19 Factors That Impact Compositional Balance Imagine a boulder leaning too far over the cliff’s edge. Seeing that boulder you think it should come crashing down the mountainside. It’s out of balance and you feel the tension of the impending crash. A similar feeling happens in your visitors when the composition of your design is visually out of balance. In a couple of previous posts I talked about visual balance and in each I briefly mentioned the idea of visual weight in order to achieve visual balance. There’s more to visual balance than I mentioned in those previous posts and I thought the topic deserving of its own post. Composition 8 by Kandinsky (above) is a study in visual weight, direction, and balance. What is Visual Balance? Visual balance (PDF) results from 2 major factors, visual weight and visual direction. Consider the image below of a small block and a large block on a lever. You likely see the larger block as being much heavier than the smaller block. Optical Center Objects and elements balance around a point. Summary
Art and the art world Most Popular Artists The most popular artist searches last month: a not-to-be-taken-too-seriously measurement of which famous artists have the greatest "mindshare" in our collective culture. Moving up: Edgar Degas (#22 to #12), Titian (#28 to #18), and realist painter Janet Fish (appearing for the first time on the list at #29). Moving down: Joan Miro (#13 to #19), Wassily Kandinsky (#11 to #24) and Paul Gauguin (#21 down to #32). How we measure popularity: In order to eliminate any kind of selection bias due to search engine ranking, external links, etc., we only count internal links from our own search box and our artist listings.
LUSH LIFE 2 Exhibit @ Roq La Rue | MonsterFresh.com “Diorama of Endless Desires” oil on canvas 48″x 60″ image SOLD New York has the Jonathan Levine Gallery among others. Los Angeles offers art venues like Gallery 1988. San Francisco is the birthplace of Upper Playground with galleries like Fifty24SF and Fecal Face. Last year Anderson curated a group exhibit at Roq La Rue titled, LUSH LIFE. “While many galleries in the “underground”/Pop Surrealism art scene have increasing turned towards street art, Roq la Rue has decided to instead focus on the more formal, Symbolist -inspired painters in the genre. Beginning last Friday, March 12th, and running all the way until May 7th, is the sequel to that event, LUSH LIFE 2. If you are interested in acquiring any of the available pieces and/or viewing them in person, please contact Roq La Rue at : 2316 2nd Avenue Seattle, WA 98121-1710 (206) 374-8977 Gallery is open on Wed – Sat. or visit Roqlarue.com “The Ghost Of Laura From The Reeds” [Click Image to View Detail] “Laura From The Reeds” study “Stage One”
3D Paintings on Panes of Glass Using multiple layers of clear glass, Canada based David Spriggs and Chinese born Xia Xiaowan, transform flat artwork into 3D sculptures. Viewers are treated to different shifting perspectives of the works based on where they stand in the art space. Spriggs work revolves around powerful explosive imagery, often resembling storms, cosmic blasts or firework like explosions. Xiawan’s “spatial paintings,” which often feature distorted figures, are drawn individually using colored pencil on tinted glass. See Also INCREDIBLE 3D ILLUSTRATIONS JUMP OUT OF THE SKETCHBOOK For more on David Spriggs see his beautiful website at davidspriggs.com or for more on Xia Xiaowan see Wikipedia Above and Below: Xia Xiaowan’s distorted 3D figures Artist: Xia Xiaowan Below: David Spriggs beautiful paintings fill the room with stormy emotion. Artist: David Spriggs Artist: David Spriggs Source: amusingplanet.com
142 Fantastically Funky Modern Furniture Designs Funky Furnitures: 142 Creative Modern Furniture Designs Article by Urbanist, filed under Furniture & Decor in the Design category. We sit on it during the day, sleep on it at night, eat off it and even look at our reflection in it – but how much thought do we really give our functional and space-saving furniture and the rooms we have full of it? 18 Brilliant and Bizarre Modern Bed Designs We spend a third of our lives in them so why not make our beds the center of attention, the most marvelous, strange and sensational pieces of furniture we own? 20 Uncomfortably Cool Contemporary Chair Designs We drag them around the room, sit on them on and off throughout ever day, but rarely see them as more than utilitarian seats. 16 Marvelous Modern Table Designs They sit at the center of rooms and are the focal points of meals and other gatherings but all too often they are simple rectangles. 24 Crazy Contemporary Clock Designs 18 Wonderful Ways to Hang your Hat or Coat
Kris Kuksi Apocalyptic Sculptures by Kris Kuksi is a 36-year-old sculptor from Missouri, USA. His sculptures are created out of discarded toys, old mechanical parts and other tossed away items. The sheer amount of detail within is work is truly incredible. He is able to create entire worlds that almost appear frozen in time. According to Kuksi’s artist statement, his work is “feeling that he has always belonged to the ‘Old World’. In any case, Kuksi’s mindblowingly detailed toy sculptures remind us that trash and discarded materials can be refashioned into nearly anything we want.
Chinese Artist Huang Guofu Paints Using Only His Mouth & Feet Huang Guofu didn’t let the childhood accident that left him armless at the age of four interfere with his love for painting. Instead, he taught himself to paint with his feet at the age of 12. He recalls staying up all night at times just to practice. Guong soon started traveling to different cities to sell his artwork; after hearing that his paintings lacked elegance because of his technique, he taught himself to use the brush with his teeth. His effort and dedication have not gone unnoticed. (Via CNTV)
Artist Alexei Antonov Light and Shadow: Update on Artist Kumi Yamashita » Combustus “Origami 25,” Kumi Yamashita For readers who may have missed the Combustus article, ”The Ungraspable Shadow,” published on September 21, 2012 (Combustus.net) in which Kumi Yamashita is one of the artists interviewed, please find it reprinted below: Hemingway Did you tell her how daddy puts the barrel in his mouth every morning Just so the taste won’t surprise him when he finally pulls the trigger And how, in those last days he understood why Hemingway did it Just not why he took so long Did you tell her of long nights in silent dark when only seen were shadows ~Scottish poet, Craig Murray Jennifer C. “The substance of shadow is ephemeral and indeterminate, but it is heavy with meaning in life and in art. Kumi Yamashita When I first encountered the shadow art work of Kumi Yamashita, I was intrigued, although at the time I couldn’t fully say why. There is strong shadow where there is much light.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen And that’s it, of course. Dark Charms Vantage