Study group - shape design 1

This month the Love Life Drawing study group focus is on shapes. Simplifying shapes into CSI curves. Making them feel organic. Some guidelines included making them asymmetric in form and using more obtuse than acute angles. The first exercise was in the three parts. Part one asked us to just make a bunch of shapes on a page. The abstract nature of that request kind of broke my brain. Without something to try to picture I just get lost. You can see in a few places I decided to draw recognizable things, like my laptop or a Star Trek logo.

For part two, I was to divide the page into four quadrants and make shapes that were similar within each quadrant, using a variety of sizes to differentiate them and give a pleasing design. I started in the upper right, still being very abstract, but as I proceeded (counter-clocking), I got less abstract. I don’t know what those tube dome things in the upper left are supposed to be, but they got me thinking about mountains and their fractal nature. When you zoom in on any given piece, you see the larger patterns repeating. That’s how I wound up trying to paint a crashing wave in the bottom right.

And then I painted some clouds based on a sunrise picture I took the other morning. This was a very quick painting, I’m sure you can tell. I don’t know if my clouds exhibit clear shape design, though. Maybe I’m doing okay on that front. We’ll see.