Texture & Trompe L'oeil

Texture - is the surface quality of objects that appeals to the sense of touch, the tactile sense.

For this I chose a picture we took while at a wonderful hotel, the Grand Hyatt Kauai, when you walk down to the ocean and look back, you see their open air lobby. Cascading down from there is a waterfall and a color and texture waterfall made of beautiful flowers and bushes, amazing, especially when you consider that center opening in back is about 25 feet tall and 40 feet wide.

The leis in front are from a recent wedding ceremony.

Trompe l'oeil - the french term for fooling the eye, often painted as frescos in restaurants to make it look like you are in another place or time. Here I place a picture I took while visiting the Philly Art Museum, it is a painting but the look is very 3D.

The artist is Frans Snyders and it's named Still Life with Terms and a Bust of Ceres.

Cubism

This week's term , from the Shape/Volume chapter, is an art style that takes natural forms and turns them into geometric planes. While my wife loves the natural parks, my favorite place to visit is Walt Disney World (WDW).

The upper photo:

One of the premier hotels there is the Contemporary Resort. They try to incorporate futuristic themes, or at least what people thought the future would be like, at every turn. To show how even nature would be a clean regular shape, they trimmed the trees outside the resort very strictly. This photo was taken from the 4th floor looking out over the parking area, I found it on the DisUnplugged website at: http://www.disunplugged.com/2008/03/05/coming-disneys-contemporary-resort/

The lower photo:

EPCOT is one of the parks in WDW, it is over 500 acres and is split into a World Showcase, holding a mini World's Fair type of representation of various countries, and Future World, which also like a worlds fair showcases the newest in technology. The icon at the entrance to this park again repeats the theme of trees trimmed to very exacting futuristic and geometric shapes.

Ifound this photo on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94973432@N00/2422915683/

Contour

This week the chapter is Lines, the term I chose is Contour - a line used to follow the edges of forms and thus describes their outline. This picture is from our Trip to Hawaii in May 2009, specifically the island of Kauai. We took a slow plane ride around the island. The Western side is the Napali coast. This was where the opening scenes for the movie Jurassic Park was filmed. Seriously cragged coast. In this picture the surf has just slammed into the coastline and shows its outline with a natural contour line.

Progressive Rhythm

This week, the term I've chosen to show is Progressive Rhythm - the Repetition of shape that changes in a regular pattern. For this I've chosen a picture we took while in San Francisco in June 2005. We stood in Alamo Square and got this shot. Alamo square is a park and it is very steep, not the ideal place to go to in a wheelchair. The Painted Ladies, as they are known all have the same basic architecture. Each neighbor chose a slightly different color and small changes to the trim, or gingerbread, attached to the facade.

Asymmetrical Balance

This week I found two pictures we took that describe Asymmetrical Balance.
The definition of which is: Balance achieved with dissimilar objects that have equal visual weight or equal eye attraction:

Above, Moulton Barn, in Grand Teton National Park. We took this picture in 2004.

I think the Mountains and the Barn share equal eye attraction.

This is a picture of me feeding wild burros, living in Oatman, AZ (on Route 66). They are descendants of burros used by the silver miners, when the silver was gone, the burros were left to fend on their own several decades ago, they were recently protected by a Federal Law. They seem to know this and have full run of the town. The store keepers can't harm them, or even touch them. In order to coerce them back outside their store they will squirt them with a little water from spray bottles. They also sell carrots for $1 a bag to photo hungry tourists. This shot was taken in 2006.

Focal Point

The next term is Focal Point - where emphasis on a certain object draws attention to the piece.

Here a Deer decided to peer into our house, the afternoon sun enhanced the focal point and made her stand out even more.

Scale and Proportion

This week the words are Scale and Proportion, I always thought the Taj Mahal was one of the most beautiful sites in the whole world. It's so perfectly layed out and most symmetrical. But its Scale is not obvious until you put something in the picture with it, here Lady Di sat apparently when she had determined life with Chuck was not going to be a fairy tale. This photo was found on the WordPress.com website.