Before an artist begins a piece of artwork, there are many things he or she considers. One of them are the Principle of Design. They are given names such as unity and variety, contrast, emphasis, balance, movement, repetition and rhythm, and economy. The principles of design are used by artists to organize the so-called visual elements(lines, tones, shapes, textures, and colors) into a unified drawing. One of the elements I will be focusing on in this blog is unity and variety. Variety is the the diversity or multiplicity in an assortment, collection or group. Unity is the state of being unified or together as one. The following are five examples of using unity and variety effectively.
In, this artwork by Jacob Lawerence, he established visual themes with the lines, shapes, and colors of the train seats, figures, and luggage, and then he repeated and varied those themes. There is repetition in the green chair seats and window shades. As a unifying element, the same red is used in a variety of shapes. The many figures and objects in the complex composition form a unified design through the artist's skillful use of abstraction, theme, and variation."
Excitingly, I never thoguht Grant Wood's American Gothic would of variety and unity in it stil I researched it. The three-tined shape of the pitchfork in Wood's painting is repeated exactly in the clothing. It is also repeated in the windows and vertical lines in the house. On the other hand, curved shapes surround the woman's head - in the broach, curved edge of her dress and background trees. This repetition of shape unifies the painting, while the differences between the vertical and curved shapes give the painting a balancing sense of variety.
In this piece by Malcolm Harding, unity and variety is prominet. The many shapes of color keep your eye on the piece, exspecially the random blue circles. Harding created unity not only by using mellow, soft colors like pink, yellows, reds, and oranges, but by his grid-making through out the whole artwork. The grid unifies every element so that it appears on one plane.
Holly Clark's piece uses a variation of a grid system for her basis. The broken-image style breaks the piece into sections which gives a good variety to keep the viewer's eye on the page.The color and black and white throughout the painting gives a sense of unity. Nothing looks out of place.
In this artwork by Rudolph Russi, the many uses of color and style give much variation to the piece. The sense that he painted the buildings in a a way style instead of the normal, cliche straight buildings give a lot of variation to the painting, while still keeping unity. We, as the viewer, know if you have one building, its more than likely they are going to be more aorund it, therefore creating a town. A town is one, therefore creating unity. Also, Russi uses one light source that is used to capture all the buildings, making them more closely realated.
Though you need variety and unity in your artwork to make it more asethic, you can have too much an ineffective balance between unity and variety. These are images that are either boring because of lack of variety, or too chaotic because of too much. The followingare examples of ineffective balance of unity and variety.
This piece is a good example of too much unity. You may think the different colors in the background give some variety, but sense they used colors that every person knows, it doesn't work. They uses one shape through out the entire piece, a circle. There is nothing that keeps your eye on the art work.
This piece shows no variation, I believe, whatsoever.They used a smooth yellow for pears , but used a mellow orange for tomatoes. When I think of a tomoato I think of bright red.They used white for all the napkins; therefor giving no variation. The piece itself comes off to be boring because of the normal setting a lot of people paint these days.
In this case, the use of repeition does not give the effective use of unity the right way. It gives too much inity because it is the same element over and over again. It does not have much variety which doesn't give the viewer to interpret the piece in many ways than one.
This a great example of too much variety. There is so much going on, that you don't know where to look first. It doesn't seem to have an area of focus. There is so much little detail that you almost dont want to waste the time looking at it.
For my last part of my entry, this piece also has to much variety and unity. The same color scheme throughout, an the feeling of repeition does not give enough variety. The picture seems monotones and bland. It is not very eye appealing.
A lot of art work that I have created deals a lot with Africa and Kenya. When my twin sister went over to South Africa for a mission trip, she came back with tear dropping stories. The images of children seem to be my favorite because I feel that when you look into their eyes, you understand waht they are going through. I think when images like these are created, viewers HAVE to stop and study it. 
If you first glance at the artwork, you don't think it is anything special. But Chuck Close paints his portriats with a unique style of combining colors and a grid form. I have done a portrait of my boyfriend in his style ( which seemed to take ages) and I plan on using his style more and more. 
I am not sure if after high school years that pointallisms are cliche or not, but they intrest me enough to keep doing them. I've done over ten images of people in pointillisms, and even though they take just as long as the Chuck Close style; when you stop and look at it when you are completed....it was all well worth it. I think pointillisms with pin create a unique detail that not even pencil can create.
This image makes me smile every time I look at it because I couldn't even image how he did this. Mc Esher's unique style is a style that I am intrested in studing and trying to use as a lift to create my own style. His "eye picture" is also very intesting to me, and I have borrowed his idea and changed it for my own artwork. 
Self portraits! This is something that as a future arist, that I hope to get better at. I believe something harder to draw other than people, is yourself. 
I'm not really intrested in this image, but I am intrested in the subject: death. I am intrested in drawing what people don't want to see. Mainly because I don't know, and I belive other pople don't know what really goes on after death. 
Images with childrens or babies hands against adults are very interesting to me. The hands show the life span from early birth to adulthood, which opens a wide variety of interpretations.
Since I grw up on a 76 acer farm, landscapes of farm settings seem to intrest me also. It is something that a lot of people think is an good subject in a painting because not everyone has lived on a farm. The picture gives them the sense that they have been on one..if you paint it right. ;)
Water drops and fluid I believe always make for interesting images. One because they are "see through", and two is because you can play with water or any fluids color to make it more interesting.
Lastly, I enjoy penciling, watercoloring, charcoling, sculpting, and even painting leaves. I think no matter what medium you use, the viewers naturally creates the color and texture of leaves because we have all jumped in a pile of them sometime inour lives. If you look closely, leaves have more detail that a lot of things in this crazy world.
