Theme: Visual Representation (form and composition)
Guidelines: Create a composition using repetition, containing only geometric shape(s) and black and white colour.
Technique: Painting
Living the Good life
Attitude, Gratitude, Love-
Living in the now
- Cynthia Sageleaf (Sageleaf.C. 01/22/2018)
I chose to use this Haiku written by Cynthia Sageleaf as the positivity and inspiration struck me. I find that so often these deep words are used within poetry, but how often do we act on them in our day to day lives and really think deeply about what these words mean. As we live in such a busy world, sometimes we can become so consumed in the things that aren't that important.
I began my process of analysing my Haiku more closely. I started with brainstorming the key themes, that I felt the haiku displayed, of these themes I selected the 3 I felt I resonated the most with, they were Mindfulness, Infinity and Love.
After this, I studied each theme more closely. Carrying out iterative studies. This is a cyclical process, where you rapidly prototype, different possible options and designs. This was a new process that I had never done before, and it definitely helped me when deciding on my final design. This is because often I narrow down my ideas and go with the first one I think of, whereas carry out the iterative studies allowed me to rapidly think of more than one possible option for my final design. Which evidentially resulted in a better final outcome. This then resulted in me having 9 different design studies, 3 for each key theme.
I then refined my ideas. The goal of refining is to pick one out of the 9, that I liked the most. For me, of the 9 designs, I really liked 3 of them in particular.
I then started to sketch some of the ideas. At first, I really liked the design that I believe showed the Mindfulness theme. This was the small circles, that formed a big circle.
I wanted to incorporate the Gestalt Principles of grouping within my design. Gestalt Principles of grouping areProximity, Similarity, Closure, Continuation, Area and Symmetry. With the sketch of the small circles being placed in a group to make a larger circle, showed closure, as well as similarity and continuity as I wanted the circles to follow a spiral pattern, as I felt that the circles being placed in a spiral showed life starting small and growing bigger and bigger.
I liked the idea of using the geometric shape of a circle because I felt that circles showed a cycle, of closure and fullness. Circles are also infinite as they have no end and no beginning. Which I felt worked well with the idea of mindfulness.
My second favourite sketch included the circles, however, with the lines inside the circle. I liked this sketch because it hinted at the idea of being central, and being in the moment, I felt that it also created details on the circles. The final and third sketch that I really liked with the lines that were connected but moved up and down. I liked this idea because the lines were infinite and connected.
However, my idea for this sketch came from a mindfulness practice that I carry out when I have a moment in my day. The mindfulness practice is a breathing technique where you draw the line upwards as you breathe in, and when you draw the line down the paper you breathe out. I liked this idea because I was incorporating something I do every day at the moment, in order to help reduce my stress through the hard time's we are faced with the global pandemic of COVID-19.
I then decided that my theme was going to be mindfulness, and that I was going to create my design using mindfulness practices. I decided to use paint as my technique, as painting I believe is very therapeutic and has so many inner health benefits, for example, it is known to improve concentration, help relaxation and give you a positive mindset. I felt these qualities also fitted in well with the haiku.
From doing this breathing practise myself I always find that the more lines I draw, the deeper your breathing becomes and as you become more relaxed, naturally your lines get thicker. I wanted to incorporate this idea into my design, that as you become more relaxed the breathing gets deeper. I also wanted to incorporate a circle into my design, because of of the fullness feeling of a circle, and contentment. Another breathing practises that I do sometimes is just drawing circles as well, breathing in for half and breathing out for the other half. These are both great mindfulness techniques and why I wanted to bring them into my design. Therefore I tested putting the breathing lines into a circle, which resulted in my final design.
My final design incorporated some of gestalts grouping laws, including closure, as I didn't draw the circle the breathing lines created the circle and the continuity of the lines as they were all connected.
This is my overall process of how I came to my final design!
My Final Design
Mindfulness
References
Sageleaf.C.(2018) 20 Haikus to Inspire You https://www.intuitiveandspiritual.com/posts/poetry-haikus/