At minus 30 there is not much growing outside today but… I am discovering more about visual literacy. It is fascinating to read and see that over the years I have learned a lot about this by just doing it. I love to collage and placement is more than half the battle. there are some examples of my bookmarks in the paper gallery. I move and rearrange things all the time and I find there are combinations of shapes that contrast and add energy and that just where they are on the page is important. I always thought that was just me being fussy but no, it is part of how we communicate with pictures.

Interestingly, using my camera and photoshop has also taught me more than I realized about composition. For example when I’m cropping I always have the overlay of one of the “third rules” shapes. And you won’t be surprised when I tell you that I do not rely on the rectangular division of space into thirds, I prefer to use the spiral or the triangle.

I did some exercises to see if I could relate what I was reading to something I might draw or make. We all know that line is one element that is crucial to drawing or painting, another is the dot. And I learned this in a fabric painting workshop a long time ago discovering for the first time I could begin to see how one added perspective by using dots. Those of you that draw regularly and cross hatch or shade to create depth will laugh, but it was the single dot massed here and there that taught me how that happens. So I proceeded to play around with dots on a small piece of paper. On the second one I used lines, and realized how line is a big part of tentangle patterns if you’ve seen any books on that art -doodling form.