Artist, graphic designer, & tech consultant in Nelson County, VA
Category:Illustration
These are posts featuring illustrations designed by John LeMasney. In general, unless otherwise noted, they are licensed CC-Attribution, cc-by lemasney, and should contain a citation and linkback.
Welcome, all, to the 2014 edition of 365 sketches. This is a simple offering for the first sketch, but gives some idea of what I intend to talk about. In this series, I intend to learn more about design principles, because in the past I focused mostly on method and technique. I hope that this series teaches me as much about design ideology as past series have taught me about design method. It is perhaps evidence of “a cart before the horse” which I am trying to remedy.
The 80/20 Principle is one in which a well-working system of any kind (book, technology, structure, organization) has distributed value and power, where the 20 percent represents the most important, the most valuable, and the most protected, and the rest supports it. We are experiencing political difficulty in this country at the moment, according to this theory, because the 20 percent has been reduced too far. The same is true in design, books, movies, or other organizations of content: If there is too little to gain from participation in the whole, e.g., if only a small percentage holds the entire value, then the entire structure falls apart, and holds no value at all. The best design, according to the theory, balances value and support at a ratio near to, but not necessarily equal to, 80/20.
I was inspired by a recent clip I saw of Ray Park practicing martial arts to do a split screen of him with perhaps his most famous role as Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1. The clip shows exactly how integral Park’s physical appearance and performance were in the creation of the character. I tend to do a lot of this kind of facial alignment work in the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) because it offers all the right tools for photo manipulation in the perfect price of free.
How I made the image in GIMP
I started by gathering the two images, one of Ray in makeup/character and out. They were of a similar size, and of a reasonable size for my piece. The glossy of Ray was angled, where the image of Darth Maul was horizontally aligned, and so my first task was to drop horizontal and vertical gridlines at Darth Maul’s eyes, nose, and mouth. Then I dropped the opacity of Ray’s face and used the rotation, scaling, and move tools to align his face with the gridlines. I returned opacity to 100%. I added a layer mask to Maul in full opacity, then added a selection that took up exactly half of the face and filled it with the opposite color. In the GIMP, Black and White are the degrees of opacity in layer masks. Finally, I needed to repair the angled edges of Ray’s picture that were created in rotation, so I painted with the color of his shirt and the color of the background to fix those, and used the Stamp tool to repair his hair, which had highlights and texture that would have been difficult to recreate from scratch. It’s not perfect, as the angle of the head in the two shots is slightly out of alignment, but I think the illusion works. Apologies to Ray Park and Lucasfilm (Disney, now) for the unauthorized use of their images for the purpose of education and commentary here.
on the space between art and design cc-by lemasney
on the space between art and design cc-by lemasney
It may interest you to know that I have worked in the field of Instructional Technology and Design for 14 years, but that I have an undergraduate degree in Sculpture. This is the point at which people usually crinkle up their face and say “How did that happen?” I sometimes mention that I followed it up with a MA in organizational leadership, and I can see their hand twitch, ready to scratch their head.
A man with roots, firmly planted by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #cc-by #tree #roots
The answer is that I love technology, especially in organizational use. I am passionate about it. I adore the ways in which technology is an extension, a tool set, a solution to problems. My undergrad sculpture degree taught me about creative problem solving, visual structure and communication, and things like space, color, texture, planning, and their intersection between the arts, including graphic design. I started off studying drafting and architecture in high school, and through a series of events that will be its own post later, I went into the fine arts, but continued to use electives and other channels to learn about computers, design, printmaking, food, business, and networking. Those skills have made it possible to go in lots of different directions in my career, including graphic design, as much of a passion for me as technology itself.
A primary color study by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
I thought it would be interesting to look at the ways in which my workflow, choices, methods and outcomes change when I’m either working in the fine arts or graphic design. Others may have their own differences, and may even disagree with my divisions, but these are mine.
Graphic design is typically digital, the fine arts is typically analog.
I do most of my work in Inkscape and GIMP for graphic design. I create most of my fine arts work on paper. This fact informs the rest of these points pretty directly.
Graphic design is precise by nature, the fine arts are typically more chaotic.
I have always colored outside the lines. My sister used to tease me about it. My painting and drawing teachers encouraged it. My graphic design work allowed me to make choices about precision in my work.
Ampersand by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Graphic design is typically more direct and less ambiguous, the fine arts may create more questions than it answers.
Usually if I am working on a graphic design project there is a clear deliverable point that I am trying to get across, such as “Our name is Spacely Sprockets, and we make great gadgets”. When I work in the fine arts, I am typically looking to answer more fundamental questions about humanity, the act of living, or the experience of a moment. There is sometimes an overlap of these kinds of ideas between the two disciplines, but even then, the design work has less ambiguity.
Glasses off by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Graphic design work is highly portable, the fine arts typically create a storage issue.
All of my graphic design work is sitting in its original state on various hard drives, cloud storage services, and other portable media. Except for a show or two of my graphic work in which pieces were printed, framed, and sold, and a paper portfolio of some of my best graphic work, and excluding the prints, fliers, signs and other versions of client work, the work exists online. Most of my original fine arts work sits hidden in portfolios, discarded in moves, or only in photos where the work does not exist anymore. The photo is typically a sad facsimile of the work itself, and hardly ever captures anything of the experience.
A fiery line by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Graphic design work is easily shared in its original form, and represented well in copies. Fine art is best taken in with all the senses.
My design portfolio shows you the work in both its original and final forms. There is no need, in my opinion, to see it printed to see the work. My fine arts work, as well as most art, really should be felt in the way that a sculpture affects the air, tasted and smelled in the way that oil paint can activate the back of your tongue, heard in the sense of the way the sound of the space changes with the work in it, and seen in such a way that you can sense the texture of brushstrokes, the bend of a piece of metal in space, the thousand points of view in a site specific piece.
I have tried to find an especially easy meal to get about 500 calories in a good balance of fat, carbohydrates, and protein. It should accomplish the following:
In a 2 cup bowl, combine granola and peanut butter into a paste, dice and add apple, add raisins and mix.
It is addictive. It’s so delicious that I crave it, and have had it every day since I first made it. The fruit adds a bright sweetness, the raisins add a chewy licorice depth, the granola brings a crunchy texture, and the peanut butter holds everything together. At 8 grams of fat, 10 grams of protein, and 87 grams of carbohydrate, it is very close to my nutritional percentages that I try to get for the day. The sugar is all fructose, and it has no refined sugars. The ingredients are local and organic. I could make the raisins myself, and have a plan to start drying fruit this season. It’s raw food, whole food, good food. 440 calories for the whole bowl.
Apple, granola, peanut butter, and raisins, by John LeMasney via Diary of Calories
20121231: thank you for everything by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #thanks
Thanks so much for all you do and say and are. It was a pleasure to have you here; To be with you a short while cc-by lemasney
Thanks so much for all you do and say and are. It was a pleasure to have you here; To be with you a short while cc-by lemasney
While I intend to continue to post here from time to time, this is the official last post of the second set of 365 sketches. I wanted to take this moment, at the end of 2012, to thank everyone who contributed to the project with ideas and support, patience and kindness. In many ways, this project changed, maybe saved, my life. Thanks to all of you.
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Thanks so much for all you do and say and are. It was a pleasure to have you here; To be with you a short while cc-by lemasney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
20121230: two vices: nicotine & caffeine by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design
20121230: two vices: nicotine and caffeine by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design
On nicotine and caffeine
I have had some vices in my life, including alcohol and tetrahydrocannabinol. I’ve gotten rid of most of them, and am down to these two. The nicotine is in the addictive, but fairly harmless form of an electronic cigarette. It goes really well with a large cup of freshly brewed strong coffee. I’m not advocating that you start enjoying either of these if you don’t already, or even that you continue if you do, but I do enjoy this combination, especially without the others.
