From 2 to 3 Dimensions

Yesterday, I played with 2- and 3-dimensional designs. The problem is to take a 2-dimensional design and convert it to a 3-dimensional one, by adding gray. I started with the design shown below, which I created a few months ago. It is black construction paper pasted on white paper.

I scanned and printed the above design. I then used gray marker to give the design a 3rd dimension, as shown below.

Finally, I scanned the marked-up version of the design and used Photoshop Elements to improve the black and gray colors. The final result is the image at the top of the post. I found this exercise to be very enjoyable; I find it very freeing to work with abstract shapes.

Illustration Friday - Backwards

Backwards can be beautiful. The first thing that popped into my mind for the prompt backwards was dyslexia, as both my children have learning differences. The next thing that popped into my mind was Leonardo da Vinci's handwriting. For this week's prompt, I played with da Vinci's image printed out on card stock as a collage element. I also tried using da Vinci's handwriting as a background, but I couldn't get that to work well. I think I was subconsciously going after a Andy Warhol-like look.

Illustration Friday - Hats

Collage using construction paper, touched up with Photoshop Elements.

Reassembling a Square

Another design problem from the book Design: Principles and Problems by Zelanski and Fisher. Here I cut up a small square of black construction paper and organized it on an 8" x 10" piece of white paper in such a way that the square can still be identified.