Designing Abstraction

Artist's Statement: 

The idea for this project came from that matrix above, which was an exercise on the elements and principles of design. The idea was to combine just a few of these principles, into a final product. I chose Space, Value, Movement, and Form for my final product, and ended up with the above result. I think that the hardest part was the idea generation, because there was no subject to be based on. I found that it was really hard to stick to the 4 that I chose, because my idea of art includes almost all of the principles and elements, perhaps with a few more emphasized than others. For instance, you can tell that there is a bit of a lack of balance in the final product.

the matrix was designed to be an exercise, so I had decided to test myself, and use multiple mediums. for the first column, Space, I used sharpie pen, because I wanted to accentuate the positive and negative space. For the second column, Color, I used colored pencil, because I liked how they turn out when burnished. For Shape, I used a normal ballpoint pen, because I wanted the focus to be on just the shapes and not on anything else. for Form, I used graphite, so that I could shade. For value, I knew I wanted to use a color, because Value ment values of color, no a grayscale, so I used the ren that I had to create multiple values of red. For Texture I used a sharpie pen and made it so that the strokes added texture. And finally, for Line, I used again, a fine tipped sharpie pen. This meant I could make thin lines.

I had a lot of trouble with this project. However, I think that in the end, it was very good for me to do it. It really challenged me to think about things in art that I had not thought about before. I learned a bit more about using the principles and elements of design intentionally. I also learned that when I'm not enthusiastic about a project, and don't know what to do idea wise, it shows. This is particularly true when I'm on a deadline, and have to get the art done by a certain time.