting, or any other object we choose to create, looks and feels.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The visual aesthetics of snowflakes</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Simplicity and complexity were the focus of researchers at Western Kentucky University who set out to quantify aesthetic experience by asking subjects to rate the perceived beauty of snowflakes and solid objects. Participants were presented with a set of ten snowflake silhouettes created from photographs of natural snowflakes that varied in complexity and ten randomly-shaped, computer-generated, solid objects that also varied in complexity. The results for the solid objects showed a preference for both the most and least complex objects, while moderately complex objects were rarely selected. The results for the snowflakes, however, were different. The least complex snowflakes were almost never chosen: 91 percent of participants perceived only the complex snowflakes as the most beautiful. </span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-odD-KCjdnyE/WunLeXJwdaI/AAAAAAAABP0/YBiHLwRJAlw3otj7kmC_wi1o5dAco9rvQCLcBGAs/s1600/snowflake.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="250" height="146" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-odD-KCjdnyE/WunLeXJwdaI/AAAAAAAABP0/YBiHLwRJAlw3otj7kmC_wi1o5dAco9rvQCLcBGAs/s200/snowflake.PNG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The infinite variety of snowflakes</span></h4>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vnu3s39fq4Y/WunLlXEvJFI/AAAAAAAABP4/uWjpFnwkJyofe0kyTerB75UwkM0tWHBRACLcBGAs/s1600/flake%2BKenneth%2BG.%2BLibbrecht.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="488" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vnu3s39fq4Y/WunLlXEvJFI/AAAAAAAABP4/uWjpFnwkJyofe0kyTerB75UwkM0tWHBRACLcBGAs/s200/flake%2BKenneth%2BG.%2BLibbrecht.PNG" style="cursor: move;" width="196" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We have a tendency to overlook complexity when categorizing and visualizing information. The iconic image of a paper cut-out snowflake is probably the first visual that comes to mind when one mentions the word “snowflake”, but it’s suggested from the WKU study that people respond positively to complexity in natural forms when given a choice. It is also possible people are responding to complexity in conjunction with, not apart from, a sense of perceived order.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chaos and order are defining features of the natural world. While the basic structure of a snowflake is determined by the scientific process of crystallization and all snowflakes start out in the same way, the actual formation of a snowflake is dependent on more chaotic atmospheric conditions, such as temperature and humidity. A snowflake’s growth is one of both order and chaos. No two falling snowflakes will meet precisely the same circumstances on their way to the ground; even the appearance of symmetry will be an illusion since the microscopic space of the growing crystal will contain subtle differences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The process of snowflake formation is a perfect example of simplicity and complexity. It is also a perfect example of the dynamic forces of chaos and symmetry that create form in both nature and art.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo of natural snowflakes by Kenneth G. Libbrecht</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Snowflake-Up-Close-Snowflakes/dp/0760336768/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0760336768&pd_rd_r=AN6J3ZP3KJ8C0ZQGWKG1&pd_rd_w=JzP7V&pd_rd_wg=wagPo&psc=1&refRID=AN6J3ZP3KJ8C0ZQGWKG1"><span style="color: red;">The Secret Life of a Snowflake: An Up-Close Look at the Art and Science of Snowflakes by Kenneth Libbrecht</span></a></i></span></span></div>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-33024728715547949112018-03-04T11:34:00.000-07:002018-03-07T08:05:39.555-07:00Breaking the "rules" and changing the parameters of perception<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“When the great English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds explained to his students in the Royal Academy that blue should not be put into the foreground of paintings but should be reserved for the distant backgrounds . . . his rival Gainsborough – so the story goes – wanted to prove that such academic rules are usually nonsense. He painted the famous ‘Blue Boy’, whose blue costume, in the central foreground of the picture, stands out triumphantly against the warm brown of the background.”</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(E. Gombrich, The Story of Art)</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The complexity and endless variety of color information should make any painter wary of rules that limit possibilities. The history of art reveals a pattern of experimentation, innovation, and visual interpretation that form a fascinating time-line of both continuity and change.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We can see millions of colors, far more than we are able to mix with pigments. Also, the range of value (luminance) in a natural scene is almost always far larger than the range of values one can achieve with pigments. According to Margaret Livingstone <i>(Vision and Art)</i>, the range of luminance in a room lit by a window or lamp may vary by hundreds of times, and the luminance in an outdoor scene can vary by a factor of a thousand. The range of values available using paint or photographic paper varies, at most, by a factor of twenty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Artists have dealt with these limitations for centuries. There is not one solution for interpreting a three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional surface using pigments which can never equal the contrast range or the colors we actually see. But great artists throughout various periods of art history made one discovery after another that allowed them to interpret and create a convincing picture of the visible world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The use of oil paint in the fifteenth century led to a greater range of rich colors and smooth gradations of tone. There was the discovery of linear perspective, atmospheric perspective, and the use of strong tonal contrast known as chiaroscuro. Over the centuries artists refined these techniques and learned to optimize their command of value pattern and luminance to represent depth on a two-dimensional surface.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Value (luminance) determines our perception of depth</i></span><i style="color: blue;">, three-dimensionality, </i><i style="color: blue;">movement, and spatial organization. Perceiving light is simpler than discriminating what wavelength (color) it is.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there was a break with tradition when artists rebelled against the teachings of the academies and what they saw as predictable and uninspired painting. They realized traditional art, with its emphasis on defining objects with careful shading, did not reflect the reality of the scene outside the window. There are harsh contrasts in sunlight, shadows are not uniformly grey, black or brown, and reflections of light and the kind of light affect our perception of color.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">These artists, known as Impressionists, set out on a path of discovery - the exploration of light and color. Empowered by the invention of the tin paint tube, they took painting outdoors to create unplanned and spontaneous paintings. Even those who remained studio painters, such as Edgar Degas, shared an interest in scenes that appeared unplanned and spontaneous, as if capturing a split-second glimpse of the world. The advent of photography and exposure to Japanese prints expanded the acceptance of compositions which were once considered unbalanced and incomplete.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Impressionists, in a radical departure from Renaissance ideals, emphasized light and color, and the transitory nature of visual reality, instead of value and rounded, modeled, solid form. Their use of color changed painting in new and challenging ways, and the change was dramatic. What mattered in painting was not the subject, but the way in which it was translated into color. The old rules of predictable compositions, correct drawing and idealized or picturesque subject matter were set aside for new freedoms of expression in painting. But while the Impressionists were painting a new chapter in art history, some artists found the brushwork and flickering color too messy and incomplete.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PRdgZG5kTvk/WptKECKV7pI/AAAAAAAABNA/bmj-69vxLfomWy6SOK9YLoUBjCDmSm72ACLcBGAs/s1600/mont%2Bsainte%2Bvictoire%2Bc.%2B1895%2BPaul%2BCezanne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1280" height="252" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PRdgZG5kTvk/WptKECKV7pI/AAAAAAAABNA/bmj-69vxLfomWy6SOK9YLoUBjCDmSm72ACLcBGAs/s320/mont%2Bsainte%2Bvictoire%2Bc.%2B1895%2BPaul%2BCezanne.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mont Sainte Victoire by Paul Cezanne, 1895<br />
Cezanne worked to bring solidity, order and design to the
Impressionist’s use of light and color without resorting to the academic
conventions of drawing and shading.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Post-Impressionists, such as Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and Van Gogh, brought a desire for order and solid form to the fleeting observations of the Impressionists, but did not want to return to the traditional methods for defining space and modeling form. These artists, while distinctively different from one another, worked to reconcile the pattern and solidity of visual reality with the brilliance and luminosity of color.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FNUHuH1SZ8s/Wpwh82KIlwI/AAAAAAAABO8/dgTfh9ozxa4RC50_9yldSG8pizvK9e4sACLcBGAs/s1600/The%2BSower%2BVincent%2BVan%2BGogh%2B1888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FNUHuH1SZ8s/Wpwh82KIlwI/AAAAAAAABO8/dgTfh9ozxa4RC50_9yldSG8pizvK9e4sACLcBGAs/s1600/The%2BSower%2BVincent%2BVan%2BGogh%2B1888.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sower by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888<br />
Van
Gogh didn’t hesitate to distort and exaggerate information while using bright
color and expressive brushwork.</td></tr>
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Self Portrait by Paul Gauguin, 1890-91<br />
Images that looked flat did not bother Gauguin who
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The pattern of innovation and change continued as each artist explored various facets of representation. Their work inspired other artists who moved in even different directions. The pointillism of George Seurat inspired Paul Signac’s paintings. Signac’s use of pure color in complementary pairs inspired Henri Matisse. Matisse and fellow painter Andre Derain</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> continued the use of complementary color, but</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> substituted painterly brushwork for the dots used by Signac and Seurat, All of these painters expanded the dialogue of visual language and changed our ideas about visual interpretation.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8cD9JeXtAHM/WptKBWQmMvI/AAAAAAAABM8/G984t5r0t0MMYZeN1YUjLs9-Kc9a2cNRwCLcBGAs/s1600/Paul%2BSignac%252C%2BThe%2BPine%2BTree%2Bat%2BSaint%2BTropez%252C%2B1909%2BPaul%2BSignac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="282" height="254" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8cD9JeXtAHM/WptKBWQmMvI/AAAAAAAABM8/G984t5r0t0MMYZeN1YUjLs9-Kc9a2cNRwCLcBGAs/s320/Paul%2BSignac%252C%2BThe%2BPine%2BTree%2Bat%2BSaint%2BTropez%252C%2B1909%2BPaul%2BSignac.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pine Tree at Saint Tropez by Paul Signac, 1909</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EpJ6OCP3mfg/WptXVbBi5_I/AAAAAAAABN8/TqcWDFyuEs0Aaphju7fAiRHu7ZjO9jXlgCLcBGAs/s1600/Montagne-a%25CC%2580-Collioure-Andre%25CC%2581-Derain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="884" height="253" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EpJ6OCP3mfg/WptXVbBi5_I/AAAAAAAABN8/TqcWDFyuEs0Aaphju7fAiRHu7ZjO9jXlgCLcBGAs/s320/Montagne-a%25CC%2580-Collioure-Andre%25CC%2581-Derain.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Montagne a Collioure by Andre Derain</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BsSfjc8GEfY/WptasOoWZqI/AAAAAAAABOc/k_tG11J4ozYUnSB134i7pwx9313Ty7J5ACLcBGAs/s1600/Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BsSfjc8GEfY/WptasOoWZqI/AAAAAAAABOc/k_tG11J4ozYUnSB134i7pwx9313Ty7J5ACLcBGAs/s320/Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat%2B2.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
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Woman with the Hat by Henri Matisse,1905</div>
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This is an extreme
example of Matisse' work during the Fauve period. He discovered he could use any color as long
as the value was accurate. Note the lack of any coherent color pattern. The
warmer and cooler colors jump around at random with no reference to the actual
light source. The darkest value in the painting is the anchor that holds
everything together. Matisse's Self-Portrait-1906 still maintains strong color
and brushwork, but has a more coherent, although unusual, color pattern.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjfaWGBGGKE/WptasLQ37bI/AAAAAAAABOY/xdYxXK-tgKw6E8-RZQi72bUh70_7OVDugCEwYBhgL/s1600/Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat%2B2%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjfaWGBGGKE/WptasLQ37bI/AAAAAAAABOY/xdYxXK-tgKw6E8-RZQi72bUh70_7OVDugCEwYBhgL/s320/Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat%2B2%2Bcopy.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2tX-1WHwSCM/WptYqB-c6WI/AAAAAAAABOM/8zYaT7eioyYozAyDHpbHQS0_88OwMf36QCLcBGAs/s1600/Henri_Matisse%2Bself-portrait%2B1906.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="588" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2tX-1WHwSCM/WptYqB-c6WI/AAAAAAAABOM/8zYaT7eioyYozAyDHpbHQS0_88OwMf36QCLcBGAs/s320/Henri_Matisse%2Bself-portrait%2B1906.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Self Portrait by Henri Matisse 1906</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined, cancel each other out. When placed next to each other, they create strong and brilliant contrast. In the traditional red-yellow-blue color model, the complementary color pairs are red–green, yellow–purple, and blue–orange. The modern color model is cyan-magenta-yellow, and the complementary pairs are red-cyan, blue-yellow, and green-magenta.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Color is a property of light and light is not a random scattering of color. Wavelengths of light that we can see range from the longest (red) to the shortest (violet). The pattern of visible light is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The colors merge seamlessly from one to the other. We see these colors because of the receptors in our eyes that are responsive to this narrow range of wavelengths. Objects absorb or reflect particular wavelengths of the visible spectrum. What we see are the wavelengths that are reflected back. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We rarely perceive pure colors, and the colors we do see depend on the available light source. When the light changes, the number and ratio of wavelengths also change. </span>Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-68945983275719439512017-09-08T09:39:00.000-06:002017-09-08T17:08:00.239-06:00Things with feathers<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ve been painting birds off and on for many years. It’s an
intermittent pursuit, and I’ve been met with resistance from galleries at
times. “But,” they have said, “you are not ‘known’ for bird paintings.”
Interesting how easily one can become a product instead of a painter. I would
like to think I am just a painter, not a painter of ______. I choose subject
matter because it is available, interesting, inspiring, and challenging. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--x-FyrkJj_U/WbK14MpLg-I/AAAAAAAABKM/0hFR3uPtABUlrezcVSndLVWDwojjQzsgQCLcBGAs/s1600/3%2Byellow%2Bbirds%2B10x10%2Bc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1590" data-original-width="1600" height="313" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--x-FyrkJj_U/WbK14MpLg-I/AAAAAAAABKM/0hFR3uPtABUlrezcVSndLVWDwojjQzsgQCLcBGAs/s320/3%2Byellow%2Bbirds%2B10x10%2Bc.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With any subject, I initially try and decide what it is I don’t want my
painting to look like. This makes the most sense to me. A painting is a
possibility, good, bad, or mediocre. It is similar to a new day, somewhat
constrained by routine and necessity, but open to whatever may transpire. So,
from past experience and personal preference, I decide what to try and avoid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Things to avoid in my paintings of birds:</span></h4>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1. The dead bird look (unless, of course, a dead bird is the subject).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2. The </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">taxidermy</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> bird look (similar to dead birds, frozen in time and lacking
any sense of movement).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3. Painting an illustration for a bird identification book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am not an ornithologist. I do not need exact measurements and
exquisitely detailed plumage. My painting should not be an Audubon print or a
duck stamp. I am not Roger Tory Peterson, whom I hold in high regard for his
exquisite drawings in the Peterson Field Guides.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6i3awxTb__c/WbK11MBA_7I/AAAAAAAABKA/8Hg5vLdE_0klocL_U3Y3KeUXUU5VDkUZwCLcBGAs/s1600/Redpoll%2B%2B6x8%2Be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1210" data-original-width="1600" height="241" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6i3awxTb__c/WbK11MBA_7I/AAAAAAAABKA/8Hg5vLdE_0klocL_U3Y3KeUXUU5VDkUZwCLcBGAs/s320/Redpoll%2B%2B6x8%2Be.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What I would like in my painting:</span></h4>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I want complexity and simplicity. I would like to find the rhythm and
pattern that is universal, but is also as individual as a single bird. I want
the snowstorm and the snowflake.</span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-36OuGtj00Js/WbK11WttLtI/AAAAAAAABKE/NmZ61A2jVWcjcp7lnmK-Q5rhN4S4hltogCLcBGAs/s1600/5112%2B008%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1248" data-original-width="1600" height="248" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-36OuGtj00Js/WbK11WttLtI/AAAAAAAABKE/NmZ61A2jVWcjcp7lnmK-Q5rhN4S4hltogCLcBGAs/s320/5112%2B008%2Bcopy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z_6fJnyfjeE/WbK1_jRAd_I/AAAAAAAABKY/pAv7NO55r7w83C9s_nNsye7xIXbq4j_ZwCLcBGAs/s1600/Winter%2BFinches%2B6x8o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="1600" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z_6fJnyfjeE/WbK1_jRAd_I/AAAAAAAABKY/pAv7NO55r7w83C9s_nNsye7xIXbq4j_ZwCLcBGAs/s320/Winter%2BFinches%2B6x8o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Interesting and enlightening book:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>"The Thing With Feathers" by Noah Strycker</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>The surprising lives of birds and what they reveal about being human. </i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-20705823128180727272017-05-19T11:17:00.002-06:002018-03-07T08:04:53.667-07:00Stripey things, zebras, and the uncanny valley<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Stripes and zebras</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stripes can mess with your brain. A recent study from
research in the Netherlands and the U.S. suggests that “looking at intensely
stripey things causes an increase in gamma oscillations in the brain” which can
be linked to headaches and seizures. Many people just find stripes weird, but
some experience very real visual distortions. What is even more interesting is
that these effects are more likely to be caused by human-created stripes such
as venetian blinds, rather than natural stripes, like those found on zebras.<span style="color: #990000;">
<b>Researchers found that distorting the lines slightly or blurring their edges
caused the oscillations to die down.</b></span><b> </b></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">And
vertical stripes are not as disturbing as horizontal ones.</span> <span style="color: #990000;">“It seems that our
brains are not designed to cope with such extreme regularity, as it doesn’t
occur in nature.”</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Uncanny Valley</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Natural realism and artificial realism are also the basis for
ongoing research into an odd property of computer generation called “uncanny
valley”. The closer the images get to total realism the more disturbing they
seem to become. Japanese robotics engineer Mashahiro Mori coined the term in a
paper he wrote in 1970 titled <i>The Uncanny Valley.</i> He proposed that we will
accept a synthetic human that looks and moves realistically, but only up to a
point. <b><span style="color: #990000;">Once the resemblance comes close to, but not close enough to reality, we
become more and more disturbed by slight anomalies.</span></b> Mori’s theory made its way
into computer animation. Stylized cartoons engender empathy but pseudo-human
characteristics can easily go awry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Uncanny valley really does relate to painting! The closer the work </i></span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">gets to being</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">realistic the more cognitive dissonance is triggered. This causes a person to feel really uncomfortable, so the mind jettisons whatever is causing the dissonance."</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"> <i>Kathryn Fisher, Artist</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the first computer-generated elements began turning up
in Hollywood films, technicians were capable of making things like dinosaurs,
metal men, and spaceships, but creating a realistic human, with all its variety
and subtle changes, seemed unattainable. The outward appearance of a human or
human face could be created, but all the variables present in reality, especially
having to do with subtle movement, were more difficult to achieve. Even slight
imperfections in humans can create unsettling reactions in viewers. The closer
to reality an animation becomes, the more likely it is to create cognitive
dissonance and a sense of discomfort and conflict in the viewer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We pay attention when something is changed,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> or different, or just seems weird.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seeing is dependent
on noticing and we notice only when we look for something. We cannot notice
everything, but we do pay attention when something is changed, or different, or
just seems weird. The process of visual observation is a complex one. <span style="color: #990000;"><b>We notice
the most obvious information and tend to overlook all the nuanced information
that actually underlies our perception.</b></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Leonardo da Vinci’s painting <i>Mona Lisa</i> is probably the
most iconic painting in the world. We also know how this painting “looks”. But
art historian E. H. Gombrich pointed out how difficult it is to look at this
painting with fresh eyes. He urged viewers to look anew, to try and forget what
we think we know and focus on what we truly see. <span style="color: #990000;">“She
really seems to change before our eyes and to look a little different every
time we come back to her.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone, author of <i>Vision and Art, </i>did just that. She looked anew at the painting and noticed the
expression on Mona Lisa’s face was dependent on the discrepancy between our
peripheral and central vision systems.<span style="color: #990000;"><b> The center of our gaze is optimized for
small, detailed things, while our peripheral vision has a lower resolution and
is better at big “blurry” things. We are usually not aware of this difference
because we are constantly moving our eyes around, and we do not notice that our
peripheral vision (blurry) can be just as important as our central vision
(detail).</b></span> If you move your eyes around the painting, her expression appears to
change. Look directly at her mouth and she appears to smile less than when you’re
staring at her eyes. Our peripheral vision picks up the slight shading around
the mouth which gives the impression of a smile. When your gaze falls on the
background or on her hands, this effect can be even more pronounced. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Livingstone
notes this observation is more apparent when viewing the original painting instead
of a reproduction.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">More stripes, more zebras</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dazzle camouflage was a type of ship camouflage used
extensively in World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. British
marine artist Norman Wilkinson is usually credited as being the father of
dazzle camouflage but this is not entirely accurate. The idea
was initially proposed by the British zoologist John Graham Kerr. In writing to
Winston Churchill in 1914 he explained the goal was to confuse, not to conceal,
by disrupting a ship's outline.<span style="color: #990000;"><b> Kerr made the comparison to the patterns on land animals such as the zebra and suggested a similar pattern but with the use of countershading to also offer a measure of invisibility.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">American artist </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Abbott Handerson Thayer wrote to Churchill in 1915 and suggested disruptive coloration and countershading based on his 1909 book <i>Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom.</i> Neither Thayer nor Kerr were able to win over the Admiralty, but along came Norman Wilkinson, a marine artist and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officer. He advocated "masses of strongly contrasted colour" to confuse the enemy about a ship's size, speed and heading. He also said the effect was not to conceal, but to cause the enemy to take up a poor firing position. Kerr, whose proposal was based on years of study, lost out to the more socially connected Wilkerson.<span style="color: #990000;"><b> Later, Kerr was asked if he had, in fact, invented dazzle camouflage and he replied by saying "this principle was, of course, invented by nature."</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Thanks to Artist Amber Blazina for this interesting tip on dazzle camouflage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And for those of you who have read this far, here's a diagrammed selection from</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> John Singer Sargent's painting <i>The Daughters of Edward Boit</i>. Any figure or any "thing" we paint needs a variety of edges, most notably from side to side. Too many similar or hard edges, especially on a horizontal plane, can negate our attempts at creating the illusion of three dimensions. I have illustrated a few obvious points of reference and also included some diagonals to illustrate the flow of information and the variety of edges.</span></div>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-6192216864858904442017-03-31T11:34:00.001-06:002017-05-01T11:58:24.124-06:00Making canvas panels - the easy way<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The easiest and least expensive way to make panels is to use
a Masonite or Gatorboard substrate and apply a sealer to the surface. Liquitex
acrylic gesso provides an excellent surface without too much absorption. Note:
Use the professional or standard Liquitex, </span><u style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not</u><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the Basics Liquitex. Three
coats applied with a small foam roller works great. (Two coats on a white
surface can be sufficient.) But if you want an easy and fast
way to make canvas panels, here are a few tricks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You will need the following: an iron, your choice of canvas,
Gator Board or another substrate like Masonite, a heat-activated adhesive such
as Raphael’s Miracle Muck, a lightweight cloth, and a paper-creasing block or tool,
often called a bone folder. You will also need a brush or roller to apply the
adhesive.A good source for Gator Board is Artgrafix. The Natural Kraft Gator Board works best and I often order 18x24 boards. This is an easy size to store and work with and panels can be cut as needed. The 18x24 size is not listed on their website, but you can call the company to order it. The 3/16" thickness works for this size if you are cutting the panels down, but if you work very large, use the 1/2" thick boards. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.artgrafix.net/store/page170.html">Artgrafix Natural Kraft Gator Board</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you have ever worked with a roll of canvas, you know one
of the biggest problems is the curl in the canvas which makes it difficult to
lay it flat and also difficult to adhere to the panel surface, which is usually done by
rolling with a brayer. This is where the best trick of all comes in – use an
iron.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. First of all, cut your canvas to size. I add a half-inch to both width and height. Since I frequently use the 18x24” Gatorboard panels, I’ll cut my canvas to 18½ by 24½. Set your iron to a medium to medium high heat setting and iron the backside (unprimed) side of the canvas. You now have perfectly flat pieces of canvas. (I use Claussens oil-primed canvas, usually #66.) When you are done, turn the heat setting on the iron down to a little less than medium or less than half-way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Apply a coat of adhesive to one side of your panel. The best and fastest way is to use a foam roller.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> You need an adhesive that is heat reactivated. Raphael’s Miracle Muck works great. <a href="http://raphaelsap.com/miracle-muck/">Raphaels.com Miracle Muck</a> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. Lay your canvas face down (primed side down) and carefully align the panel to the canvas, allowing some of the canvas to extend past the edges of the panel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Flip the canvas panel over and place a lightweight cloth on the primed surface of the canvas. Flour sack cloth works great, but any lightweight cloth will work. You just need something between the primed surface of the canvas and the iron. (Trust me, I learned this the hard way.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. With the iron turned down to a little less than halfway, iron the face of the panel, starting in the middle and working out. Do not over-iron. Three to five passes is usually sufficient. Avoid getting the canvas too hot. This is a fast process and so much easier than using a brayer/roller. Remove the cloth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5.Take a smooth block of wood or a tool called a bone folder (used to crease paper) and firmly crease all the outside edges of the panel and also press down on the outside edges. (A sanding block should also work.) This step is critical for making sure the canvas adheres well on the edges and does not pull up from the sides or corners as the adhesive dries. <a href="https://www.bonefolder.com/Square_Non_Stick_Bone_Folder_p/squaretf.htm">Bone Folder.com - square bone folder</a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This wood block works great but not sure where to find another.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. Stack the panels up and weight them down for a day. Trim the excess canvas from the sides and you should now have perfect canvas panels, ready to be used as is, or cut to any size.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Additional tips and tricks: Gator Board can be scored and cut with a utility knife. It will take several passes to get a good cut, but is easy to do. I quit rinsing out the roller tray to keep excess adhesive from going down the drains. I just put any extra adhesive back in the bottle and let what remains dry in the tray. I do wash out the roller but make sure to use some soap. I also keep brown paper on my framing table which can be easily replaced as necessary. No work table - no problem - just use newspaper or something. Years ago when I made most of my frames and did not have a separate work space, I did most of the finishing work in my kitchen. I just made sure to cover all the surfaces with plastic. As the saying goes - whatever works . . .</span><br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-68166462834811320732017-02-15T09:10:00.000-07:002017-02-15T11:21:34.783-07:00Rational control and intuitive flow<i>Summary: Painting is a combination of chess and making breakfast. Combining the two requires some dancing. Robots can’t dance. And the next time you’re in front of your easel, try actually listening to your painting instead of always talking over it. Feedback and response is a good thing. </i><br />
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Robert Genn (1936-2014) was a well-known Canadian painter and author of the Painter's Keys web site which he started in 1998. The site mails out a twice-weekly newsletter, and is currently run by Robert’s daughter Sara. You can sign up for free at <a href="http://painterskeys.com/"><span style="color: blue;">The Painter's Keys</span></a>. Following is an excerpt from a letter titled “The Intuitive Flow” originally published by Robert Genn on February 11, 2000.<br />
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“To what degree do we pay attention to our progress and to what degree do we just let it flow? My observation has been that there are times to give thought and other times when thought may be dangerous. Most of us have noticed how too much thinking can lead to poor or contrived work. Many of my outright failures have occurred when I wanted so badly to succeed, brought every brain cell to bear and fell down miserably. It makes you realize that something other than the cerebral cortex is necessary. Consider the centipede. If this lowly being paused for only a moment to determine which foot to move forward next, it would undoubtedly stumble. The centipede has rhythm and flow in its hundred legs precisely because it does not have to think about it. Consider this the next time you move the instruments of your art. At what point in the act of art does a natural power or a mysterious intuition seem to guide and generate excellence?<br />
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"Among the artists I know, admire and compete with, I've noticed the following: They understand the basics. They train themselves. They perfect the details and trivialities of what they do. They master their stances and their strategies. Then they put their heads down, close out the crowd and let it flow.<br />
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"Balancing your calculating brain and your intuitive flow is an easy dream and a difficult task. I think it's one of the true miracles.” (Robert Genn)<br />
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In September of 2016 Uri Bram posted an article titled “The Limits of Formal Learning, or Why Robots Can’t Dance.” He interviewed David Chapman, one of the first researchers to apply the mathematics of computational complexity theory to robot planning. Chapman suggested AI researchers address the challenge of teaching a robot to dance. “Dancing,” Chapman said, “was an important model because there’s no goal to be achieved. You can’t win or lose. It’s not a problem to be solved… Dancing is paradigmatically a process of interaction.”<br />
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Since most AI research revolves around task-oriented problems, ones with definite goals and a rigid structure, teaching a robot to dance would present unique problems. Chapman emphasized development over learning. Learning implies completion while development is an “ongoing, open-ended process. There is no final exam in dancing, after which you stop learning.”<br />
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One could argue the successful use of formal reasoning in areas such as science, engineering and mathematics has placed too much emphasis on logic-based, linear thinking and overlooked all the information being processed and working in the background. As the German philosopher Martin Heidegger pointed out, routine practical activities, such as making breakfast, are skills that do not seem to involve formal rationality. Our ability to engage in formal reasoning seems more likely to rely on our ability to engage in practical, informal, and embodied activities. He suggested most of life is unlike chess, and more like breakfast.<br />
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Heidegger’s observation on chess and breakfast is similar to Annie Dillard’s explanation of the mind/body dilemma. “The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, even God. The mind’s sidekick, however, will settle for two eggs over easy. The dear, stupid body is as easily satisfied as a spaniel. And, incredibly, the simple spaniel can lure the brawling mind to its dish. It is everlastingly funny that the proud, metaphysically ambitious, clamoring mind will hush if you give it an egg.”<br />
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Somewhere between chess and breakfast, the innate movements of the centipede Genn mentioned and Chapman’s robot is a place where it is possible to exceed our own expectations.<br />
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In the book “The Wayward Gate” Philip Slater wrote, "Imagine life as a complicated dance. When we're thoroughly "into" the dance we don't have to analyze it in order to participate in a creative and harmonious way, no matter how rapid and intricate it becomes. But occasionally we're distracted, get self-conscious, lose confidence, trip, collide with someone, get out of synchrony with the rest. At such times we may mentally step out of the situation, look around, and try to figure out where the dance is going and where we fit in. Like children jumping rope, we adjust our timing for a few turns and then, when we're back in tune, leap in and again relinquish rational control in favor of a more instinctive kind of coordination.”<br />
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Slater went on to say rational control is a necessary device and useful for restoring balance, but destructive when we become dependent on the illusion of control. “I said rational control was a way of getting back in the dance when we’d lost our footing. But sometimes we get dazzled by the intricacy of the dance and forget about getting back in.” The need to understand the whole dance, not just our part in it, leads us to want control, to “reproduce it, mechanize it, and make sure we never lose our place again."<br />
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"My wish to understand . . . comes from my particular place in the dance – nine thousand and thirty-third whirler from the left, spinning on one of those bumpy places that make people lurch every so often. Lurching gives me a desire to grasp that the dance as a whole doesn’t share. The most grandiose, ‘objective’ theory in the world, in other words, is just a complicated personal effort to find one’s own place in the dance. . . . Of course, from another point of view even lurching is just part of the dance, and so is stepping outside the dance, and so is trying to analyze and control the dance . . . They’re all just dances . . . and you’re just dancing.”<br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-20886719143294829322017-01-19T14:00:00.000-07:002017-01-22T09:49:33.404-07:00Fractals, chaos and Mancini's graticola<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 1999 physicist Richard Taylor claimed Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings were not just splattered paint, but excellent examples of fractal patterns. His research even led him to construct a “Pollockizer,” a container suspended on a string that would fling paint onto a canvas. The Pollockizer could be adjusted to fling paint in either a chaotic or a regular pattern creating either fractal or nonfractal patterns. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Taylor was so confident of his method of categorizing Pollock paintings by their fractal patterns, he claimed he could date and verify their authenticity by analyzing the paintings’ fractal dimensions. He also ventured into art criticism by describing the drip paintings as "nature on a piece of canvas."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“The spontaneous complexity generated in self-organizing (fractal) systems makes a tree more beautiful than a telephone pole.” </i></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(New Scientist, 1989)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In order to understand fractals we need to grasp the dynamics of a chaotic system. A system is defined as chaotic when it becomes impossible to know where it will be or what it will be next. A dynamic, chaotic system is nonlinear whereas a linear system is logical, incremental and predictable.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FGTMjvLTm9s/WIEPevMWpcI/AAAAAAAABHk/CVZ55HzYYlUIQzFIqqEuiqZF8Yjr5kK2gCLcB/s1600/1228%2B003%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FGTMjvLTm9s/WIEPevMWpcI/AAAAAAAABHk/CVZ55HzYYlUIQzFIqqEuiqZF8Yjr5kK2gCLcB/s320/1228%2B003%2Bcopy.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A dynamic system is one whose state changes over time. It is complex and subject to internal and external influences and can change radically through its feedback. These systems do not operate in isolation; everything influences, or can influence, everything else. Since the variables can be unknown and many, it is very difficult to discern the patterns of a chaotic system. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Chaos theory evolved to describe the motion and actions of natural, open-ended dynamic systems. Fractal geometry became the standard for describing the patterns these chaotic processes leave behind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><i>“Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> in a straight line.” </i></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"> Benoit Mandlebrot</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fractal geometry is completely different from the smooth, simplified and idealized shapes of Euclidean geometry – the circle, square, sphere and cube. These shapes not only dominated mathematics since Euclid’s time, but also were a dominant part of modeling figures and landscape in art. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fractal patterns, on the other hand, are varied and endlessly complex. In the 1970s IBM researcher Benoit Mandlebrot invented this new geometry and called it “fractal” to suggest fractured or uneven shapes. A branch with small twigs can look like a larger branch, which looks similar to the whole tree. The jagged surface of a rock can resemble an entire mountain. Snowflakes are the fractal result of a chaotic process combined with the six-fold symmetry of crystals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>It is interesting to note the impact of the number-crunching capabilities of computers in the evolution of fractal geometry and in the understanding of fractal patterns. It is a reminder of the impact paint tubes had on the Impressionists. Artists were finally able to haul their paints out of the studio and into the streets and fields, and thus began a revolutionary change in art and perception.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fast forward several years after the original fractal analysis of Pollock’s drip paintings and the claim of using fractals was tested by other researchers and supposedly failed. That study claimed the debate was over. The lead author Katherine Jones-Smith concluded, “No information about artistic authenticity can be gleaned about fractal analysis.” Others claimed flaws in the new study debunking the original study.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5K2H8twBvVk/WIEUUsXx7XI/AAAAAAAABH0/w9JSEH52oug0rn1xgFVO8ooPLMpRI1EnwCLcB/s1600/IMG_2920.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5K2H8twBvVk/WIEUUsXx7XI/AAAAAAAABH0/w9JSEH52oug0rn1xgFVO8ooPLMpRI1EnwCLcB/s320/IMG_2920.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Willem de Kooning's Woman 1950 and Untitled 1983</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The use of fractal analysis in art appeared again in 2016, however, when yet another researcher claimed abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning’s cognitive decline from Alzheimer’s disease was detected in his brushstrokes. Alex Forsythe of the University of Liverpool used fractal analysis to determine whether there was a relationship between the fractal complexity in a painting and the brain activity of its artist. According to her study, the works of Monet, Picasso and Chagall, none of whom suffered any neurodegenerative disorder, showed increasing fractal complexity over time. The work of de Kooning, however, at about the age of 40, showed a noticeable decline in fractal complexity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, this research provoked mixed reactions. Taylor (from the original Pollock study) described the work as a “magnificent demonstration of art and science coming together.” Others were not as magnanimous, calling the research “complete and utter nonsense.” While some continue to agree with the fractal analysis of paintings, others deny it. Sounds like science to me. The research will undoubtedly continue to bump along, not necessarily in a linear fashion, but perhaps more chaotically and more irregularly, somewhat like a pattern of feedback and response.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mancini’s Graticola</span></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Antonio Mancini (1852-1930) was an Italian artist whom John Singer Sargent once referred to as “the greatest living painter.” Mancini’s life was marked by mental instability and poverty. Frequently destitute and often dependent on others, he suffered from both extreme shyness and paranoid outbursts. A representative of one of his patrons once found him in a cold empty studio wearing a flannel shirt, several vests, six pairs of pants held up with a rope, and a greasy overcoat. When he ran out of canvas he would often paint and write on the walls.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TnM61hSYD3M/WIEVGosKkhI/AAAAAAAABH4/Jd_8qsJXnZcD4tc0iYqu85FBunibwsHSACLcB/s1600/Publication1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TnM61hSYD3M/WIEVGosKkhI/AAAAAAAABH4/Jd_8qsJXnZcD4tc0iYqu85FBunibwsHSACLcB/s400/Publication1.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">About 1883 Mancini began using what he called a “graticola” meaning grating or gridiron. The graticola was a wooden frame crisscrossed with strings. One was placed in front of the model and another directly in front of the canvas. He worked at a great distance from the canvas, running forward to push and twist the paint, carefully and precisely, behind the grid. Many of his paintings show the imprint of the graticola in the paint. In later paintings he also began inserting materials such as glass, pieces of metal, bits of paint tubes, and even wallpaper into the paint.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While Mancini’s graticola was similar to a traditional transfer grid, using both horizontal and vertical lines, what is often overlooked is the importance of the diagonal lines. Horizontals and verticals are extremely rigid and static, but they do allow for a basic pattern of reference to the exterior dimensions of the canvas. The diagonals, however, are making connections based on angles of form and triangles of description. They connect one part of the image to another. As marks of reference they serve to delineate the space of the canvas in a more complex and dynamic way. Many have questioned Mancini’s need for the graticola, but he was adamant about how important it was to him. It’s possible the frame of reference it gave him allowed a more frenzied and chaotic paint application which became more and more apparent in his later paintings.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-StkHAuvY-xk/WIEVbhOE8JI/AAAAAAAABIA/NEKXv_WuPaU1Jyy9dnf-R8sIIejWzNmCwCLcB/s1600/Publication%2B%2B22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-StkHAuvY-xk/WIEVbhOE8JI/AAAAAAAABIA/NEKXv_WuPaU1Jyy9dnf-R8sIIejWzNmCwCLcB/s640/Publication%2B%2B22.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Antonio Mancini paintings (clockwise starting top left) The Saltimbanco 1877-78, Young Shepherd 1883,<br />
Sylvia Hunter 1901-02, Lady in Red c.1926</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Books on fractals that are not all about math:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>An Eye for Fractals</i> by Michael McGuire</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Fractals The Patterns of Chaos</i> by John Briggs</span><br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-21002378747762787622016-12-31T15:06:00.000-07:002016-12-31T15:06:42.566-07:0010 favorite things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j3u5tCxzgiM/WGghZd-95OI/AAAAAAAABHA/bKvnI5pEIfwTneVgWH315EISSnD7B8QqACLcB/s1600/favorite%2Bthings%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j3u5tCxzgiM/WGghZd-95OI/AAAAAAAABHA/bKvnI5pEIfwTneVgWH315EISSnD7B8QqACLcB/s640/favorite%2Bthings%2B2.jpg" width="384" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">1. TURPENOID NATURAL:</b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> I couldn't do without this brush cleaner. I'm not great at cleaning my brushes regularly but all I have to do is put disgusting and hard brushes to soak and then wash up with soap and water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>2. ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL:</b> Another cleaning trick that helps keep the studio a little nicer. I keep a spray bottle of the stuff handy for cleaning the palette and anything else that needs it such as the phone, garbage can and even the wood floor.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">3. LAVA SOAP:</b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> This is my go-to soap in the studio - great for hands, brushes and getting paint out of clothes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>4. VIEW TO THE NORTH FROM STUDIO:</b> I think I can see Canada from the studio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>5. WIND-UP TOYS:</b> These usually live on the model stand where they have lots of room to move around.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>6. BOB THE BEAR:</b> Bob guards the entrance to my studio - a mascot I inherited from my artist friend Sheila Rieman.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>7. SUMMER NIGHTS ON THE LAKE:</b> I can see part of the lake from my studio (along with Canada) but there is nothing better than watching the sunset from the boat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>8. CABINET FOR PAINT TUBES:</b> I found this in a California equestrian center gift shop while teaching a workshop for Disney Imagineering. The drawers are a perfect size for holding paint tubes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>9. MOTION SENSOR GARBAGE CAN:</b> All I have to do is get my hand near this thing and it opens automatically. Life is good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>10. NUTCRACKER & PAINT TUBE WRINGER:</b> The nutcracker is perfect for opening a tube lid that's stuck and the wringer has been keeping my paint tubes under control for more years than I care to count.</span>Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-18215798084320592472016-12-17T15:33:00.000-07:002016-12-17T15:35:38.462-07:00Anderson posts - the really short versions<i>Wondering what you may have missed or interested in reminding yourself what you may have already read? Well, here it is – a very brief summary of previous posts. And a thought for the coming New Year – let’s all try for more poetry and music in our painting.</i><br />
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<b>Myths and realities of creating a painting</b><br />
Myth: There is a list of rules to follow. Most so-called rules are suggestions. They are not written in stone and what works for one person may not work for the next. Question everything.<br />
Myth: Paint what you see. Kernel of truth and can be helpful. Unfortunately we don’t necessarily see everything and just because we see something doesn’t mean we should paint it. Question what you see and, for heaven’s sake, edit.<br />
Myth: What we think we see is the whole truth. This is another seeing problem.<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;"> If you want to see more information, you need to look for more information.</span></span><br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/08/myths-and-realities-of-creating-painting.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/08/myths-and-realities-of-creating-painting.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Rendering vs. creating</b><br />
Does the process of managing a painting interfere with the journey of creating a painting? Creating a painting is the selective and interpretive use of information. Embrace the opportunity of seeing a painting as an illusion or interpretation of reality instead of a re-creation.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/09/rendering-vs-creating.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/09/rendering-vs-creating.html</span></a><br />
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<b>More myths and realities</b><br />
One of the biggest myths is that painting is all about skill, a craft to be mastered with long and arduous study. The reality is painting is a combination of skill and creativity. Painting requires certain skill sets which can be learned with time and practice, but creative painting also requires that artists explore the boundaries of their perceptions.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/more-myths-and-realities.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/more-myths-and-realities.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Is it a door or a doorway?</b><br />
Ever forget what you went into a room for? Event boundaries are transition areas (such as walking through a door from one room to another) where the brain files away information in preparation for new information. I think too many hard edges, especially when starting a painting, create event boundaries and prevent artists from connecting the visual information into one coherent whole.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/is-it-door-or-doorway.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/is-it-door-or-doorway.html</span></a><br />
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<b>The quack in the grass</b><br />
Visual experience is more than our eyes sending signals of contrast and color to our brains. What we see is a combination of what we know and what we expect to see. It is our past and present, our memories and our sense of space and place.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-quack-in-grass.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-quack-in-grass.html</span></a><br />
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<b>The problem with edges</b><br />
Seeing is visual processing, not just image transmission. The problem with edges has to do with how the brain processes visual information. Our visual system is wired to see the most obvious changes and to filter out extraneous information not considered as necessary. We are more likely to see information that separates one object from another than we are to see the information that connects things. Edges are not arbitrary, and edge variety is not just a device used by artists to suggest three dimensions. Edges, lost and found or hard and soft, define our three-dimensional reality.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-problem-with-edges.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-problem-with-edges.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Garbage in, garbage out</b><br />
Listening to someone talking on a cell phone is annoying. Why? Because it is difficult to process incomplete information and information that doesn’t make sense. We are wired to make sense of the world – to recognize patterns and organize information. Painting also requires pattern and organization, but organization doesn’t begin and end with the placement of objects. Finding patterns and organizing information in a painting is dependent on value, shapes, and color.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/12/garbage-in-garbage-out.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/12/garbage-in-garbage-out.html</span></a><br />
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<b>A Christmas story</b><br />
A true story about a horse sculpture, a Christmas tree, two deer, and the magic of Christmas.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-christmas-story.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-christmas-story.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Why naming the “thing” can be a problem</b><br />
Vision is a process, not a picture. When we name the thing, we are compromising the integrity of the visual information. We are more likely to see what we think we know and what we expect to see. We are less likely to see specific and accurate visual attributes, such as shape, color, value, and edges.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-naming-thing-can-be-problem.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-naming-thing-can-be-problem.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Everything you need to know about painting</b><br />
A workshop handout I have been using for many years - short and easy to remember.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Anderson workshop – a short version</b><br />
An insightful and humorous poem written about one of my workshops.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/03/anderson-workshop-in-brief.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/03/anderson-workshop-in-brief.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Something about color</b><br />
Isaac Newton separated sunlight into wavelengths of light with a prism and demonstrated color is a property of light. The wavelength of visible light has a pattern of color ranging from violet to red. The colors do not jump around at random. Just as value has a pattern, so does color. Color temperature (warmer-cooler colors) is a relative value, never an absolute value, and color can change with changes in light. Identifying the light source as either warmer or cooler will simplify the visual information and help the painter observe and mix colors.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/03/something-about-color.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/03/something-about-color.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Do you see blue like I see blue?</b><br />
It is quite likely we don’t see color the same. Experiments have shown that if we have a name for a color, we may see it in a different way. Naming and seeing are connected and what we see changes according to whether or not the language centers of the brain are activated.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/05/do-you-see-blue-like-i-see-blue.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/05/do-you-see-blue-like-i-see-blue.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Disney meets Sorolla</b><br />
A brief explanation of color temperature and how to see warmer-cooler colors.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/07/disney-meets-sorolla.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/07/disney-meets-sorolla.html</span></a><br />
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<b>The creativity crisis</b><br />
American creativity scores are declining. Recent research shows how children have become “less perceptive and less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things.” The ability to find abstractions, unseen patterns and alternative meanings is dependent on using both convergent and divergent thinking. Unfortunately, it is easier and more comfortable to deal with what we already know (and think we see).<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-creativity-crisis.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-creativity-crisis.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Four ridiculously simple ways to improve your painting</b><br />
Stop and look. Stand comfortably with a good view and remember to step back. Squint! And don’t forget to mind your brushes.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/10/four-ridiculously-simply-ways-to.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/10/four-ridiculously-simply-ways-to.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Color constancy and why some of the science is wrong</b><br />
Color constancy is a feature of color perception that ensures the color of an object will remain relatively constant under varying illumination. Some neuroscientists claim we are incapable of bypassing this basic function of visual processing. It is apparent, however, that artists have learned to evaluate color information in a way that can more accurately process the quality and type of the light and perceive the ensuing changes in the colors of objects and shadows.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/12/color-constancy-and-why-some-of-science.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/12/color-constancy-and-why-some-of-science.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Where’s all the art and other interesting stuff</b><br />
Most museums consider archiving, storage, and conservation to be their primary purpose. Only a tiny fraction of art is actually available for people to view and enjoy. Also, do people who grow up in the arctic see better in the dark? Well, yes, so read this to find out how and why. Let’s also explore nature’s fractal patterns and discuss “how real is reality?”<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/01/wheres-all-art-and-other-interesting.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/01/wheres-all-art-and-other-interesting.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Intuition is just another form of pattern recognition</b><br />
Intuition is not magic. It is not some mystical sixth sense. And it is not the opposite of rational thinking. Intuition is pattern recognition outside the normal range of conscious thought. We have a tendency to favor language based, rational thought and relegate intuition to the hinterlands of unexplained phenomena. In painting, if we insist on describing objects by name, we are more likely to favor fidelity to perceived realism and not to interpretation. In order to foster a different path of pattern recognition, it’s necessary to describe the information in a new way.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/07/intuition-is-just-another-form-of.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/07/intuition-is-just-another-form-of.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?</b><br />
Why do we accept dogma for truth and is there value in trying to understand new information? Our color primary system of red, blue and yellow predates modern scientific color theory. The more accurate primaries for subtractive color are magenta, cyan, and yellow. This might not be important for many painters, but for anyone using a limited palette, the updated primary colors make far more sense and allows for a wider range of color mixtures. And on another note, let’s explore our misleading world map and other misperceptions such as the fact you really are not life-size when viewing yourself in a mirror.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/09/do-facts-matter-or-is-truth-just.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/09/do-facts-matter-or-is-truth-just.html</span></a><br />
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<b>A win for visual truth</b><br />
Interesting that shortly after I wrote the previous post about the inaccuracies of our world map, I came across an article about a designer who created a solution to this problem: triangles. Hajime Narukawa was able to preserve the proportions of water and land by dividing the globe into triangles, projecting them onto a tetrahedron and then unfolding the tetrahedron into a rectangle.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-win-for-visual-truth.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-win-for-visual-truth.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Color: fact, fiction and perception</b><br />
Another attempt to try and break down color information and explain color temperature. This is difficult since how we see color is dependent on science, perception and psychology. Important: The illustration of the wavelengths of light is not a scale of color temperature. How we interpret colors as warmer or cooler is not based on science, but on perception and psychology. Color temperature is never an absolute value, as in warm or cool, but always comparative, e.g. warmer, cooler. The sun is not really yellow and our perception of color as a circular, continuous spectrum is just that – a perception.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/color-fact-fiction-and-perception.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/color-fact-fiction-and-perception.html</span></a><br />
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<b>Lunch with the Mad Hatter</b><br />
A friend’s very insightful and hilarious rendition of a particularly challenging portrait commission.<br />
<a href="http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/lunch-with-mad-hatter.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/lunch-with-mad-hatter.html</span></a><br />
<br />Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-10823391423945651072016-11-21T17:58:00.000-07:002016-11-21T17:58:30.361-07:00The myth of mastery<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>“I’m still afflicted with the malady of research. I don’t like what I do, and I paint it out, and paint it out again. I hope that this mania will come to an end. . . I’m involved in lots of things and not one of them is finished. I wipe out, I start over, I think the year will go by without one canvas . . . I want to find what I am looking for before giving up. Let me look, I have gone too deeply into the series of experiments to give up without regret . . ."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pierre-August Renoir </span> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Art is not an endgame. There are no goal posts. Art is a journey. The myth of mastery implies knowledge and craft with a beginning and an end. The idea of mastery places too much emphasis on craft and not enough emphasis on creativity and expression.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Art is nothing if not an exploration of life and living – how we think, how we feel and how we see. Art is not just what we see in front of us. It is not just the present, but a reflection of what came before and what is yet to come. A painting of a tree in winter bears witness to a season, but it is just as much a testament to the brilliant fall color that was, and the new life the coming spring will bring. Art is a reflection of the past and present and a promise for the future. It is what we have learned, what we can learn and the possibility of learning more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Art is a reflection of life and life is not static. While we may want the world to be linear and absolute, it is, in fact, arbitrary and complex. Our need to order and categorize is more likely to be based on a desire for control than on a want to understand.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The image of a painting has to live and breathe. It needs to imply possibility, wonder and awe. It needs to foster reflection and self-reflection. Art is an inspiration, not just a career. There are no answers, only more solutions.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>“If I know what I shall find, I do not want to find it.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i> Uncertainty is the salt of life.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> Erwin Chargaff, Heraclitean Fire</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In order to better understand art as a journey, we need to acknowledge and understand the pattern of art throughout history. The history of art is a testament to change. This record of change is one of perception, not just change in technique and skill. The Greeks said that to marvel is the beginning of knowledge and where we cease to marvel we may be in danger of ceasing to know.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The great art historian Ernst Gombrich wrote extensively on the pattern of change in art through the centuries.He noted how the Egyptians did not render in three dimensions but instead relied on what they knew rather than what they saw. "Greek and Roman art breathed life into these schematic forms; medieval art used them in turn for telling the sacred story, Chinese art for contemplation. Neither was urging the artist to ‘paint what he saw’. This idea dawned only during the age of the Renaissance . . . but every generation discovered that there were still . . . strongholds of conventions which made artists apply forms they had learned rather than paint what they really saw. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Impressionists "proposed to make a clean sweep of all these conventions . . ." They challenged the rules of academic painting and claimed their paintings were more 'scientifically accurate.' As Gombrich pointed out, however, their claim was only partly true. He wrote, "We have come to realize more and more that we can never neatly separate what we see from what we know."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“In fact, as soon as we start to take a pencil and draw, the whole idea of surrendering passively to what is called our sense impressions becomes really an absurdity. If we look out of the window we can see the view in a thousand different ways. Which of them is our sense impression? "It is not the ‘innocent eye’. . . that can achieve this match but only the inquiring mind that knows how to probe the ambiguities of vision.” (Art and Illusion, E.H. Gombrich)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>Good art is not done by how an artist sees,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i> but by how an artist chooses to see.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we lose the drive to question and explore, not just what we do, but how we do it, then we run the risk of becoming secondhand hacks only capable of copying someone else’s idea of art.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While skill and knowledge are important in any endeavor, the idea of mastery in art implies a skill set to be acquired and a path to be followed. For many this path becomes one of fidelity to the latest vagaries of the art market and the most popular trend in art. The parameters of acceptability narrow and the range of expression becomes limited. Too many artists get lured into the idea of picture-making and neglect the search for creativity and expression. When we choose the path of conformity and ignore our personal search for visual meaning, we negate the very idea of what art is and what art can be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am reminded of the struggles of so many artists who worked long and hard, not to master a skill set, but in a personal search for visual expression.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Claude Monet wrote, “I’m hard at it, working stubbornly on a series of different effects (grain stacks), but at this time of year the sun sets so fast that it’s impossible to keep up with it… I’m getting so slow at my work it makes me despair, but the further I get, the more I see that a lot of work has to be done in order to render what I’m looking for: ‘instaneity’, the ‘envelope’, above all, the same light spread over everything, and more than ever I’m disgusted by easy things that come in one go.” </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oykz9Cce8eo/WDDtpze_esI/AAAAAAAABGE/Wma5-bYZO00vZGEZkRaM2xpxfrFR00OFgCLcB/s1600/Claude%2BMonet%2BGrainstacks%2Bseries.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oykz9Cce8eo/WDDtpze_esI/AAAAAAAABGE/Wma5-bYZO00vZGEZkRaM2xpxfrFR00OFgCLcB/s400/Claude%2BMonet%2BGrainstacks%2Bseries.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Claude Monet </span></td></tr>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-3867927601006603652016-11-15T09:04:00.000-07:002016-11-15T09:04:35.997-07:00Lunch with the Mad Hatter<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A friend and fellow artist (who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons) agreed to let me share the following texts about a particularly challenging painting commission. The insights, observations and comments turned this misadventure into a hilarious ride through the dark side of portrait painting. And for the record, no, I do not paint commissions. See postscript for why not.</i><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Monday, March 14<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, here’s how my lady painting turned out. Most of the
family members are happy. I think it could be better/looser/more interesting,
but I have no idea how to balance that with the family’s wishes. Not even sure
where I could take it at this point, so, I’m done. The Grand Dame of the family
has not weighed in. I don’t really care though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I’m going to go read “The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuesday, March 15<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, woke up to a list of things that the Grand Dame of the
family wants me to change in the painting. Wider neck, add more wrinkles . . .
(seriously??) . . . lower the eyebrows .
. . They are actually higher and even more arched, but I just eliminated them a
bit and left the rest to the imagination. Sigh. I worked on it all day because
one daughter has driven over from out of state and I’ve got a command
invitation to the home of the person in the painting tomorrow. Not that the
daughter loves the work, but she wants me to watch her and get a good
understanding of her facial expressions. Shit, I don’t have time for this. This
is a good likeness. Her children, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and
friends far and wide saw the painting on FB, with no indication of who it was,
everyone recognized her instantly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To top it off, when the daughter called to tell me to be at
the lady’s home at 2 p.m. it was like an inquisition. “What does your husband
do? Where did you grow up” What did your father do?” I wondered if she was
going to tell me to bring my tax returns for the last 10 years. I was a bit
evasive . . . none of that is her damned business. Sheesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I give up. Someone hand me a white flag to wave! I can’t get
any closer to a likeness unless I add more harsh lines and shadows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I’m hoping tomorrow is better. But tomorrow I must attend
the inquisition, so . . . who knows how that will be. I think the old gal and I
are both being yanked around by a bunch of surly siblings. I’ll try to be kind,
for the sake of the older lady, but I may not stay long. As I understand it,
the old gal is in a tizzy that I’m coming over. Insists on having her hair
done, but is concerned that her pin curls will be wound too tight. I think it’s
her offspring that are wound too tight!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wednesday, March 16 –
10:14 a.m.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They want me to paint 10 more “just like it” for the
children and grandchildren.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now they want me to leave the wet painting at a family
member’s house so the extended family, kids and grandkids can see it. It told
them it has cadmium in it . . . so that’s a no.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Word to the wise: Never do commissions!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2:13 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Inquisition over. Now just need to paint new nose, eyes,
mouth. Daughter wants the features to be momma’s as they were when the daughter
was little. Daughter also said, “We all just love that photo we gave you to
paint from, except we think she looks tired so her face isn’t animated” My
challenge is to paint the momma as her many offspring imagine her. The mother,
subject of painting, was an absolute delight. Loved her!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9:58 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sooooooo, I just got a message from the daughter. She has
sent me a bunch of photos and wants me to paint the right eye from one photo,
the left eye from another photo, the nose from yet another one AND wants me to
put the mouth together with the bits and pieces of several mouths in several
photos. All of the photos are taken in different lighting, from different
angles and from different decades. I have done my best, with PLENTY of words in
my sentences, to explain that it isn’t possible to arrive at one cohesive facial
expression this way. H.O.L.Y. C.O.W. this gal is nuts. It is absolutely comical
at this point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My husband wins the prize for the best remark! “SEND HER A
PAINTING OF MRS. POTATO HEAD!!!” he said as he rolled on freaking floor
laughing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, more wine. I deserve it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thursday, March 17 <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other than a lot of “fraudulent” stuff on the painting, and
the fact that it is so stinking over-rendered, I’m having a hard time figuring
out how to bring the likeness to what they want. They want something that doesn’t
look like her – they each want their romanticized notion of the never-aging
mother . . . but an image that they recognize as “just like” what each sees in
the photo. Yet none of them see the same thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I must have fallen down the rabbit hole. Preparing for lunch
with the Mad Hatter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She finally sent me a thumbs up and a smiley face. Maybe the
odyssey has ended. Maybe it’s tea time for Alice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saturday, March 19<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BTW, the people I’m doing this painting for want all the<span style="color: red;"> </span>brothers, sisters and spouses to have an appointment
to “preview and critique”. Shoot me now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finished. They can have it or not, but I’m moving on to more
interesting work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sunday, March 20<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Interesting. I’m getting FB friend requests from ALL of the
extended family members of the “portrait lady’. Feeling creeped upon! I think
they are wanting to the see the painting and my FB page isn’t public - only
friends can see it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Monday, March 21<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, this morning I got an email from the family. They are
thinking that they would rather have the charcoal drawing that I did earlier.
When they first saw it, they hated it because it had been drawn from a photo
that no one liked. Now that they are not crazy about the painting, they have
come to like the drawing. I know it is just because they’ve kind of camped with
that image for a while and are accustomed to it. It’s on newsprint and I’m worried it won’t
hold up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sheesh . . . family just sent another photo reference. I am
so done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Monday, April 5</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I heard from the Grand Dame and the Brassy Little Sister.
They think they “might” like the painting if I repaint the face in different
shades and put the mouth back like I had it in the first place. (This makes me
want to choose really novel different shades, just sayin’.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are so many layers on that painting that it begs to be
considered sculpture at this point. Really . . . the burn pile might be the
best answer. I could start over . . . but I won’t. Maybe I died and this is
purgatory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Postscript:</b> <i>The family finally decided they loved, loved the painting and purchased both the painting and the drawing. This was definitely a win for persistence and endurance on the artist’s part.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The reason I don’t paint commissions: The answer is fairly straight-forward and also explains one of the main differences between fine art and illustration. Painting commissions (and illustrations) are controlled by someone else’s expectations and requirements – not the artist’s. I have a hard enough time trying to avoid regurgitating someone else’ idea of what a painting is or should be. I do, however, respect and admire those artists who take on the challenge.</i></span></div>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-75547879380565954032016-11-09T13:44:00.001-07:002016-11-10T17:03:33.098-07:00Color: fact, fiction and perception<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SfRYj76Gqrw/WCM9FZR52NI/AAAAAAAABC0/LUs1NfO5hGUg8MQWn7I_ZZuH0BFQx35_ACLcB/s1600/ch06%2B033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SfRYj76Gqrw/WCM9FZR52NI/AAAAAAAABC0/LUs1NfO5hGUg8MQWn7I_ZZuH0BFQx35_ACLcB/s400/ch06%2B033.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>John Singer Sargent painting using cooler light and warmer shadow.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Richard Schmid, in his book “Alla Prima”, described colors as “slippery devils with a logic all their own.” He also warned us to be “wary of quaint beliefs, fears and expedient little rules.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is so much information and misinformation regarding color in painting, it’s difficult to decide what is important and what is not, but let’s give it a try.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>First, to see color we need light. </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Light is a physical entity. Color is a perception.</b> </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seeing color is a response created by the brain interpreting light waves that hit our eyes. Our eyes have three types of cones, often referred to as red, green and blue. A more accurate description describes the cones’ responses to the wavelengths of light – short, medium and long wavelengths.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1yEqrusXy9M/WCM_kvU3CeI/AAAAAAAABDA/iwLOm-DmJuUKgvMv9vcvx8ZtMX7bCoUpQCLcB/s1600/spectrum%2Bvisible%2Blight.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1yEqrusXy9M/WCM_kvU3CeI/AAAAAAAABDA/iwLOm-DmJuUKgvMv9vcvx8ZtMX7bCoUpQCLcB/s400/spectrum%2Bvisible%2Blight.gif" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here is an illustration of the wavelengths of visible light. Red has the longest wavelength and violet has the shortest wavelength.<b> Note: This is NOT a scale of color temperature. Do not confuse wavelength with color temperature.</b> We can, however, recognize how one color can turn into another by the change in wavelength. This is important.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The cones in our eyes are used to process color and luminosity during daylight conditions. Rods are used only in low light conditions. When it is dark we don’t actually see color since the cones are not active in low-light conditions. The exception is at the intersection of light and dark (e.g. dusk) when rods and cones can be active at the same time. At this brief time we see colors differently than during daylight. We do not see different colors but what we do see seems to be more saturated. This difference in color perception is probably because of a change in luminosity due to the activation of the rods.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our inclination to associate some colors as warmer or cooler than other colors is not a scientific explanation of temperature. </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The distinction between warmer and cooler colors is based on a perceptual and psychological tendency to associate heat with warmth. We consider red, yellow and orange to be warmer than green, blue and violet.<b> Color temperature is not an absolute value</b>, as in warm or cool. It is a comparative value of warmer or cooler </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(as compared to)</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. So if you want to know if a red is warmer or cooler, to which red are you referring, and exactly what are you comparing it to? Alizarin is cooler than cadmium red, but it is warmer than ultramarine blue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you are looking for the science of color temperature, you will end up in a rabbit hole of contradictions. The Kelvin scale (used to measure the temperature of color based on black-body radiation) shows red to be the coolest color and blue to be the hottest color. Kelvins are, however, useful in astronomy, photography and studio lighting. This leads me to the next bit of interesting information . . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The sun is not yellow. Actually our sun is white light, a mixture of all colors.</span></h4>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6e15iU3rhG4/WCNmX6YWMeI/AAAAAAAABEw/GuzidlCeiTwRdk6wNUUtgK79odBT6MaeQCLcB/s1600/IMG_2804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6e15iU3rhG4/WCNmX6YWMeI/AAAAAAAABEw/GuzidlCeiTwRdk6wNUUtgK79odBT6MaeQCLcB/s200/IMG_2804.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">drawing from</span> <i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Secret Language of Color</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the sun is low in the sky, it may appear yellow, orange, or red. But that is only because its short-wavelength colors (green, blue, violet) are scattered out by the Earth's atmosphere and only the reds, yellows, and oranges get to our eyes. The reason I mention this is the pervasive belief among some artists that yellow is the <i>"warmest"</i> color. The most obvious reason for this is our perception of the sun as yellow. Now, granted, this is a perception, and painting is all about perceptions, but the problem with this assumption leads to another rabbit hole of contradictions regarding the color temperatures of greens, blues and violets.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sd8ExKoNedk/WCNMzXgEMzI/AAAAAAAABEI/oGHp4EJDBHcEEn4yFBbBMIVOSJJAHcSnwCLcB/s1600/visible%2Blight%2B2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sd8ExKoNedk/WCNMzXgEMzI/AAAAAAAABEI/oGHp4EJDBHcEEn4yFBbBMIVOSJJAHcSnwCLcB/s200/visible%2Blight%2B2.PNG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The pattern of color we see is red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. One color becomes another. We perceive color as a continuous spectrum, not as something with a beginning and an end (implying opposition), but as part of a whole. <b>It is misleading to assign absolute values to these colors that exist in harmony with one another.</b> When mixing color</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I consider red warmer than yellow and consequently, ultramarine blue as warmer than cerulean or thalo blue. In turn, green would be warmer than cerulean, but cooler than yellow. Following this pattern allows a pretty straight forward approach to mixing pigments - lighter, darker, warmer, cooler. One color will easily transition to another. It is not difficult to see the pattern of connection. Ultimately, this is all about recognizing patterns and making comparisons. Color temperature is not an intrinsic property of pigment. It is the perception of one color as compared to another.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Color does not jump around randomly. Light determines our perception of color. Warmer light has cooler shadows. Cooler light has warmer shadows. The color we see changes as the light changes. Our perception of color can change according to what is next to or surrounding the color. Color can be elusive, ambiguous and sometimes bold. Find the pattern, design the connections, and pay attention to the subtlety of change.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8P1ZWqctgI4/WCNnDsydLJI/AAAAAAAABE0/r__r70HT1sggbWuyRLTgGYeMoimwbvn5wCLcB/s1600/Joquin%2BSorolla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8P1ZWqctgI4/WCNnDsydLJI/AAAAAAAABE0/r__r70HT1sggbWuyRLTgGYeMoimwbvn5wCLcB/s400/Joquin%2BSorolla.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Painting by Joaquin Sorolla - note the difference in color from one side of bench to other side.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>for more information about our sun</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.osa-opn.org/Content/ViewFile.aspx?id=11147">The <b><span style="color: orange;">Yellow Sun</span></b> Paradox by Stephen R. Wilk</a></span><br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-38824152282393414772016-11-05T10:39:00.001-06:002016-11-05T10:39:56.285-06:00A win for visual truth<i>In my last post, “Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?”, I pointed out how clinging to an outdated color primary system isn’t doing us any favors. I also wrote about the inaccuracy of the world map we are most familiar with. The latest news on the technology and design front is a new design of a more accurate map. Here is the article from WIRED magazine.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>This Weird Globe-Folding Map Isn’t Perfect, But It’s Close</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>by Liz Stinson, WIRED, November 4, 206</b></span><br />
<b><a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/11/weird-globe-folding-map-isnt-perfect-close/"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">https://www.wired.com/2016/11/weird-globe-folding-map-isnt-perfect-close/</span></a></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Creating a proportional map of the world is tricky because the world is a sphere and a map is flat. That creates visual distortions, which explains why Mercator projections shrink Africa and super-size Greenland. Designer Hajime Narukawa found a clever solution to this problem: triangles.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BSJ9KF6U3pg/WB4HNJJ72ZI/AAAAAAAABCQ/YpsiiwSN984k9AlQrBEpvg75RNZvEiBJwCLcB/s1600/Authamap.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BSJ9KF6U3pg/WB4HNJJ72ZI/AAAAAAAABCQ/YpsiiwSN984k9AlQrBEpvg75RNZvEiBJwCLcB/s400/Authamap.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Narukawa’s AuthaGraph World Map, which recently won the grand prize in Japan’s biggest design competition, retains the proportions of the continents and oceans—so much so that you can fold it into a three-dimensional globe. Like magic! He achieved this by dividing the globe into 96 triangles and projecting them onto a tetrahedron, preserving the proportions of water and land. Then he unfolded the tetrahedron into a rectangle, where the 96 sections created a map resembling the surface of the original globe, only flat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The general shapes of the continents are consistent with more familiar maps, but their orientation is not. On the AuthaGraph Map, continents curve upward like a smile. Africa and the Americas look like they swapped places. And longitude and latitude are no longer a tidy grid. But all maps require tradeoffs. You want an equal area map? Prepare for distortion. You want a Mercator? You’re living a lie. The AuthaGraph isn’t perfect—the creators concede that it needs “a further step to increase a number of subdivision for improving its accuracy to be officially called an area-equal map” the project creators write on their website—but it’s pretty damn close.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.designboom.com/design/good-design-grand-award-authagraph-hajime-narukawa-11-01-2016/">For more information about how this map was created, click here.</a><br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-58691067886852484402016-09-28T12:15:00.000-06:002016-09-28T12:19:31.437-06:00Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?When we are faced with information that contradicts what we think we know, is there value in trying to understand the new information? Or is truth really based on some kind of sliding scale of perception? Why do we accept dogma for truth? Why work so hard to hold onto information that compromises our ability to change and move forward?<br />
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Red, yellow and blue are considered primary colors in the art world. This primary system of red, yellow and blue predates modern scientific color theory. Yet it persists in painting color theory today. This is what most artists learn and it is what children around the world are taught in art classes.These three primaries do not correspond to the subtractive primaries dictated by human color vision.<br />
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The more accurate and more scientific color primary system for subtractive color is magenta, cyan and yellow.<i> (Pigment is subtractive color. This is the process of subtracting color as the light waves are absorbed and reflected off the surface of the pigment.)</i> Subtractive color is also used in printing and photography. Just take a quick look at the ink cartridges in your desktop printer.<br />
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The primary colors for additive color, anything using light such as computer monitors and televisions, are red, green and blue.<b> So we have two scientific primary color systems, additive and subtractive, and then we have the “painting” color primary system.</b> Artists are still clinging to an outdated model of a color primary system.<br />
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Does using an outdated primary system make a difference? It is difficult to mix colorful greens, cyans, purples and magentas using these three colors, but most artists use multiple colors on their palettes. Unlike photography and printing, we have the ability to use variations of reds, yellows and blues. And even a simplified palette can be incredibly powerful. Just take another look at some Zorn paintings where he used black, vermillion, ochre and white. However, it is quite possible our critical thinking (or mixing) skills are compromised when we cling to a primary system that predates current scientific color theory.<br />
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Is our dependence on cadmium red a result of red, yellow, blue thinking? While cadmium red (or similar variation) is useful, it is not nearly as useful for mixing as a red that leans more towards magenta, such as alizarin or quinacridone. Think about the possibilities of alizarin, mixed with a blue such as cyan, or alizarin mixed with yellow. Now consider what happens when cadmium red is substituted for alizarin.<br />
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Artists are dealing with the perception and psychology of color. Our job is to interpret, not to try and replicate, which is an impossible task. Light is the science of additive color; pigment is the science of subtractive color. Light is a physical entity; seeing color is a perception. Let’s not make this any more confusing than it already is.<br />
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<h3>
Why the world map you know is wrong</h3>
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In yet another example of inaccurate and misleading information, we are still using a world map created in 1596. The original map was made by a globe maker named Mercator to help sailors navigate the world, and its distortions and exaggerations are the result of the difficulty inherent in portraying a spherical world on a flat map. Imagine stretching a map on a globe to fit a rectangular space. Despite attempts at other projections, the Mercator map has maintained its dominance over centuries and is now used at Google Maps and Bing. We think Greenland is huge, but in reality it is about four times smaller than the United States and 14.5 times smaller than Africa. In fact, Greenland is about the size of Saudi Arabia. Africa is actually larger than Russia and Brazil is more than five times larger than Alaska.<br />
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Want to learn more? Check out the app <a href="http://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTU3MTU4NzQ.NDYyMDgwNA*MzQ3NTA5NDc(Mjc0MTE4Mg~!CONTIGUOUS_US*MTAwMjQwNzU.MjUwMjM1MTc(MTc1)MQ~!IN*NTI2NDA1MQ.Nzg2MzQyMQ)Mg~!CN*OTkyMTY5Nw.NzMxNDcwNQ(MjI1)MA"><span style="color: blue;">The True Size Of</span></a>.<br />
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And while we are at it - no, the moon is not huge when on the horizon. It did not zoom in for a visit. It is an illusion. Other perceptual observations such as perceived distance and the size of nearby objects are used by the brain to determine what size an object appears to be.<br />
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Also, your mirror image is not life-sized. This, too, is a perception and not reality. Just measure next time you are looking a mirror. The explanation for this one? We see what we know and what we expect to see.<br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-39633631063523404462016-07-12T09:55:00.000-06:002016-09-16T13:25:39.440-06:00Intuition is just another form of pattern recognitionIntuition is not some mystical sixth sense, nor is it the opposite of rational thinking. Intuition is pattern recognition outside the normal range of conscious thought.<br />
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Different areas of the brain process different information. Since we are a language dependent species, we have a tendency to favor language based, rational thought and relegate intuition to the hinterlands of unexplained phenomena. Neuroscience seems to be having a difficult time understanding how the brain integrates information, but the fact is that various areas of the brain process different kinds of information, sensory and otherwise, and all that information gets filtered into conscious awareness – emphasis on the word “filtered”.<br />
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In painting, if we fall into the expected path of language-based object recognition, the path of least resistance will be one of fidelity to object description and not to interpretation. Our rational brains will dictate our responses while our subconscious intuitive selves will be sidelined. Painting is difficult because, ideally, it combines craft and creativity, two very different ways of thinking.<br />
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In order to foster a different path of pattern recognition, it’s necessary to describe the information in a new way.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AW9iDsezrYE/V4UQ5eGNR5I/AAAAAAAABAU/cQj60ECG5lEP5wwdJIjU0rXFNQtF4oMLgCLcB/s1600/still%2Blife%2Bpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AW9iDsezrYE/V4UQ5eGNR5I/AAAAAAAABAU/cQj60ECG5lEP5wwdJIjU0rXFNQtF4oMLgCLcB/s320/still%2Blife%2Bpic.jpg" width="320" /></a>Do you see a still life or do you see bananas, an apple and an orange?<br />
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How you choose to describe the information will alter how you perceive the information and, in turn, direct the choices you make to interpret that information.<br />
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Choose the object names and you will see and describe individual things and then have to solve the problem of unity and how one “thing” relates to another. Choose the less specific description of “still life” and you will change your perceptions and your expectations. The “whole” will become more important than the pieces and the visual elements of value, color and shape will become more important than the name of the thing. Finding new patterns is dependent on seeing the information in a different way, one that is informed by more than preconceived expectations.<br />
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Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, considered intuition an “irrational function”, but he also said “intuition is perception via the unconscious that brings forth ideas, images, new possibilities and ways out of blocked situations." It is interesting to note Jung was willing to consider intuition as irrational, while also recognizing the necessity of intuition in creative problem solving.<br />
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We seem to have an innate tendency (perhaps a reflection of brain organization?) to categorize everything into simplistic categories of “either-or” instead of simply acknowledging and accepting the unity of different, but complementary, aspects of reality. Intuition is not the opposite of rational, conscious thinking. It is an important and very real part of the brain’s ability to process information.<br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-52757347384717216082016-01-30T11:42:00.000-07:002016-01-30T12:57:47.180-07:00Where's all the art and other interesting stuff<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Where’s the art?</span><br />
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Probably in storage in some museum somewhere. Quartz, a digital business news publication, surveyed 20 museums in 7 countries. While their survey was limited to the works of only 13 major artists, there is certainly enough information to draw some conclusions. Only a tiny fraction of art is actually available for people to view and enjoy. Much of the available work for viewing is purchased art, rather than donated art. And, of course, certain artists are better represented than others.<br />
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Cezanne and Monet were well represented, while Egon Schiele did not have a single work on display despite 7 different museums holding a total of 53 of his figurative works. Washington, DC’s National Gallery of Art has 199 Rothko paintings in storage and only two are on display.<br />
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Since most museums consider archiving, storage, and conservation to be their primary purpose, it seems as if the public’s access to art is far down on the list of importance. One can only wonder how long these museums can keep stacking up the work. And exactly who is all this art being archived for?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Do people who grow up in the arctic see better in the dark? </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NXL0tX8Y_vU/Vqz5119oVsI/AAAAAAAAA9g/jJC8gqPIjhM/s1600/090%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NXL0tX8Y_vU/Vqz5119oVsI/AAAAAAAAA9g/jJC8gqPIjhM/s320/090%2Bcopy.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. Anderson</td></tr>
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Leave it to a cognitive neurophsychology specialist to try and find out. In 2007 Bruno Laeng divided about 250 students from the Arctic University of Norway into two groups: those born above the Arctic Circle and those born below it. Both groups took a test measuring color discrimination. People who live north of the Arctic Circle experience two months each year with no direct sunlight. The only natural illumination during the dark winters is twilight, which tends to have a bluish color.<br />
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Those people born above the Arctic Circle made more mistakes arranging the yellow-green and green tabs, but fewer mistakes arranging the bluish ones.<br />
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And in yet another study Ohio State University psychologist Angela Brown looked through dictionaries for more than 450 languages and found that the closer people lived to the poles, the more their languages distinguished between blues.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nature’s fractal patterns</span><br />
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Marcia Bjornerud wrote an excellent article for The New Yorker, “David Maisel’s Geometric Geographies” about Maisel’s aerial photographs of Toledo, Spain,<br />
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<i>“Classical geometry—Greek for “earth measure”—is not very earthly. We love the serene, eternal, incorruptible form of the circle, and the illusion of mastery that being able to reckon with it mathematically gives us, but the shape itself is rare in the natural world. . . Given enough time, nature prefers other, quieter motifs. Consider the dendritic geometry of a river system. Each tributary stream is fed by creeks, which are fed, in turn, by rivulets of progressively smaller size. Try to determine the system’s total length and a paradox emerges: the closer you look, and the smaller your measuring stick gets, the longer the river becomes. Each level in the hierarchy encloses a smaller but equally complex microcosm. No single scale is more important than any other. Such unruly geometries, which are known as fractals, are obvious and ubiquitous in nature—in weather patterns, mountain ranges, ecosystems . . .</i><br />
<i><br /></i><i>"Architects and urban planners are, on the whole, still acolytes of Euclid. It is rare that a human system develops into a fractal; most become top-heavy, with a few outsize elements dominating form and function. But look closely at Maisel’s images of Vicálvaro and you can see nature reasserting itself, the wind and rain forming notches and rills around the edges of the simple rectangular blocks.”</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">How Real is Reality?</span><br />
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A while back I wrote an article titled “The Problem with the Real in Realism”. I was trying to address the issues of visual perception, learned symbolism, and the impact of language on how and what we “see”. So, of course, I was drawn to this article by Adam Frank “How Real Is Reality?” on NPR.<br />
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Frank’s article details the convergence of the brain-frying science of quantum mechanics and its intersection with philosophy. While the scientists are left scrambling to explain quantum weirdness, we can question the possible fractal pattern in the micro and macro worlds of reality. The Copenhagen interpretation posits that electrons don’t have intrinsic properties like position or spin. It is only the act of measurement (observation) that makes the electrons take on specific values.<br />
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Frank wrote,<i> “Is there something out there independent of us that has specific properties in-and-of-it? Or is it all a mush of potential and possibility about which only our knowledge takes on a stable form?</i><br />
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<i>"The fundamental question remains. How real is reality?”</i><br />
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<i><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://qz.com/583354/why-is-so-much-of-the-worlds-great-art-in-storage/"><span style="color: blue;">Museums are keeping a ton of the world's most famous art locked away</span></a></span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.popsci.com/do-people-who-grow-up-in-arctic-see-better-in-dark"><span style="color: blue;">Do people who grow up in the Arctic see better in the dark</span></a></span></i><br />
<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/david-maisels-geometric-geographies"><i><span style="color: blue;">David Maisel's geometric geographies</span></i></a></span><br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/01/05/462010293/how-real-is-reality"><i><span style="color: blue;">How real is reality</span></i></a><br />
<a href="http://www.carolynanderson.com/Thoughts%20on%20Painting.htm"><i><span style="color: blue;">The problem with the real in realism</span></i></a>Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-50729570740497633832015-12-09T15:40:00.001-07:002015-12-09T18:04:41.597-07:00Color constancy and why some of the science is wrongI am definitely not going to disagree with the science of color constancy, which dictates that the perceived color of an object remains constant despite changes in light. I am disturbed, however, by the insistence of some neuroscientists that color constancy and the way the brain simplifies color information cannot, under any circumstances, be disregarded or compromised. Obviously, in their quest for fundamental rules, they are overlooking the possibility of variables in the science of vision. They are discounting the possibility that some people, especially artists, can learn to evaluate the color of the illuminant or light source and in turn learn to evaluate color more accurately.<br />
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Color constancy is a feature of color perception which ensures that the color of an object will remain relatively constant under varying illumination. Color constancy explains why the grass in your front yard looks green under blue sky, remains green under a cloudy sky, and still looks green during a red sunset. A yellow banana will always look yellow, despite any change in the light which illuminates it, and a red apple will always look red. Without the brain’s ability to discount varying light conditions, acquiring color information about objects would be difficult. Without this ability to stabilize visual information, the world would be a very confusing place.<br />
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The subjective nature of color constancy accounts for the fact that beginning artists often have a hard time seeing color. Shadows will simply look gray, and the yellow banana will be the same color yellow from one end to the other. Beginning artists are not likely to see variation in any local color or be able to adapt to changing light conditions. The idea of cooler north light vs. using a warmer studio light would be confusing. However, the ability to decipher variations in illuminants and to perceive the ensuing changes in the color of objects and the color of shadows can be learned. Most art teachers are going to know this, and so will many painters. At some point, with persistence and practice, we learn to see differently.<br />
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Can we learn to totally discount color constancy? Probably not. But we can and do learn to work with it, and in many cases we can learn to see beyond the visual system’s preference for predictable color.<br />
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We need to understand that color information relayed to the brain is dependent on the evaluation and comparison of the range of wavelengths of light reflected by different objects in the visual scene. This process allows the brain to estimate and dismiss the influence of the light source and assign a constant color to an object or surface. Color constancy is one of the many “programs” running in the background of our visual system.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fw3TjTP9d84/VmioimroSLI/AAAAAAAAA7w/2o_1IipWwXs/s1600/el-pescador-sorolla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fw3TjTP9d84/VmioimroSLI/AAAAAAAAA7w/2o_1IipWwXs/s1600/el-pescador-sorolla.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Fisherman by Joaquin Sorolla</td></tr>
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So, how do you work around this preference for consistent color? Compare, compare, and compare. Ideally, one should evaluate the quality of the illuminant first. Is the light warmer or cooler? Compare a lit area to a shadow and decipher the difference in color temperature. Next, identify the value range. Find the lightest light in the area where you are looking, and then compare to the darkest dark. Try and grasp the relationship of the two by making a mental comparison to a value scale. Is the lightest area close to white? Or a step or two away from white? Do the same with the darkest value, comparing it to black. This is the beginning of using a different form of visual processing. View the scene as a whole, and then pick out the most obvious differences in the pieces of information contained in the whole.<br />
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Now do the same with the colors you are seeing. Look for the “warmest” color notes, those more closely aligned with red, orange and yellow, and then compare with the “coolest” information, blues, greens, and violets. Look for the most obvious differences and then try to assess the more nuanced information. Remember that this is an ongoing process and not a once-and-done thing. Once you stop looking for differences, and once you stop comparing, you will revert to normal visual processing.<br />
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And some of the neuroscientists? Well, it seems as if many don’t think artists can learn to use the brain’s ability to process and compare complex information in a different way. They don’t believe we can learn to see differently. I think this bias is compromising the integrity of their research. Believing seems to be the first step in acquiring new information. Learning to see differently comes from a place of knowing this is possible.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">The Rouen Cathedral series was painted in the 1890s by Claude Monet. The paintings in the series each capture the façade of the cathedral at different times of the day and year. The cathedral allowed Monet to highlight the paradox between a seemingly permanent, solid structure and the ever-changing light which constantly plays with our perception of it. </span></div>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-70381035575782282552015-10-27T08:48:00.000-06:002015-10-27T08:48:58.893-06:00Four ridiculously simply ways to improve your painting<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_p5FbLTcXUA/Vi-Gg8avyrI/AAAAAAAAA6w/oosEw6VymIA/s1600/Dancer%2Boil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_p5FbLTcXUA/Vi-Gg8avyrI/AAAAAAAAA6w/oosEw6VymIA/s320/Dancer%2Boil.jpg" width="215" /></a><b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Stop and Look</span></b><br />
Yes, I know this one sounds obvious, but after 25 years of teaching workshops, I can tell you the most common mistake artists make is to quit looking. I’ve seen far too many artists veer off into trite and predictable painting after a good, strong start simply because they stopped looking at the subject and the canvas with a critical eye.<br />
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This is often the result of what I call “brush-overdrive” which basically means a person will move the brush around on the canvas just because the brush is in the hand. We could also call it “automatic painting” - something similar to automatic writing which is defined as writing without conscious thought. Although we would all probably like some painting spirit hovering overhead telling us what to do next, count that option as not available and deal with the choices at hand. Just because there is a brush in your hand does not mean you actually have to make a mark on the canvas. Moving the brush and actually putting paint down do not always have to go together.<br />
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Develop new habits for looking and painting. Try not to make more than 3 or 4 brushstrokes at a time without stopping or pausing to observe. This gives you a place to use some critical thinking and observational skills before returning to the more creative brush mark. Find your own rhythm, but make sure you are not making multiple brush strokes without intent and without stopping to look.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">2. Stand comfortably with a good view and remember to step back</span></b><br />
Find a comfortable stance in front of the easel that allows you to easily move or alter your stance. (For those artists who sit while painting, try a chair with casters.) Avoid a rigid, fixed stance that prevents you from adjusting your view of the subject and of the canvas.<br />
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Even more importantly, stand at a distance that allows you to see all four corners of the canvas. We have a tendency to paint “things” without regard to the spaces around the “things.” Getting in the habit of seeing the entire canvas makes it easier to recognize that each mark and each shape has a relationship to the whole. Staring at pieces of information is an entirely unnatural act. In our everyday lives our eyes are constantly moving so keep that in mind next time you find your nose inches away from your painting.<br />
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Stepping back from the painting is not just an exercise program for painters. At one time or another, or maybe more often than we care to admit, we have worked feverishly on a painting only to walk away and realize there is no “there” there. The values and color are nondescript and perhaps the drawing information went awry. Standing in a fixed position and staring at pieces of information is not conducive to incorporating all those pieces into an interesting whole. Moving away from the canvas (or yes, even to the side) on a regular basis allows a different view and is more similar to how we naturally see the world around us.<br />
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Also, if you are working on a large canvas, you will need to step back to be able to see the whole of the canvas – all four corners of it. John Singer Sargent would back all the way across the room to view his life-size paintings and then run forward to make a brushstroke.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">3. Squint!</span></b><br />
Take off your glasses, close one eye, squint, or look sideways, but alter how you are looking on a regular basis.<br />
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Squinting is the best for value comparison. (It is not good for color comparison.) Squinting simplifies the information and allows us to see patterns more easily. Finding an interesting and strong value pattern is often the foundation for the entire painting.<br />
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Closing one eye eliminates depth perception and flattens the image.<br />
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Looking sideways or peripherally is an important, but unsung, part of our visual perception. Only the very center of our gaze is optimized for higher visual acuity with the ability to see detail. We don’t usually notice this because we are constantly moving our eyes. This does not mean the rest of our visual field is inferior – only different. Peripheral vision is optimized for coarser information and is used for organizing the spatial scene and for viewing larger objects. Margaret Livingstone in “The Biology of Seeing” suggests peripheral vision is better able to detect facial expressions, and that the spatial imprecision of peripheral vision was an important component of many Impressionist paintings, giving these paintings a sense of time and movement.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4. Mind your brushes</b> </span><br />
Use the right size and type of brush for the task at hand. The paintbrush doesn’t just define information – it creates it. Whether you need texture, or shape, or definition use the proper brush and don’t just default to the one already in your hand.<br />
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Pay attention to how you are holding the brush. While there may be occasion to hold the brush like a pencil, recognize this method is not as conducive to creative and interpretive painting and it is also not likely to create variety and interest in your brushstrokes. Handling the brush like a pencil or pen is most likely to access the neural pathways in your brain that are associated with language and writing. For the sake of simplicity we can call this a left-brain, right-brain problem. The cognitive processes associated with language can easily override visual processing – the parts of your brain that can recognize shapes, compare value and color, find the pattern, and see the whole instead of just the pieces.<br />
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This blog was originally posted on<br />
<a href="http://www.loriputnam.com/blog/category/best-blog-party-ever/">Lori Putnam's Best Blog Party Ever</a><br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-61830579479723758902015-08-31T13:44:00.000-06:002015-08-31T17:29:09.979-06:00The creativity crisisAmerican creativity scores are declining. Research by Dr. KH Kim, Associate Professor at the College of William & Mary, documents a decline on creativity tests at all grade levels starting between 1984 and 1990 and decreasing ever since.<br />
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Kim’s findings document a decline in all aspects of creativity, but the biggest decline is in the ability to take a particular idea and expand on it in an interesting and novel way. More than 85% of children in 2008 scored lower on this measure than did the average child in 1984. According to Kim, “children have become… less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, and less likely to see things from a different angle.”<br />
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So what exactly is creativity and why are we having such a problem with it? First of all, creativity is certainly not just the domain of the “arts”. The University of Georgia’s Marc Runco calls this “art bias.” The continuing belief that the arts have a special claim to creativity is unfounded. When given creativity tasks both engineering majors and music majors had the same patterns of response.<br />
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Creativity is not just right brain dominance; it is the ability of the brain to discern information from both hemispheres and to use convergent and divergent thinking (such as linear and non-linear thinking). Trying to solve a problem with only the right side of your brain would result in ideas on the tip of your tongue and just beyond reach. <br />
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The initial process of problem solving begins with the left brain analyzing obvious facts and familiar solutions. If the answer is not available, both the left and right hemispheres activate together to process the less obvious information. This more distant information is what we normally tune out, and without it we are less likely to find abstractions, unseen patterns, and alternative meanings. Once a connection is made, the left brain then processes the information into a new idea. Without the process of divergent thinking, using both hemispheres of the brain, we are completely dependent on only the most obvious and already recognized thoughts and ideas.<br />
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Unfortunately, many people are uncomfortable with the change and uncertainty that accompany creativity. It is easier and more comfortable to deal with what we already know (and think we see). According to Kim, the “decrease in originality scores is an indirect measure of growing social pressures toward conformity and status quo, and increasing intolerance for new ideas.”<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">“Yes, There IS a Creativity Crisis” by KH Kim Jul 10, 2012<br />“As Children’s Freedom Has Declined, So Has Creativity” by Peter Gray, Psychology Today Sep 27, 2012<br />“The Creativity Crisis” Newsweek Jul 19, 2010</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Lemon" by Euan Uglow</td></tr>
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Euan Uglow described to an interviewer the inspiration for his still life Lemon (1973):</div>
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"I'll tell you what Lemon is about ... It's the dome at Volterra that Brunelleschi was supposed to have helped with. It's most beautiful, very simple, very lovely. I couldn't paint the dome there, so when I came back I thought I'd try to paint it from a lemon."</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Snail" by Henri Matisse</td></tr>
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Henri Matisse gave up painting in the last years of his life to create paper cut-outs. These were made by cutting or tearing shapes from paper which had been painted with gouache. Matisse said the technique allowed him to draw in color. His daughter said her father made many drawings of snails at the time of the work “The Snail” (1953) and that the idea for this work came from these drawings. The concentric pattern formed by the colored shapes in the center of the work echoes the spiral pattern found in the snail’s shell. </div>
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Matisse said, “All this time I have looked for the same things, which I have perhaps realized by different means . . . There is no separation between my old pictures and my cutouts, except that with greater completeness and abstraction I have attained a form filtered to its essentials and of the object which I used to present in the complexity of space, I have preserved the sign.”<br />
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4072218856185778770.post-34554495193870760682015-07-15T09:52:00.000-06:002015-07-16T10:48:17.390-06:00Disney meets SorollaA while ago as I was trying to explain the concept of warmer-cooler color to a group of students, I could tell some of them just weren't getting the meaning of color pattern. The next morning, while reading the morning paper in my hotel room, I came across several images from a Disney animated film. They were excellent examples of design with color temperature. A frame would be either primarily warm or primarily cool with accents of the opposite color temperature.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FXXpAXiW4zU/VaWiy2T9PGI/AAAAAAAAAoM/lwLQXKcjXCI/s1600/disney%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FXXpAXiW4zU/VaWiy2T9PGI/AAAAAAAAAoM/lwLQXKcjXCI/s1600/disney%2B1.jpg" /></a> I clipped the pictures from the paper and took them into class. As I held the images up and explained the use of color it was apparent this example made an impact. Why? Because the images were simplified and the colors were easy to identify. They used basic color notations and were easily seen as primary and secondary colors. And once the identification of color was made, it was just as easy to see the pattern of warmer-cooler colors.<br />
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Understanding color temperature is complicated by the fact visual experience and, in turn, most paintings are composed of subtle variations that have little resemblance to a color wheel. It is difficult to compare a grey or tan to a primary or secondary color. But if we learn to identify the most obvious information first, deciphering the rest of the visual information becomes just a little easier.<br />
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William F. Reese gave his students good information when he instructed them to: 1. identify the hue – red, yellow, blue or green; 2. adjust the value which is often to lighten by adding white, then adjust the temperature by using adjacent hues from the color wheel; and 3. adjust the chroma (intensity of the color) by using the complement if necessary.<br />
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I can’t say I am as directional nor as organized to follow this method of color mixing, but it certainly helps clarify the process.<br />
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The work of Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923) provides some great examples of color temperature and the pattern of color information. Many of his paintings have a clarity of color and a pattern of warmer-cooler color that is reasonably easy to identify.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Promenade on the Beach by Joaquin Sorolla</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Children on the Seashore by Joaquin Sorolla</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Child's Siesta by Joaquin Sorolla</td></tr>
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Carolyn Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921623061575108003noreply@blogger.com0