A piece I ruined. An experiment with Eastern Arabic numerals

Muhammad Sida · 11-03-2012, 03:42 PM

Cynthia, Steven, Cindy, Michele, Lewis,
Thank you all for the great feedback,
It took me a while to answer, I was depressed for a week had a freak out episode,
Acted like a little girl, a nice person helped me out, it was a mess...
I'm just kidding.

Yes, the background is distracting, probably due to the fact that I stopped working on the figure and focused exclusively on it. I didnt have a clear clue what to think about the design so I kept working on it, It seems I lost sight of it along the way. I wanted those colors to show and be very prominant but also find a way to get my eye on the figure 1st then the background, Correct me please if I'm wrong but what If I used different colors that are much more brighter than the ones in the background, wouldn't that get my eye to focus on the portrait 1st? Balance things out maybe? The reason why I reworked the portrait is that it didnt feel like it was lit by the sun...at least thats what I felt, and I was thinking that if the figure in the white dress was lit by sunlight it would capture my gaze. It would be great to know your thoughts about it.

Cindy, I'll definitely try that after all I am going to repaint the whole thing on a new canvas so using this as a test piece is a great idea I also agree that the numbers are problematic.

Due to the size of the picture (20.5x30.5cm) I had to eyeball them. I already had them designed with special proportions on small thumbnails i made, I wanted them to be precise but i also wanted them to be Imperfect...everything around us including ourselves are mathamatically perfect but its the Imperfections that makes it all beautiful.

So I based my dimentions on Fibonacci sequence. In a thumbnail I'll be posting here to illustrate my thinking, I drew the a triangle I rotated 3 times around its center (dimentions 3x5cm). I was trying to design a motif.

I definitely need to be more precise while painting them to be how i imagined them to be.

Lewis,
Dude i never thougth of it that way, you gave me a great idea to think about while I'm repainting this.
And yes I wanted them to show...I wanted this piece to show those hidden structures because once you see them everywhere you'd have a deep appreciation of its overall design, its complexity and at the same time its simplicity.

Probably, It seems so simple because it's hidden from our gaze.....

I think i was unable to fully show that in this piece...but hopefully once I redesign it it would be better.

Cindy Procious · 11-04-2012, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muhammad Sida

I wanted those colors to show and be very prominant but also find a way to get my eye on the figure 1st then the background, Correct me please if I'm wrong but what If I used different colors that are much more brighter than the ones in the background, wouldn't that get my eye to focus on the portrait 1st? Balance things out maybe?

I don't see how it could. With brighter colors, probably what would happen is that the eye would go first to the bright colors, then to the figure to rest their eyes. Then back to the bright colors. We can't help but look at them first.

I really like Lewis's suggestion - tone on tone. You could even do gold leaf for the numerals (but that's really expensive.)

Claudemir Bonfim · 11-29-2012, 10:23 AM

I second everyone's words here, I prefer that beautiful portrait with a simple background.