Category Archives: Skill

Digital morphogenesis

Digital morphogenesis is a type of generative art in which complex shape development, or morphogenesis, enabled by computation. This concept is applicable in many areas of design, art, architecture, and modeling. The concept was originally developed in the field of biology, later in geology, geomorphology, and architecture. In architecture, it describes tools and methods for creating forms and adapting them to a known environment. Stanislav Roudavski describes it as similar to biological morphogenesis: developing gradually, without an explicit definition of the methods of growth or adaptation. Parallels can be seen in emergent properties and self-organization.” Developments in digital morphogenesis have allowed construction and analysis of structures in more detail than could have been put into a blueprint or model by hand, with structure at all levels defined by iterative algorithms. As fabrication techniques advance, it is becoming possible to produce objects with fractal or other elaborate structures. “In this inclusive…

Xerox art

Xerox art, also known as copy art, electrostatic art, or xerography is an art form that began in the 1960s. Prints are created by putting objects on the glass, or platen, of a copying machine and by pressing “start” to produce an image. If the object is not flat, or the cover does not totally cover the object, or the object is moved, the resulting image is distorted in some way. The curvature of the object, the amount of light that reaches the image surface, and the distance of the cover from the glass, all affect the final image. Often, with proper manipulation, rather ghostly images can be made. Basic techniques include: Direct Imaging, the copying of items placed on the platen (normal copy); Still Life Collage, a variation of direct imaging with items placed on the platen in a collage format focused on what is in the foreground/background; Overprinting,…

Visionary art

Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. History The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, first established in 1946, is considered to be an important technical and philosophical catalyst in its strong influence upon contemporary visionary art. Its artists included Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner and Arik Brauer among others. Several artists who would later work in visionary art trained under Fuchs, including Mati Klarwein, Robert Venosa, Philip Rubinov Jacobson and De Es Schwertberger. Definition Visionary art often carries themes of spiritual, mystical or inner awareness. Despite this broad definition, there does seem to be emerging some definition to what constitutes the contemporary visionary art ‘scene’ and which artists can be considered especially influential. Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism and Psychedelic art are also direct precursors to contemporary visionary art. Notable visionary…

Trompe-l’œil

Trompe-l’œil (French meaning for “deceive the eye”) is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions. Forced perspective is a comparable illusion in architecture. History in painting Though the phrase, which can also be spelled without the hyphen and ligature in English as trompe l’oeil, originates in the Baroque period, when it refers to perspectival illusionism, trompe-l’œil dates much further back. It was (and is) often employed in murals. Instances from Greek and Roman times are known, for instance in Pompeii. A typical trompe-l’œil mural might depict a window, door, or hallway, intended to suggest a larger room. A version of an oft-told ancient Greek story concerns a contest between two renowned painters. Zeuxis (born around 464 BC) produced a still life painting so convincing that birds flew down to peck at the painted grapes. A rival, Parrhasius,…

Tradigital art

Tradigital art is art (including animation) that combines both traditional and computer-based techniques to create an image. Background Artist and teacher Judith Moncrieff first coined the term. In the early 1990s, while an instructor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Moncrieff invented and taught a new digital medium called “Tradigital”. The school held a competition between Moncrieff’s students, who used the medium to electronically combine everything from photographs of costumes to stills from videotapes of performing dancers. Moncrieff also referred to her business entity (formerly “Moncrieff Studios”) as “Tradigital Imaging” around the same period. Moncrieff was one of five founding members of the digital art collective called “Unique Editions”. These five artists—Helen Golden, Bonny Lhotka, Dorothy Krause, Judith Moncrieff, and Karin Schminke—combined their expertise in traditional studio media and techniques with digital imaging to produce original fine art and editions. The artists met in June, 1994, at “Beyond the…

Fiber art

Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labour on the part of the artist as part of the works’ significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility. History The term fiber art came into use by curators and art historians to describe the work of the artist-craftsman following World War II. Those years saw a sharp increase in the design and production of “art fabric.” In the 1950s, as the contributions of craft artists became more recognized—not just in fiber but in clay and other media—an increasing number of weavers began binding fibers into nonfunctional forms as works of art. The 1960s and 70s brought an international revolution in fiber art. Beyond weaving, fiber structures were created through knotting, twining, plaiting, coiling, pleating, lashing, and interlacing. Artists…

Textile arts

Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization, and the methods and materials used to make them have expanded enormously, while the functions of textiles have remained the same. The history of textile arts is also the history of international trade. Tyrian purple dye was an important trade good in the ancient Mediterranean. The Silk Road brought Chinese silk to India, Africa, and Europe. Tastes for imported luxury fabrics led to sumptuary laws during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Industrial Revolution was a revolution of textiles technology: the cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the power loom mechanized production and led to the Luddite rebellion. Concepts The word textile is from Latin texere which means “to weave”, “to braid” or “to construct”. The simplest…

Spin art

Spin art is an art form that uses paint, a canvas such as glossy cardboard and a spinning platform. It is primarily used to entertain and expose children to the process of art creation, although it can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Techniques To create spin art, an artist initially decorates or drips paint onto a canvas. The canvas can be anything; however, the most common form of canvas is a small rectangular piece of cardboard. Before the paint on the canvas dries, the artist secures the canvas to a platform that can be rotated at high speed. Once the canvas is secure, the artist can then begin spinning the canvas. Most spinning platforms are electrical or battery operated, with more elaborate platforms enabling the artist to vary the rotational speed. As the canvas rotates, centrifugal forces draw the wet paint outwards, creating intricate designs. The artist can…

Range-finder painting

A range-finder painting, sometimes called range-finding painting, is a large landscape painting produced as a training device to help gunners improve their accuracy. Historically, the best-documented use of such paintings was in the United States during World War I. History During World War I, some military gunnery training was carried out indoors. While it is relatively simple to train gunners in range-finding (that is, estimating the correct distance for their shots) outdoors, it is difficult to train them in long-range gunnery indoors. To solve this problem, the British and U.S. militaries tested the use of large landscape paintings showing distant sites for range-finding and target-sighting in indoor gun ranges. These so-called range-finder paintings proved so successful that a program was organized in the United States to produce them in larger numbers. They were also used to teach soldiers how to draw military maps in the field and how to identify…

Origomu

Origomu (Japanese: オリゴム) is a movement originated in New York City by Chilean artist Tatiana Pagés in 2009. It is the practice of recycling plastic waste into wearable art. Artwear that inspires both creative thought and a greater sense of stewardship toward our planet. Origomu comes from the Japanese ori, meaning “folding”, and gomu, meaning “rubber”. Every year, thousands pieces of plastic and debris threaten the lives of shore birds and marine animals, harming our environment. Origomu can make a difference – no matter how far you are from the nearest shore. The Origomu movement advise people to cherish the environment, transform waste into beautiful artwear. Origomu go beyond environmental awareness. We need to inspire people to create solutions, such as a biodegradable plastic, or one that could rapidly break down without harming the natural environment. For example of the 6-pack carrier, whose company put an end to the environmental…

Penmanship

Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil, but throughout history has included many different implements. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called “hands” whilst an individual’s style of penmanship is referred to as “handwriting”. Manual writing is the activity of writing by hand with a writing instrument, for example a pencil or a ballpoint pen. The result, especially for handwritten books and letters, is called a manuscript or a manuscript. Handwriting is also the name of the individual typeface typical of human writing, and in the figurative sense something that characterizes his work. Technically, manual writing has much in common with drawing. The same tools are used as writing and drawing instruments, as well as the same dyes and substrates (eg paper). However, manual writing differs from drawing in…

Sgraffito

Sgraffito is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in pottery, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting slip or glaze, and then in either case scratching so as to reveal parts of the underlying layer. The Italian past participle “sgraffiato” is also used, especially of pottery. The term sgraffito is a decoration technique for processing wall surfaces. After applying different colored plaster layers, parts of the upper plaster layer are scraped off and parts of the underlying plaster layer are exposed, so that an image is created by the color contrast. The technique was used especially in Italy and Bohemia in the 16th century, but is still used today. Sgraffito is counted among the stucco techniques. Likewise, certain “scratching techniques” for other types of color application are referred to as…

Sfumato

The sfumato is one of the pictorial techniques which produces, by glazes of a smooth and transparent texture, a vaporous effect which gives to the subject imprecise contours. “It consists of a way of painting extremely soft, which leaves a certain uncertainty on the termination of the outline and on the details of the forms when one looks at the work closely, but which causes no indecision, when one places oneself at a just distance (EM) “. The sfumato, in Italian “as the smoke”, opposes the vigor and the accentuation of the line that is called, in classical painting, “feeling”. The sfumato is one of the four canonical painting effects of the Renaissance. The other three are union, chiaroscuro (or chiaroscuro) and cangiante. It should not be confused with the atmospheric perspective, which is the subject of quite another theoretical reflection and is not generally obtained by the same means.…

Scumble

A Glaze or Scumbling is a thin transparent or semi-transparent layer on a painting which modifies the appearance of the underlying paint layer. Glazes can change the chroma, value, hue and texture of a surface. Glazes consist of a great amount of binding medium in relation to a very small amount of pigment. Drying time will depend on the amount and type of paint medium used in the glaze. The medium, base, or vehicle is the mixture to which the dry pigment is added. Different media can increase or decrease the rate at which oil paints dry. Scumble is a technique similar to glazing, except that the coating is opaque, and is just painted on very thinly to allow bits of the paint below to shine through. Scumbling works by a principle similar to that used by pointillists, mixing colors optically. While most painters glaze with dark colors, scumbling is…

Resist Techniques

A resist, used in many areas of manufacturing and art, is something that is added to parts of an object to create a pattern by protecting these parts from being affected by a subsequent stage in the process. Often the resist is then removed. For example in the resist dyeing of textiles, wax or a similar substance is added to places where the dye is not wanted. The wax will “resist” the dye, and after it is removed there will be a pattern in two colours. Batik, shibori and tie-dye are among many styles of resist dyeing. Resist-dyeing is a widely used method of applying colours or patterns to fabric. A substance that is impervious to the dye blocks its access to certain areas of the fabric, while other parts are free to take up the dye colour. Tie-dyeing involves pinching areas of cloth and tying them tightly with thread…

Pounce

Pouncing is an art technique used for transferring an image from one surface to another. It is similar to tracing, and is useful for creating copies of a sketch outline to produce finished works. The spolvero is the Italian term (from the word polvere “powder”) which defines the transfer technique of a preparatory drawing on the support of the pictorial composition. This technique is also called a stencil transfer technique. This method was used extensively in the Italian Renaissance in the work of the workshops and especially the difficult one of the frescoes on the vaults of the buildings. Dust is a pictorial technique that allows you to draw a drawing on different surfaces. In the “dusting” you first draw the full size on a preparatory cardboard and with a needle or other tip you drill the contours of the drawing. Next, the perforated cardboard is supported on the surface…

Mathematics and fiber arts

Ideas from Mathematics have been used as inspiration for fiber arts including quilt making, knitting, cross-stitch, crochet, embroidery and weaving. A wide range of mathematical concepts have been used as inspiration including topology, graph theory, number theory and algebra. Some techniques such as counted-thread embroidery are naturally geometrical; other kinds of textile provide a ready means for the colorful physical expression of mathematical concepts. Counted-thread embroidery is any embroidery in which the fabric threads are counted by the embroiderer before inserting the needle into the fabric. Evenweave fabric is usually used; it produces a symmetrical image as both warp and weft fabric threads are evenly spaced. The opposite of counted-thread embroidery is free embroidery. Stranded mathematical objects include Platonic solids, Klein bottles and the child’s face. Lorenz was created using manifold and hyperbolic plane claws. The work of hyperbolic plane crochet was embroidered by the decoration institute of the designs…

Impasto

Impasto is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface in very thick layers, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provides texture; the paint appears to be coming out of the canvas. Impasto The color can also be applied so thick that individual colors are mixed directly on the painting surface and not on the palette. After drying, the relief-like structure is retained. Because of their rather thicker consistency and their long drying time, which can be extended by adding linseed oil, especially oil paint is often used for Impasto. Also, acrylic paint can be used, while the short drying time of the paint is often extended by appropriate painting medium. Water or tempera paints can not be used for Impasto because of their liquid consistency.…

Frottage

In art, frottage is a surrealist and “automatic” method of creative production developed by Max Ernst. In frottage, the surface texture of an article or material is transferred to a laid paper by rubbing it with chalk or pencil. A continuation of this technique by other means can be found in the nitrofrottage. Unlike a “Abklatsch”, a Abreib-process to reproduce engraved inscriptions, the technique is not the faithful reproduction of a model, but is itself an artistic stylistic device. For example, colored surfaces receive the structure of fabrics, wood grain, coarse stone slabs, leaves or other. Frother techniques are usually used in combination with other artistic forms of expression such as collage or complement traditional techniques such as oil or watercolor painting. This technique consists of superimposing a certain support, such as a sheet of paper or a canvas on a surface having more or less marked reliefs, such as…

Trois Crayons

Trois crayons refers to a drawing technique using three colors of chalk: red (sanguine), black, and white. The paper used may be a mid-tone such as grey, blue, or tan. The drawing technique with three pencils uses three pencils on paper: black chalk, blood, and white chalk. The paper used is of average value (gray, blue or brown). The black stone gives the main lines of the drawing, the shades and the cold tones, the sanguine gives the warm tones and the white chalk serves for the highlights. This technique was prized in the eighteenth century by artists like François Boucher, or Antoine Watteau. The two-pencil technique uses only two pencils, usually black chalk and white chalk. Black stone is used for shadows and white chalk for lights. In the eighteenth century, the craze for drawing, and especially the drawing with three pencils lead the engravers to innovate by inventing…

Stippling

Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists. The Stippling, also puncture stitch, puncture engraving or Opus Mallei is a graphic gravure printing process. The pictorial representation does not result from lines or surfaces, but only from points in different thickness and density, which result in a grid. In modern graphics, this technique is rare. The engraving process puncture is to be distinguished from the etching method puncturing manner. For the puncture, punctiform depressions are made in the pressure plate, which usually consists of a brightly polished copper plate, resulting in different brightnesses. For the puncturing style these depressions are engraved in a hard ground applied to this pressure plate and then etched into the pressure plate with acid. Different magnitudes result from how closely…

Hatching

Hatching (hachure in French), In drawing and engraving, as in painting, hatching is the line of a set of straight or curved lines that is used to produce a shade of half-tone, not an outline. Hatching is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. (It is also used in monochromatic heraldic representations to indicate what the tincture of a “full-colour” emblazon would be.) When lines are placed at an angle to one another, it is called cross-hatching. The hatch pattern has existed since prehistory, both in drawing and in pottery decor, either as a decorative motif or as a drawing technique. In engraving and drawing, the role of hatching is to produce different gray values, depending on their thickness and density relative to the white of the support. The hatches are not perceived as individual entities of…

Grisaille

The grisaille, in painting, is a pictorial technique synonymous with chiaroscuro, or chiaroscuro, as Vasari specifies it. It uses only shades of the same color to imitate marble, stone, bronze (fifteenth century). It is similar, by this principle, to the monochrome, in its variant with several tones of the same color. It has often been used to prepare, sketch, prefigure a final painting (like sinopia). It is also used in the stained glass technique, in gray, by adding metal oxides before firing the glass. A grisaille is a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco illustrated. Paintings executed in brown are referred to as brunaille, and paintings executed in green are called verdaille. A grisaille may be executed…

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is an oil painting technique, developed during the Renaissance, that uses strong tonal contrasts between light and dark to model three-dimensional forms, often to dramatic effect. The underlying principle is that solidity of form is best achieved by the light falling against it. Artists known for developing the technique include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt. It is a mainstay of black and white and low-key photography. The chiaroscuro, on a two-dimensional image, like a wall, a panel, a canvas, a photographic print on paper, gives the illusion of the relief, volumes by imitating the effects that light produces on these volumes in space real. The modeling, this representation of volumes, can be done by other means than by the chiaroscuro, as was the case in the Middle Ages. With the chiaroscuro, the more or less enlightened parts are clear or in the shade. Depending on the illuminated, smooth,…