Tuesday art related post. Click to see image
 https://www.facebook.com/josephdculp/posts/10101686876672996Â
 This one is more theoretical, it is a piece of my "everything theory", which is an illusory, but useful concept in which a theor or artist tries to capture as much analytical subject matter as they can possibly know about in some sortof mental map for the sake of becoming fluent. Fluency is the prerequisite to become Fluid in your Technique as an artist (or linguist, musician, dancer, actor, cotton candy vendor etc.. etc..). Fluid artists "shred" so duh I wanna be one of those people!
"Ok Joe? Whats this apollonian stairstep bullshit you ramble of?"
This is a stepped dimensional system that categorizes visual elements that have a hand in drawing/painting representational narrative pictures, note that its chopped off at 8 cause I don't know enough about 8 or 9 to talk about them guud, 9 might even be beyond verbal categories anyways. This will be a simple overview, I'll go in depth on this shiz in future posts.
0: Breathe smooth and regular, relax and let your mind empty of distracting stuff like emotions (Moebius was big on that). "Play exciting, not excited". The Zero stage is usually most important in any endeavor, and has to do with unlearning bad habits.
1: The stroke. Learn it left handed and right handed so your brain gets cross-connected. The only letters in the visual realm are "CSI.", everything visual is "spelled" or constructed outtof those "letters". Curves, Counter-curves, straights and dots. For myself strokes come in 6 elemental forms, which is my bastardized version of Wu Xing teachings. Air, Fire, Wood, Water, Metal, and Earth strokes all have different characteristics that you can use to create contrast in drawing. More on that in subsequent posts...
2: Shape (the 2nd dimension, see wat im doin?). This is the domain of looking at a subject as flat, like a map within a framework. The color wheel and value scale fall here, with values being the most important subject to learn about right behind the framing, proportional measurements, poise, and relative placements of the shapes themselves-all that is known as "Drawing". It sounds very simple but counting is a good skill to have when dealing with a map of shapes.
3: Form. Now we are officially creating illusions which appear to exist within the picture frame! Perspective and section lines and all that 3d jazz. Its good to keep in mind that just like shapes, forms are spelled with Cs Ss and Is, but those letters can twist and move in more spatial directions now! This is the stage where camera and lens is introduced. Lens changes the appearance of form by including more or less perspective within the frame. One contrast with form I like to think about early is if it is organic or hard surface, which leads us to-
4: Material. All the forms you see are made of stuff, stuff can be plasma, gas, liquid, solid. It can be brick or the fuzzy fur on an animal. It gives form its weight, shows cleanliness, damage, dirt and grime, manufacture or growth. Learning about material gets real scientific, cause at the end of the day its all molecules. Material possesses different values, colors, textural information-which goes right back down to number 1! All Materials possess different levels of reflectivity-diffuse and specular. Reflectivity requires us to talk about light...so....
5: Light. This is where things get fun, where we get mood and effect. You gotta know how it works though, and it works in conjunction with every stage discussed thus far to show us the world that we live in. Light works with material and form in specific ways, I like to think of some general effects when designing light for an image. Brilliance, shadow (includes material rake), diffusion, reflection (bounce), particle or atmosphere (which is diffusion,but used specifically), refraction (cool effects of clear stuff). Its simple good practice to ask which of these effects is taking place in an image. Other than that we have the shape (or form) of a light source, its relative strength, placement in the scene (I will talk about using light maps in the future) and color. Then we have exposure, which goes all the way back to the value scale (in 2). If you wanna deal with realistic light, you gotta deal with sound value structure first.
6: Action. Now we are dealing with time. Gesture and Movement. I remember hearing that animators are the best drawers, which really stuck with me. Watch a cartoon and you'll see drawers who know timing like a musician, and the moves of dancers and fighters. Movement is as varied as stroke, we are moving a stylus to create images that evoke movement in illusory worlds. This is why the number 6 is shaped like its spiraling in on its self, because in a fundamental way we are dealing with the same forces that govern number 1. Yet just drawing people punching each other or a waterfall that looks like its moving is incomplete without...
7: Story. The Holy Number. You can have completely shitty art (technically) and a great story and it will be much better than the inversion. However, since we are dealing with a visual medium you gotta realize that we tell the story through visuals- this is cinematography, and has to do with the phenomenology of art (like, maybe my story is BETTER with "shitty" art dudeeee). I think its cool to be familiar with tropes, just so it really sinks in that everything has been done before. Every idea has been thought of, but How and Why you tell your story will be what gives it its unique heartbeat.
Stay fluid my friends,
Joey C
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