 | Unsubscribe or share at bottom of post! Or subscribe here! PS: All of the art work you see in this post is available for purchase. Email me for information. |  Patterns of shapes can be quite compelling, like this simple circle doodle repeated. | Last month I started a short series about the Sensory Alphabet. I began with some ideas and exercises about LINE. If you missed LINE, check out this link and catch up with the conversation. This month we look at SHAPE, another of the "elements" that are both input and output for your creative work. Input means what you notice, what your senses perceive and which "channel" of perception is the strongest and richest for you. Output is what you create and how you use SHAPE (or LINE or MOVEMENT, ETC.) to make whatever it is you make. Perhaps it's a textile work; maybe it's a course plan, or a video or even a meal. Noticing and exercising our sensory strengths are ways to develop a personal unique style in our art work and our lives. During the next seven months we'll explore these elements of form (and perhaps some of their cohorts, the unifying elements). |  The Road: Spring | SHAPE
As I write in The Missing Alphabet:
"“Shapes shape other shapes.” As shape finders we look for symmetries, for foreground and background, the donut and the hole, for the whole of the thing that is greater than its parts. Putting puzzles together is playing around with shape, and so
is the literary love of beginning, middle and end. Pleasing shapes play their part in our neighborhoods, our furniture, our plates, platters, shoes and cars. Shape makers include sculptors and typographers, mathematicians with their worlds of symmetries, microbiologists, industrial designers and couture clothiers. We shape play with shells and rocks, clay and cookie dough, big bouncing balls and smooth, sleek kitty cats."
from _The Missing Alphabet_. Art to the left by
Mary Ruth Smith
Bonnie Gorsuch
Mitjili Napurrula -Watiya Tjuta work from Australia
Ian Hundley |  I notice cacti, mostly because of the SHAPES. | SHAPE is one of my strong suits as a tool for perceiving and creating. I love to notice shapes, find my eye drawn to positive and negative shapes. At art museums and galleries I always notice the SHAPE-Y work first. I collect objects with well defined and clear shape profiles -- rocks, shells, pottery, balls of string, big flower shapes. leaves and acorns from my Burr Oak. What about you? |  SHAPES can be layered. And composing with a strong shape is a good way to look at composition. | Some questions to answer about how you use SHAPE in your creative work. What kinds of shapes do you doodle on napkins, notecards and the item formerly known as a phone pad? What shapes show up at the tip of your pen or pencil. Do you like clear, well defined shapes that are simple and concrete, easy-to-describe? Or amorphous, vague, or organic shapes that can't be defined by a word label? Do you work with shape in a “flat” 2-D world? Graphically, all one plane? Or as three-dimensional shapes, whether you paint or sculpt them? Do you layer shapes in your work? Are the layers close together or far apart? Can you see through them or around them? Do you show space through layering? Or light? Or size? Or all of the above. |  Detail of art quilt designed from the shape painting above. I used layering apps, different color palette and appliqué to add more layers and meaning. The title is Season: Heartbreak | |  My shape collage from the word NOISE. | Here's a quick exercise with SHAPE:
(as with other Sensory Alphabet activities, it's good to do these with a friend or two --even remotely, sharing with photos -- so you can look at your different approaches). 1. Gather a few sheets of paper, different colors that you like.
2. Cut and/or tear shapes that you like. First make a stack of 10-20 and then pick out your favorite ones. To make it more interesting, pick a one-word theme for the shapes you cut and collage (ex. RAIN, ANGER, BOREDOM, TRAFFIC).
3. Experiment with composition, and then glue down your shapes in one that you find most pleasing. Pay attention to the negative shapes around those you glue down. Alternatively , take photos of the different compositions with your smart phone.
| 1. | Gather a few sheets of paper, different colors that you like. | | 2. | Cut and/or tear shapes that you like. First make a stack of 10-20 and then pick out your favorite ones. To make it more interesting, pick a one-word theme for the shapes you cut and collage (ex. RAIN, ANGER, BOREDOM, TRAFFIC). | | 3. | Experiment with composition, and then glue down your shapes in one that you find most pleasing. Pay attention to the negative shapes around those you glue down. Alternatively , take photos of the different compositions with your smart phone. | |  Even noisier! SHAPE collage altered with MegaPhoto and FotoDa. | REFLECT 1. What was fun about this exercise? What appealed to me the most and why?
2. Did I like working fast or slow?
3. How is my shape collage different from those of my friend/s.
| 1. | What was fun about this exercise? What appealed to me the most and why? | | 2. | Did I like working fast or slow? | | 3. | How is my shape collage different from those of my friend/s. | NEXT:
If you have an iPad, try your shape collage out with some different apps. (PS If you want to know more about these apps, sign up for my course, Art on the iPad, see below.) |  Cartoon Camera |  MegaPhoto |  MegaPhoto |  MegaPhoto | | |  For these two pieces I used an app called Draw with Shapes. Over and over and over! These two pieces are in an exhibit opening in Kentucky in October. | |  Other SHAPE activities to try. | |  Design on your iPad, big and little, bright or subtle. | [Art on the iPad, September 14!==========] Still room for a few more participating artists and the course just started so you can catch up easily. All ONLINE, all at your own time and speed. Discussion posts and an optional Meet and Greet Zoom at the beginning of the course. The course ends officially on October 26, but it stays live on the site for as long as you wish to check in. Here's the link to a special coupon for $25 off Art on the iPad. Take a look at the course syllabus here at this link. (Scroll down on page.) If you have taken THIS course before, retake it for just $30. Email me for the coupon link! susiemonday@me.com. | Three of my textile collage art quilts will be included in this exhibit at the University of Kentucky, College of Fine Arts, Bolivar Gallery. The exhibit is curated as part of her degree requirements by Magenta Palo. The opening will be October 1. If you are near Lexington, I hope you will stop in to see the exhibit. Call for gallery hours here: 859 257-9000. |  Left - 7 Days, 6 Weeks. Right - Transformation 1, 2 | | |  Catalog for Texas Landscape Quilts, a SAQA publication | Thirty great art quilts from Texas regional members of Studio Art Quilt Associates will will next be exhibited in Wichita Falls, opening October 28. You can purchase the catalog at this link on Amazon. | ON Air this year: I taped The Quilt Show in Dallas on August 30. It was a thrilling honor to be asked by Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson to be part of their informative quilt and art TV and website. The taping was a wonderful and educational experience and I'll share a bit more of what I learned closer to the air date. A ton of free material is on the website, as well some free shows, but you can subscribe to get tons of helpful, inspiring and amazing content. I'll be teaching a couple of segments, one on the Sensory Alphabet and one about pattern designs and the rhythm of printing with digital tools. My show will "air" on the site on December 18. |  Here I am on The Quilt Show. | | SHAPE is the Sensory Alphabet element that seems to be one element of Howard Gardner's Visual-Spatial intelligence. "Visual-spatial intelligence allows people to comprehend maps and other types of graphical information." This YouTube video helps explain his theories. Gardner speaks about his work here in this longer video. What about you and SHAPE? Is it in your wheelhouse? Where does it show up for you? | | |
