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

 NEW ORLEANS ON SITE RABBIT'S MOON     STUDIO JOURNAL

During our stay here in the Big Easy we are trying to chronicle as much about the area as we can for you.  They one thing about a new environment for artist is that you have new eyes, nothing is common place.  In your own world one becomes used to seeing things and forgets to look closely at times.  When ever an artist is in a new environment, it is like you have fresh eyes, you see every thing anew.  It is a like a shot of adrenaline, hundreds of new images coming at you and every thing seems new..because it is to you.  We were coming out of Drago's Restaurant (a wonderful seafood restaurant) and across the parking lot these electric lines outside a building.  The white on white, the shapes forming an abstract composition of alien tentacle like soldiers, and the lines almost in motion..like wind blown...still frozen in motion from Katrina and the wake of destruction it left. The straight lined contrast of the bricks against the curved caps of current connectors makes for an interesting juxtaposition.
These make me think of Louise Nevelson and her mono toned collages in New York.  See what you think.  I will include some of Nevelson's work for you to compare.
I am not sure yet how I will use these photo's in my work, or just let the work be the photo...but I seem to want to do more, so we shall see where it leads. The more i look at them, the more they speak to me and seem to want to say more!  

STUDIES IN LINE, SHAPE AND TEXTURE 

Metairie Electric Lines         photo by elizabeth gordon  

Metarie  Electric Lines          photo by elizabeth gordon

Louise Nevelson                            from google image

from google image

GIVE YOURSELF A TREAT, GO TO A NEW AREA, A NEW ENVIRONMENT, TAKE A CAMERA OR SKETCH BOOK...AND THEN SIT BACK AND WAIT..IT WILL BE IMAGE ON IMAGE, NEW SMELLS, NEW SOUNDS, AND NEW IMAGES.  I PROMISE YOU IT IS A TREAT FOR THE ARTISTS'  SOUL.

Studies in line, design, shadow and nature.

As you look at these pictures you might decide they are done in the same geographic area, but they are not. The first two are photo's taken in Southern Florida in the summer while the pictures

in these last scenes are taken in Asheville, N.C. in the fall.

The study of lines and shadows lend very easily to other art work, line drawings, paintings, abstractions, and other media. The slant of the sun depending on the season, the cast of the light, the sharp contrast of light and dark seem to speak in terms of emotion and memory. The trees are rich in texture and also define positive negative spatial areas. You can feel the differences in the photos as feel as see the differences. The later in sepia tones makes one think of old and memories. It is almost a visual diary, and a way to study for future art works.