Let’s imagine a fantasy class which gives equal weight to science and art. The design concepts behind Starry Night by van Gogh are just as important as the molecular arrangement of sulphur. The prime means of engagement is the sketchbook that students keep. They draw and write, in equal measure, as they learn. The class […]
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26Oct
2017
LIGHT AND DEATH
2017
People who have had near death experiences typically describe the experience as a passage into light. I could not help thinking about this as we experienced James Turrell’s Perfectly Clear (1991) at Mass MOCA. This is one of his immersive Ganzfeld installations, in which the boundaries of space and time are dissolved. The museum docents […]
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22Oct
2017
THE SHOCK OF THE OLD
2017
When I see an architect’s office, I can’t resist looking in the window. And I always see analogue drawings scattered across desktops. There are usually computer generated representational color images on the walls. But on the desks, there are pieces of paper with pencil lines. I just finished reading The Shock of the Old by […]
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19Oct
2017
ABSTRACTION AND REPRESENTATION
2017
Transparent Drawing is not abstract. Yet most people, when presented with Transparent Drawing, describe it as abstract. For most of us, the drawing either looks real or it does not. And if it does not look real, then we say, almost without thinking, well, that’s abstract. This leads to the question, what is between representation […]
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16Oct
2017
OIL PAINT, THE MEDIUM
2017
The problem with oil paint, the medium, is that it is opaque. “The special qualities of oil painting lent themselves to a special system of conventions for representing the visible. The sum total of these conventions is the way of seeing invented by oil painting.” p. 109 When you have great creative minds representing the […]
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12Oct
2017
ACRYLIC INK
2017
The drawing above was done using acrylic ink rather than watercolors. Turns out, acrylic ink behaves nearly identically to watercolors. It applies easily with the same watercolor brush that you normally use. The washes are transparent. The application of a wash over a wash that has dried does not lift the first wash. And the […]
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9Oct
2017
BEHIND OPAQUE WALLS
2017
Jung admonishes us to see behind opaque walls. The last chapter of Carl Jung’s book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, includes this passage: “…for me the “dividing walls” are transparent. That is my peculiarity. Others find these walls so opaque that they see nothing behind them and therefore think nothing is there. To some extent I perceive […]
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5Oct
2017
HOUSE DRESS
2017
All of this drawing of Kawakubo’s garments got me thinking about form and space. Form as in something interesting and unique to look at. Space as a volume for a human. One of the most common complaints about her dresses is that they have volumes attached to them which are not functional. These formal additions […]
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2Oct
2017
ALL THE DESIGN DISCIPLINES
2017
Transparent Drawing is for all the design disciplines. Industrial Design? We have touched on it at the page Industrial Designers Do It Better. And then recently, I covered the Olivetti Valentine typewriter: see Sotsass at Met Breuer. Fashion Design? As if I have not drawn enough of Kawakubo’s designs already, above is another Transparent Drawing […]
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