STUDIES IN GROCERY PARKING LOT

IT'S ALL IN THE DETAILS!

I was waiting in the car and a bit bored while my partner and a friend were in the grocery store getting a few supplies.  So I started studying people and the cars around me.  There was also a big trash truck that had interesting rust and markings.  I reached for my little Lumix camera and began to look for interesting shots and angles. I began to see lines, shapes and patterns.  As my eyes honed in for details I turned my camera this way and that, then I came in really really close on certain part, what happened was very interesting.  I guess it is a way of saying there are no small moments in art. If you train your eye to look as artist do you can see the most amazing things that you miss in every day life. There are amazing colors that are faded my the sun, or darkened by shadow.  There are marks, scratches and a rosetta stone of communication on old trucks and pick up trucks.  If we just look there are natural and man made compositions everywhere.  The study of the shovel on the dump truck is one example.  I played with the size, the cropping and the color.  I could have also tried black and white devoid of color. And when there is monotones just set off by a red or another bright color it adds emphasis to the composition.  In this area of the mountains there are many cultures that peak through, I tried to capture one with the Confederate flag and wolf tag.  And lastly reflections, a glass and a mirror offer a double reflection, if you look closely you will see it.  
It is just handy to keep a small camera or a sketch book with you at most times within reach.  So many times things catch your eye, that never happen again and it is missed.  You know those times and say to yourself, " I just wish I had a camera".  I am the same way with sound, I would love to gather bits of sound to use in an installation or an interactive sculpture.  

Studies in texture, color, shape, line and shadow can be found anywhere

The slanting line in this shot was interesting to me contrasted against the
shape of the steering wheel…and 

Look at your world of art elements and principals!

Line in the chair back, pattern and unity on the tile floors
Columbia, Tampa

Pattern and Texture and Unity

They are there everyday, you may not name them or know them, but part of our human function of order and arrangement is a long formed sense of placement over 1000 of years, many cultures and many creative ideas: they are  the elements and principals of art!  

Dominance shape form line

Texture   line  form              South Carolina Refuge Park

  Line and shape,  Metairie Louisiana 

unity              Jacksons Square New Orleans

line  and color, Lake Pontchartrain 

Repetition and Unity and Shape Mac Dill AFB, Tampa

Asheville, North Carolina    Repetition and shape and form

Lake Santee, South Carolina    texture

line  Asheville, North Carolina

Leicester, North Carolina          line and repetition

shape, form, color and Unity

Asheville, North Carolina line, perspective, shape

Lines, Colors and Shapes/Asehville, North Carolina, Blue Ridge Mountains

These photo's remind me a great deal of some early paintings Georgia O'Keefe did with she first lived in New York City. She had a way of abstracting the obvious to the point you did not always realize what you were looking at. The contrast of light and shadow is so dramatic this time of year. The angle of the suns light is perfect.

Textures and colors of Asheville, North Carolina

I noticed once in New Orleans how different grates and storm drains can be. New Orleans puts a moon and start design on their man whole covers. Each area is different and each country more so. But you just look closely, you see diamonds, chains of diamonds. Look closer you see rectangles, squares, circles and half ovals. The colors ar blues, blue grey, silver, brown, rusty orange, while speckles and black. If you look longer you may see green or other colors I missed. If you are a painter you will name the colors better than me, a non painter.

Bird Bath in Blue

Bird Bath

I do not do cute well and rarely do functional ceramics. I am much more concerned about texture and color. This piece is not one I considered a wonderful piece in the beginning, but it has grown on me. I added most of the design on the sides with my handmade stamps. The whitish tan areas are where I rubbed away the glaze. The birds seem to like it, the cats drink from the blue waters and the summer rains keep it full.