Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

A charcoal drawing of a woman that demonstrates the Gestalt Principle grouping mode, closure.

After reviewing the Gestalt Principles, I remembered a charcoal drawing that I had done last year (pictured left). This is an example of closure grouping. I used broken lines on the left side to give the illusion of hair, and simple shapes and lines to create the facial features. This is especially seen in the lips; Even though the lips are perceived as pressed together, the actual lines that create the upper and lower lip do not actually touch. Our brains do a good job filling in these gaps so that we can better make sense of what we’re seeing.

A chevron bracelet I made.

I decided to take a picture of a chevron bracelet that I made from embroidery floss. Each knot in the floss represents a point. However, when you look at the bracelet from a further distance, these points become lines, or rows. When enough rows are created in this chevron pattern, the bracelet itself becomes a plane.

My collection of various art supplies.

In her graphic novel, What It Is, Lynda Barry’s mentions how imaginary things, such as her blinking cat, can follow us throughout our lives, even if they have never happened. It reminds me of the characters I used to imagine as kid and the art I used to bring them to life. Since I don’t have any of my childhood drawings with me, I decided to include a picture of my art supplies. Like Barry’s book, I also have various mediums, such as paint, markers, pencils, clay, and wood carving tools.

Excerpt from Lynda Barry’s What It Is, Page 14

In the photo with the woman writing, Barry says that images are made up of memories and imagination. In this sense, images are alive because they exist in our minds; We can recall to them as we please, even if we cannot physically see them. As children, we actively use our imaginations to liven the world around us. Imaginations can transport us to different locations, just as the ocean can, as Barry describes on the bottom left of the page.

I think Barry created the pages and images by hand. The text seems to be written in someone’s handwriting, rather than a font. Each letter is unique. For the graphics, they look like they were sketched with some sort of marker and then colored with watercolor paint. I’m not sure if these images were created on paper first, but the section of yellow lined paper on the right edge of the page makes me think it was.

By choosing this medium, I think it creates a connection to our childhood, since it was the medium we used to create in –markers, paint, paper. We didn’t have the knowledge or access to use programs like Photoshop or Illustrator at young ages. By using a comic book layout with hand drawn text and graphics, we can also remember what it was like to “play” and use our imaginations as kids.