Kara Walker is an artist from California, who went to Rhode Island School of Design. At a first glance, many of her art has a similar style. Which includes two toned black and white drawings and of figures that are the highlight. Her artwork ranges from being a silhouette artist, painter, installation artist, print maker and more. But Walker’s work is actually a lot more complex and deep from just one look. Walker is famously known for her silhouette figures, which explores areas in race, gender but also the figures/characters are known to give a certain violent type of atmosphere. Her style goes over history of slaves and she adds a storytelling depiction in her work. Kara Walker does lots of paper cutting of life sized figures into her artworks. Some images of her work that I found interesting are included below.

Source: https://www.moma.org/artists/7679?locale=en&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl9T23br05wIVkJOzCh3o9gYDEAAYASAAEgLj_PD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

For this project the first step was to gather images of buildings. I chose modern and minimalist styles of building designs. At the same time, I was tracing buildings lines and layouts, Doing line and mass drawings to show subtle differences. I took images of the whole process and the final was organized into a book. Also, I combined the buildings and the favorite parts into my own building which is the last final design. I have included photos during the project.

Intro

• Attracting Attention – a focal point is useful in catching the audience attention
• Examples of point of emphasis include, lines leading up to the center, unique sizes, color and contrast and even close ups
• Bad scenarios are when details in a design look the same either in scale or shape
• Focal points can be more than one

Ways to Achieve Emphasis

• Emphasis by Contrast – creating light in dark designs, a certain boldness, clear against blurred and white among black
• Emphasis by Isolation – when there is no overlapping or clustered, and isolation/space is balanced well
• Emphasis by Placement – using different points of view and having a equal balance

Degree of Emphasis

• One element – Certain themes can attract the viewers eye
• Maintaining Unity with a focal point – the focal point with unity is used to create a harmonius pattern

Absence of Focal Point

• Emphasizing the Whole Over the Parts – sometimes emphasis can be on all of the parts of a design rather than a single point
• the designer chooses the emphasize a whole surface

Intro

• Unity means a visual connection of elements in design
• Harmony exists through unity and is to show relation
• Examples of designs include repetition or similarities in color
• Visual Unity is important because parts and elements have to co-exist and have meaning so that the audience notices a pattern instead of little pieces

Gestalt

• Gestalt is theory of visual psychology
• Perception in which an artist makes clues for the viewer to find through pattern and unity

Achieving Unity

• Proximity – making elements appear closer to show sense of belonging
• Proximity needs to exist because it acts as a unifying factor in composition aka design
• Repetition – element that repeats from colors, to shape
• Continuation – when a line, or element continues from one to the next
• Continuation is important to show how the eye sees a design and the directions control the eye to see the bigger picture
• Grid – dividing a page in horizontal and vertical lines and grid acts as an aid to several designs

Unity With Variety

• Starting with a simple design but making interesting changes to catch the audience eye
• Changes that include different rhythms, light and shadow, texture and other arrangements
• Strong emphasis on unity, repetition, variety, size, form , color, and gesture

Unity at Work

• Unity in Film – dedication to script and the unification of people in wardrobe, lighting, and characters
• Unity in Painting – finding variety, patterns, and attention to light are all unifying elements to think about