CLASS NOTES:
CG130 Drawing & Design Fundamentals

Below are the notes I took while reading through the "Design Basics" textbook assigned to this course. Frankly the tectbook seemed more like a glossary of terms with examples than anything functionally skills-based, which I had somewhat expected of an intro to drawing class.

Raw notes without much interpretation:

Content is what artists want to say, form is how they say it.

Thinking, Looking, Doing

Unity... some visual connection beyond mere chance having caused them to come together.

Composition = Organization = Design

Gestalt theory of visual psychology
-Viewers tend to group images
-Negative (empty) spaces will also be organized
-The brain tends to relate and groupobjects of similar shape

Proximity contributes to unity
Repetition contributes to unity (color, shape, texture, direction, angle)
Continuation contributes to unity (line, edge, direction from one to another)

Continuity - The planned arrangement of various forms so that their edges are lined up.

Unity With Variety
Unity without variety can invoke our worst feelings about assembly lines and institutions.

Focal Point / Point of Emphasis
Can initially attract attention and encourage the viewer to look further

When everything is emphasized... nothing is emphasized.

Emphasis by contrast (direction, value, color, form, style, size...)
Emphasis by isolation
Emphasis by placement

A specific theme may, at times, call for a dominant, even visually overwhelming focal point.
[Side Note: I submit that in Design, you must have an overwhelming focal point.]

Balance
Ddistribution of visual weight within a composition

Symmetrical Balance
Like shapes are repeated in in the same positions on either side of a vertical axis.

Asymmetrical Balance
Dissimilar objects that have equal visual weight or equal eye attraction.

Radial Balance
All the elements radiate or circle out from a common central point.

Crystallographic Balance
An equal emphasis over the whole format - the same weight or eye attraction literally everywhere.

Balance by Value & Color

Balance by Position and Eye Direction

Rhythm
Movement of the viewer's eye across recurrent motifs providing repetition.

Alternating Rhythm
motifs alternate consistently with one another to produce a regular (and anticipated) sequence.

Progressive Rhythm
Repetition of a shape that changes in a progressive manner.

"Kinesthetic"
A term used when visual experience actually stimulates one of our other senses.

Implied Line
Created by positioning a series of points so that the eye tends automatically to connect them.

Psychic Line
A mental connection between two points often occuring when something looks or points in a certain direction, which our eyes invariably follow.

Line as Value
Crosshatching

Linear Painting
An emphasis on edges with the resulting separation of forms making a clear definite statement.

Shape / Form
Considered to be two dimensional. [Side Note: The textbook merges the two words together, but are only talking about shapes/outlines/edges/etc.) A visually perceived area created by either an enclosing line, or color or value changes defining the outer edge.

Design / Composition
Basically the arrangement of shapes

Naturalism
As seen in nature

Distortion
Purposeful changes/exagerrations of the forms of nature

Idealism
Reproduces the world not as it is, but as it should be... nature improved on...
all the flaws, accidents, incongruities of the visual world are corrected.

Abstraction
A simplification of natural shapes to their essential, basic character.

Rectilinear
Suggesting geometry

Curvilinear
Natural, soft flowing shapes found in nature

Texture refers to the surface quality of objects
- Tactile: actual depth be it ink/paint/objects coming out from the canvas
-Visual: reproducing the color and value patternsof familiar textures

Pattern
Repetitive design with the same motif appearing again and again

Size - Hieratic Scaling
Some figures are portrayed larger simply to show their status and importance
to the people around them, who are thus smaller in scale

Arial/Atmospheric Perspective
Use of color value to show depth

Linear Perspective
As parallel lines recede they appear to converge and to meet
on an imaginary line called the horizon, or eye level.

Transparency
When two forms overlap and both are seen completely

Equivocal Space
Two forms overlapping, but no clue which is on top (See the intersection of the image below)

Value
The artistic term for light and dark [Side Note: Over simplified.]

Value Pattern
The arrangement and amount of variation in light and dark, independant of the colors used.

Chiaroscuro
The artistic device of using light and dark to imply depth and volume

High value contrast seems to come forward.
Areas of lesser contrast recede or stay back.

Shading
Use of Value in a work of art.

Color (Additive System)

Hue
Name of the color (Red, Green, etc...)
Describes the visual sensationof the different parts of the color spectrum.

One hue can be varied to produce many colors.

12-Step Color Wheel (Subtractive System):

Complementary Colors
Directly opposite in position and in character
Example: Blue and Orange (See Chart Above)

Value
Lightness or darkness of the hue

Intensity
Brightness of a color (Chroma / Saturation)

Simultaneous Contrast
When complementary colors are places next to one another, they
intensify each other's brightness, so that the colors appear to vibrate

Cool Colors
sky, water, plant, grass
blue, green
Tend to recede

Warm Colors
fire, sun
red, orange, yellow
Tend to advance