Still More Dots

Icon With Le Parc Dots

Here's one from the Archive of Indecision. It's on cradled plywood so I've had it hanging on the wall just by the doorway where I walk into the kitchen, and every time I walked by I felt slightly annoyed because I hadn't solved it yet. So today I took it off the wall and placed it on the library table. Suddenly these dots started jumping on!

The sharp white corners at the top pointing toward her head were bothering me. I knew the purple paint was trouble the moment I started putting it on over two years ago. I think if I get rid of some of the white lines I may be happier.

Now that little red dot on the left is pissing me off. I need to punch out two more small purple ones if I can find more of that paper. . .

I really like the way the pink thai unryu looks over the shadowy areas.

Today's Dot Play

I have a few jars of marking pens, a sketch pad, and my circle templates next to my bed and every night I design a few dots. Today I printed two series: the off-center primaries (above) and the orange and green targets (below) as 3.5 inch dots. Tomorrow I will see what they want to do on 20x20 inch canvas. (Better yet, a 24x24 inch one.)

I Don't Know Why

I really like this for some reason.

Green Grid No. 2

Green Grid

This is from the back side of another marker drawing. It's a bit of a departure as the grid itself has been highlighted in green.

In this second example I cut and pasted purple dots, pink dots and green squares from the original drawing. It's interesting to note how the green outline can be totally dropped out using Enhance - Adjust color - Replace color.

In Progress On Grid

Here's a work in progress utilizing some of the marking pen dots shown in a previous post. The grid was created with black acrylic paint and masking tape.

892 Unique Ways: The Movie

I think about grids a lot. I would be lost without some sort of grid to support my dots. Pattern thrives on a grid. So I was excited to learn from The Design Observer Group (via things magazine) that there are 892 unique ways to partition a 3x4 grid into unit rectangles. Hugh Dubberly's article is illustrated by a lovely poster which can be downloaded in .pdf format. And there is also a neat video clip which runs you through all of the possible configurations.

Now if you increase that area to 3x5 I wonder how many more variations would be possible? I'm sure librarians everywhere would like to know.

Moon Dots for Peter

Here's Another One

There is something so satisfying about this process. It's like having unlimited Colorforms. I'd like to have this one on fabric.

Colorforms were invented in 1951 when two art students, Harry and Patricia Kislevitz, began experimenting with flexible vinyl as an alternative to paint. Colorforms were one of the first brands in the toy industry to be advertised ("It's more fun to play the Colorforms way!") on television. I loved the colorful basic shapes set as a child. Didn't you?

Paul Rand (designer of the IBM, UPS and General Electric logos) created the Colorforms logo.

I Can't Stop

Diagonal Marker Cross

Another new discovery: the "magnetic" lasso! Now I can cut and paste shapes with irregular outlines.

This exercise is done with a scan from the reverse side of the previous Marker Cross drawing. I love how the markers bleed through the paper and look like watercolor.

Marker Cross

Amazing tool, that Photoshop lasso. It has freed me from the limitation of the dot shape for cutting and pasting.

More Marker Dots

These are from scans of the back side of marker drawings, which bled through the sketch book paper. I love the effect. Then I manipulated in photoshop.

Here's another version of the one with the green pin-wheel. It looks like it was painted in watercolor. I figured out how to use the lasso tool to outline one of the white areas behind the four dots. Then I painted the area yellow with the brush. Then I cut and pasted the shape so the white and yellow areas alternated. I re-applied the dots to the yellow areas using cut and paste also. Then I rotated a square area (using the square brush selection tool) in the center to get that ribbon candy shape.