Color Symbolism

Link: http://www.colormatters.com/symbolism.html

This article describes the way certain colors can symbolize different things for different people. It points out the two main ways that color can convey different meanings: natural associations and physical or cultural associations. While some colors will mostly communicate the same emotions or meanings to anyone because of natural association(like blue for calm water or sky and red for fire or blood), colors can also mean different things to different cultures because of social traditions and customs. The article explains that it is import to recognize how colors can communicate meanings in order to make successful designs.
I learned from this article that it is very important to understand the way different colors like red, blue, and green can create certain feelings in a design that depend on the culture and natural associations of the viewers. Since I am majoring in graphic design, this lesson will help me when deciding on certain colors for a design. The color choices that I will make when designing something will depend upon the emotion or response I will want for a audience or costumer. With the use of the right colors, I can better convey the message of my designs and create the right emotional response or feeling in the viewer.

David Heath Art and Color Analysis

There were many of David Heath's beautiful masterpieces shown at the recent art show on campus. Many aspects of his paintings contribute to the beauty of his works, including texture, composition, and realism, but the most distinguished aspect is his use of color. He excellently uses hues, values, tints, and shades to convey depth and shape that almost make the picture pop out of the frame.

David Heath's most notable style that is visible in all of his paintings is the way he paints the atmosphere and the sky, which create a sense of distance and stillness in the pictures. One of his most famous paintings, "Morning Light", is a perfect example of how he uses color to create depth. The hues in the painting are of relatively low intensity, and it has an overall bluish hue that brings the whole painting together and adds peace and stillness.
To create depth, he adds a bluish hue to the objects that are farther off into the distance in the painting, which visually pulls the distant mountains and trees back. He then uses an orange hue for the landscape that is closer to the painting's viewpoint. Also, the highlights of light in the trees and water in the painting are made with yellow hues, while shadows and dark areas are made with dark shades of blues and greens. These contrasting colors, although very subtle and of low intensity, are very pleasing to the eye.
Overall, David Heath gorgeously and masterfully uses color in his painting "Morning Light" that convey a sense of peace and beauty, while at the same time create almost perfect realism that makes it seems like you could simply walk into the painting.

Shapes Project

I chose the subject of food, and more specifically fruit, for my shapes project. I developed a still-life type of design and I decided to make to compositions of the same design, one as curvilinear and one as rectilinear.

I definitely learned a lot in this project, most of what I learned was specific problems from working with the materials. I first drew a few quick sketches of my design until I had refined it to the final layout. I then lightly sketched my design on the bristol paper so that I could use that for size and proportion when cutting out my shapes. I used card stock paper for almost all of my project. After I had cut out all of my basic pieces and glued them to the background, I realized that I wanted to add a little depth, so I added shadows and highlights to some of the pieces in the composition.

I learned a few things when I made this project because I hadn't worked very much with these materials before. I learned the differences between certain glues, and how best to use each one(and how not to use them). Also I discovered that tissue paper would be very difficult to glue and cut for this project, so I opted to not use it(after messing up first). Overall, I definitely enjoyed this project and learned how to do better the next time.

Lines in Communication

In the game of pictionary that we played in class last week I learned a few things about how simple lines and forms can communicate to the viewer. The most obvious thing that I learned is that it does not take many lines in a picture to convey a message. I also observed how very simple lines in a drawing can express emotion, movement, and can emphasize certain main points of the picture. Some examples of this are the use of arrows that point to important symbols and faces that show emotion. As the drawer in the game, I learned that in order to portray something in my drawing, I had to try to draw the most recognizable thing that relates to the subject. This shows that it is important to know what your audience is familiar with so that you can better communicate to them through things they recognize. Overall, the game definitely gave me a good experience about using simple shapes to describe a subject.