I took Sinix Design’s abstract design theory course online through Brainstorm School. The course goes through how to analyze aesthetic fundamentals and apply that to paintings, which is important for training intuition on how to make art that looks good and communicates intent. There is a scheduled lecture component, ungraded assignments, and an unstructured discussion via discord. I’ve found that the most impactful part has been the discussion community; getting feedback and doing the assignments (often multiple times over just for extra practice) with the other students. People would live stream their digital art programs to everyone else, working with the garage door open. This type of community acted as an enabling environment for learning and applying the coursework. Here are my working notes from the class:
lecture 1
housekeeping
- abstract = non-representational; abstract exists outside of the visual library
- this course will not step into the representational realm of art!
- aesthetics = comfort: subconsciously, can i (as the viewer trust) you as a visual communicator?
- shape hierarchy / big medium small, highlights relationship between objects clearly
- if you make them equal size, need obvious intent otherwise trust is lost
- topics: shape hierarchy, tangents, cohesion, rest vs. density, shape appeal, tempo, tension
intro: juggling & intuition
- putting in reps to these individual building blocks to learn to trust your own intuition
- similar to juggling multible things at once
- we’ll want to make strokes first and analyze them later (rather than while)
- avoid hyper-fixating (almost like a meditative state)
- what WAS my focus like? what WAS my tempo? how can i fine tune this next time?
- get to the point where you’ll even be able to do things like hold a conversation while drawing
shape appeal
- ways to arrange things such that they feel independent, relaxed, pleasant, purposeful. comfort in understanding
- 90 degree angles signal a “hard border” and break up visual engagement
- solidity, impact, stopping of movement/flow
- parallelogram maintains movement of vision more than an equivalent square
- non-parallel lines are appealing because they move into a more or less massive shape as we go along them (shapes/lines have individuality through their relationship)
- you can make equilateral/tangent shapes for the purpose of graphic design and call attention to itself (but it needs to be intentional like that)
tension
- interest between shapes
- relationships (this shape is part of that shape, this shape is dominant to that shape, these two shapes are at odds)
- negative space hierarchy
- discomfort can come from unplanned tension, unwanted combining of objects, flattening of depth
types of tangents
- kissing tangent: corner of one touches edge of another
- shared tangent: sharing a line
- continuation tangent: continued line
- mirroring/rhythm: one shape mimicking the line of action of another shape
- flattens the depth due to the unplanned relationship / locking them together
- one object steals the information and impact of the other
- reduces trust
- loss of individuality: two shapes turn into one shape
- if something seems like it has a very deliberate reason but there wasn’t actually that intention, it damages our feeling of it
shape exercises
- afterwards, evaluate based on the concepts each time
- big/medium/small exercise: first start with 3 shapes
- circles
- boxes
- triangles
- do them with even more shapes
- gets really complex to maintain rhythm
- rhythm: totality with individuality (implies a specific movement while maintaining individual identity)
- flow: totality WITHOUT individuality (unified)
- more shapes that can potentially tangent
- gets really complex to maintain rhythm
on randomness
- feeling of randomness = natural
- randomness != me randomly doing stuff
- gamblers fallacy; flipping heads doesn’t mean the next will be tails (random doesn’t mean uniform)
- true randomness will have some patterns/clusters of stuff
- this is to avoid distraction and avoid drawing unwanted attention
this stuff seems pretty simple, is it really relevant once i’m really good?
- becomes more intuitive but never goes away
- always can find a shape that could be more appealing
- each block of color/light is a shape and can benefit from shape appeal
patterns
- an even, cohesive pattern might as well be a blank background (useful when you don’t want to draw individual attention, i.e. texture)
- human brain is really good at finding patterns in random stuff
- a random/chaotic arrangement of different shapes stands out a lot more. this would be really jarring to use as a texture element
- there will ALWAYS be patterns once you have enough shapes. that’s ok
- DO STUFF FIRST, then rely on perception afterward to see which patterns you can try to avoid next time
- benefits are to train the brain and unconscious intuition
- ultimately, if the arrangement “feels natural” then that’s good. if some part of it doesn’t feel natural then we can learn from it and that’s also good
final stuff
- aesthetics are universal and natural
- aesthetics is a hierarchy and relationship between elements in all kinds of things
- art
- music
- cooking
- etc.
- intuition is the key to getting in touch with them
- energy, focus, musicality
assignment
- automatic drawing
- post as many as you want / can!
- analyze it after
- “does it feel like i’ve done some of these concepts we talked about?”
lecture 2
level of focus
- we can give awareness and focus to anything
- try to draw with LESS awareness and focus
- helps you relax
- then, afterwards, think about your level of awareness and focus
- rhythms help us break out of overthinking / being overly ambitious, perfectionist, wanting to make it look good
- automatic drawing is really a proxy for all your drawing - to try and practice these concepts that you can then apply to all your art
- hard to get to this state of unawareness, even for professionals
- thats what warmup is for - to get out of that hyperawareness and loosen up. make the perfectionist part of brain wear out
- forgive yourself for not making a good shape
- if you mess it up at first, you’ll eventually do something else and take a different path to something good in the end
general feedback from hw
- starts out with people testing out language, timidly
- as people start posting more, people get inspired and following that language
- once you pick up a language, start thinking of how to make that language sound better
- ppl just vibing and riffing off of each other
- as we start getting more appealing shape language the brain starts to pick out parts that look like things
- adding color helps see negative space and notice distracting negative shapes
other stuff
- graffiti has cool angular shapes
- how many times can you write the same letters over and over again?
- conflict and cohesion both have benefits
composition
- how do we control focal interest?
- focal points
- empty space gives feeling of isolation
- can be intended for story/emotion
- if not intended, can crop canvas
- tension / tangents with edge can draw unwanted attention
- rule of thirds can be good bc if gives you a decent distance to edges and fair balance of negative space
- primary/secondary/tertiary focal points should have obviously different levels of tension (similar to big medium small)
- things that increase focus:
- humanity: faces and direction of eyes also command our attention as humans
- color contrast, shape contrast
homework exercise: borrowed compositions
- take any illustration
- look at it first
- find focal points of this image
- sketch out an abstract mapping of attention
- do automated drawing based on that mapping
- balance intent and automation
- add one flat color to split positive/negative space
- can be white in foreground or background
aside: art and adrenaline
- in high adrenaline, brain takes in everything. no higher thinking functions
- for art, we make repeating patterns
- makes lines and curves more symmetrically balanced
observe the feelings
- be aware of feelings like “ah, these shapes arent appealing” and keep going
- then, can have more useful observations - “WHY” don’t i feel good about this?
- easily switching in and out of automatic/not automatic mode in drawing
- sometimes you need to have hard rules and slip into representative mode
- should get seamless at some point to add in a bit of abstract design spice to a thumbnail
- it’s ok to borrow from someone else’s language. especially if you feel stuck
lecture 3
trusting the subconscious
- rather than “mindless” it’s more helpful to call it “trusting of your subconscious” and tapping into that power
- there’s so much more going on than you think. even when you hear subtle sounds, it only really gets processed in your subconscious (your perception of sounds only actually exists in your head and has to be processed and understood by your brain)
- it’ll be better than most of the conscious decisions you make
review on things to improve on composition
- focal interest
- hierarchy
- primary secondary focal points
- sides
- big/medium/small
demo / homework
- let’s stick to a hard round brush
- can also use lasso and airbrush + alpha lock
- aside: pressing down too much stresses out your hands. should use delicate pressure sens
- use size of brush to affect how we render stuff instead of opacity / pen pressure
- should be changing brush size a LOT
- try to make a silhouette blob with a little bit of hierarchy
- bring in some weird offset shapes
- offset = angles and pinch points dont line up perfectly to each other
- keep sense of order/structure/hierarchy involved in these shapes
- do analysis AFTERWARDS and then fix
- it’s more about juggling and try to improve composition rather than being “perfect”
- choose the lesser of evils in terms of overwhelming levels of distractions
- OK to drop stuff sometimes
- can try making things feel extra purposeful by drawing MORE attention to things
- add creases in places you want to do this
- respect the implied forms when making new triangles / shadow shapes
- even in 3 space you can imagine what appeal those shapes would have on a flat paper
- use lasso + BIG airbrush to build up blobs to practice form rendering
- then go back to flat round brush and render out the implications of forms
- dont worry about covering up other stuff to get a good gradation / shape. you can always pretty easily redefine them if you chose to do so
- create a little punch of contrast, then soften it out except for the intentioned hard edges
- its ok to go up and down in detail with each stroke
- always going UP in detail gets stale and removes your comfort in ability to make changes and redefine things
- can start playing with value range to imply materials / specularity
- final stage: RIM LIGHT! to lock in the forms
- more of a secondary light bc it can bleed in a bit
- try to avoid making consistently thick lines for this
- if it must feel like a line try to make it taper a little bit
- triangle-ey = good
- more muted as you get further from the rim
- should look good rotated
- try exercises with different levels of contrast
lecture 4
(i missed this part of the class lmao)
using hue for value
- not every hue can get as dark as other hues (with same value)
- darker stuff doesnt show saturation as much
- can move hue wheel just a little bit in one direction (into lighter hues) but it’ll stay feeling monochromatic
- then you dont have to inject as much white to make it seem lighter
- dont want to completely rely on injecting white or black to make it look brighter or darker
- this gives your more B4YB (bang for your buck) from your value range
importance of loose process
- dont have to strictly do lineart -> value -> color
- can kind of go back and forth between phases
- e.g. when lines start to go away after value pass can pick some to bring back out and re-emphasize
- it’s ok to be a bit chaotic and destroy some of the marks you made
- it’s generally easier to clean things up than to make things
- at that stage it’s about adapting to the forms you’re now looking at and decide if you want to “refactor” those lines or just leave them deprecated
focal points
- focal points should form some area between them (not be collinear) but also not waste a lot of area of the form
- adding stuff is cropping in reverse and can let you change up focal points in ways that make it easier to resolve the other problems
- of the focal points, make not all of them same hue
- maybe 2 cold 1 warm or 2 warm 1 cold
- or add the opposite temp hue as the rim light
- have to keep juggling (hue blobs have to have shape design and BMS)
ratios and hierarchies
- 2 things = ratio, 3 things = hierarchy
- more extreme ratio increases drama. 70/30 to 90/10 is about as far as you should go
- cool / warm | shadow / light | saturated / desaturation are all ratios
- 90/10 works well for saturation
backgrounds
- be aware of how you use the background to make things pop out
- background can make you “like” certain parts a bit more and raise up the whole quality of things
graphic complements (includes backgrounds!)
- something that is visually put in unrelated to everything else just to help create attention in certain areas
- e.g. graphic design element (gradiation, background, box)
- can use it to introduce ratio of organic/inorganic when it wouldnt make sense otherwise
- these ALSO should follow the design principles we discussed
homework: JUGGLING TIME (welcome to the circus)
lecture 5
tying it all together into the real art world
- so much of it is based on how much you trust yourself
- instead of juggling it’s more like keeping different rhythms at the same time with multiple instruments
- the moment your brain stops to analyze one hand it is the moment you slip
- can take a moment AFTER you’ve made some major shapes
main points from homework / things to think about
- exterior silhouette has evenly spaced chunks
- pinch points lining up / strong symmetries
demo
- making random bubbles / noise and trying to find the forms (either by outlining silhouette, or blocking out)
- strands are a nice small place to practice
- more detail will lose sense of big shapes that were initially in silhouette. big heavy gradiations can help deal with this
- tons of small detail everywhere loses sense of scale
- big areas of rest with some really intricate tiny details results in scale
- aka more contrast between the bigger stuff and smaller stuff
- re-unification: take a big airbrush and make big sweeping gradiations, then re-build what you to have defined
mindset on art improvement
- “the way you look at your own art is not the most objective viewpoint on things”
- swayed by mental state and psychology and overall sense of self-worth
- even sinix keeps coming up with new observations on art improvement every year
assignment: bring in some representational stuff
- start pieces abstract, then find little places to turn things representational (while maintaining abstract sensitibilities)
- bring some of that looseness into everything you do