I don’t know if it is because of my architectural background or not, but I love geometric shapes. I know that they say that to be an artist you have to know and understand shapes because all drawings are nothing more than a combination of shapes to create a figure or anything else. I realize that, but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking just drawing a bunch of random shapes on a piece of paper without giving it any thought and seeing where they fall and what interesting design they make. Traffic Jam is nothing more than one of those doodling play times for me.
I first started out with the triangles overlapping each other. Then I added series of circles. At that point I wasn’t really too impressed with it so I added the checkerboard winding strip. Perhaps that is a rule of thumb for me, “if something isn’t working throw in some checkerboard and it will make it all better”. Once I had the design drawn it was okay but I still wasn’t sold on it.
Most of the time when I get to this point if I don’t really like the design it just goes into the trash, but this time I kept going with it. I decided to add some color. When I finished, (and much to my surprise) it wasn’t so bad after all. It definitely wasn’t on my top 10 list but it was worth keeping.
I actually created this design about a year ago and not knowing what I was going to do with I just added it to pile of “maybe for some other day” drawings. Then one day when I was trying to figure out a new product design I started going through some of my older drawings to see if there wasn’t something that I could pull from and maybe rework. That is when I ran across this old friend and thought it might work on a couple of products.
In this case I didn’t rework any part of the design, I just started creating products with it. Much to my surprise the products looked pretty good. The more products I made the better I liked the design.
Why the name Traffic Jam? I named the design Traffic Jam because to me the checkerboard strip looks like a freeway and the circles look like cars all moving in unison with each other. The triangles are the buildings along the freeway.
This just goes to show that as an artist, you might not like the art you create at the time you create it, but that is no reason to throw it away because there will come a day when it is just the piece you are looking for.
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
When Tuscan Meets Debi
Do you remember the old Reese Cup Candy Commercials? “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter.” “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate”. That is what my coffee cup collection reminds me of.
I love Tuscan/Mediterranean architecture and décor. I love the stucco and plaster as well as the open spaces and rounded features. I just really like everything about it. Having been an architectural drafter (professionally) I have designed many Tuscan/Mediterranean “dream” homes that I would like to live in.
When I was thinking about creating the Coffee Cup Collection I knew I wanted to do it in the Tuscan/Mediterranean style. I first created the backgrounds which was easy to do in the Tuscan style. But then when I went to design the individual cups something happened. You see none of my art style is of the Tuscan style. About 90% of my art is bright tropical colors with whimsical designs, (not at all typical of traditional Tuscan design). At first I started to scrap everything and start over, but instead I decided to preserver on and see what happens.
After I had completed the designs and I was looking at them and it was very apparent to me there were two distinctly different styles of art in each piece. That is when the old Reese Cup commercial popped in my head. I thought to myself, ‘well I guess this is what you get when you mix Tuscan Design with Debi Payne Designs’. At least I can say I don’t think this version of Tuscan has been done before.
I love Tuscan/Mediterranean architecture and décor. I love the stucco and plaster as well as the open spaces and rounded features. I just really like everything about it. Having been an architectural drafter (professionally) I have designed many Tuscan/Mediterranean “dream” homes that I would like to live in.
When I was thinking about creating the Coffee Cup Collection I knew I wanted to do it in the Tuscan/Mediterranean style. I first created the backgrounds which was easy to do in the Tuscan style. But then when I went to design the individual cups something happened. You see none of my art style is of the Tuscan style. About 90% of my art is bright tropical colors with whimsical designs, (not at all typical of traditional Tuscan design). At first I started to scrap everything and start over, but instead I decided to preserver on and see what happens.
After I had completed the designs and I was looking at them and it was very apparent to me there were two distinctly different styles of art in each piece. That is when the old Reese Cup commercial popped in my head. I thought to myself, ‘well I guess this is what you get when you mix Tuscan Design with Debi Payne Designs’. At least I can say I don’t think this version of Tuscan has been done before.
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