further thoughts to yesterday

some of the exercises we did in Judy's workshop dealt with focal point. I found this to be very useful. First of all we looked at magazine advertisements and tried to work out what methods were being used to create a focal point for the product. Mood came into it somewhat, but generally there were things like enlarging the product compared to other parts of the advert, having the main portion of the image in neutral colours while the product was highlighted in a colour, using line radiating from or pointing to a product...sometimes combined with the highlighting of colour by having various accents of the same colour throughout a scene which would lead the eye to the product.

This to me was something so simple to do but something that could really be a useful tool if you were looking to ensure you brought the right focus to the right part of your work. I can see looking for adverts that represent those principles and then doing compositions in which you tried to create similar effects in materials and subject matter relative to the way you work.

Some of the ladies let me take photos of how their exercises had gone. Here the one darker stamped image stands out because it is slightly different, so it becomes the focal point.
The other key principle I at last began to understand was rhythm. We were told to draw a line and stamp images along the line, but in different positions. We tried straight or curved lines. This photo of the work by this lady already looks so interesting and it is just an exercise in a workshop!
The analogy Judy gave that helped me to understand what was happening was the analogy of music. After all, music is where one normally finds rhythm. The exercise above helped things to click, because I could see the resemblance to notes on a page of music. The flow of the notes as recorded on paper echo the up and down movement in the tune. and the repetition of images in various positions relative to a real or imagined line gives that same effect.

Further to that, Judy used the analogy of musical notes and the difference of value. For instance, if you had the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony...da, da, da, DUM. There is a specific pattern of rhythm that works. Even in writing the sounds above, you can see a rhythmic pattern. And so too, if you were to repeat images in a similar way, you would create a visual rhythmic pattern that works. For instance, Judy suggested using stamped images. So, in the case of the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, you would stamp 3 images of one size and then one which was larger/ or even for more emphasis, a larger one of a different colour.

That is just a very small explanation of the concept but the mind boggles at the potential! I am so impressed! I have generally managed to have things which work after much auditioning because I have finally got them to the place where "they look right" but to be able to have an idea ahead of time of what I already know would look right, could bring benefitial changes to the way I work.

Wow, I am going to have fun considering these things and seeing how to use them!