Bridgette Goes to College

I think I just wanted an excuse to talk about Glorfindel. Obviously I’ll talk about the visual elements as usual but...Glorfindel. This is the only piece that isn’t specifically The Lord of the Rings. This scene comes from The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth, like The Fall of Gondolin and such. Yeah, the stuff that no one understands when you have obscure references on your t-shirt. Some guy at work thought The Silmarillion was connected to Harry Potter. Just, no. Line: The first thing that stands out is obviously the diagonal cliff face they’re standing on. Second is all the lovely curvy lines of the mountain in the background. Shape: That mountain is just really fun to look at. It seems to have impressive mass. Value: There is a nice contrast between the elements in the foreground compared to background. It’s obvious where the focus is. Color: The red of the balrog’s mouth and eyes pops against the other colors, but it still doesn’t draw too much...

Part three of this Visual Elements “series” is taking a look at John Howe’s Flight to the Ford. It has a lot going on so there should be plenty to say. Line: The figures seem to be creating a psychological line as the riders rush into the foreground. Your eyes can follow it easily. Shape: I just love the shape of the horses in the water. That’s all. Value: There’s great contrast in value between the water and the black rider. Color: Everything kind of has a cool tone or hue to it. Even Frodo and Asfaloth (Glorfindel’s horse) are almost reflecting back the color of the water, and the warmer colors are understated. Texture: The water has a nice frothy texture, and also the detailed crevices in the rocks. Space: From the relative size of the first ringwraith compared to Frodo you can see how close he is to over taking him. Time and Motion: The entire piece speaks about time and motion. The positioning of the horses and riders, the frothiness of the water, ...

Continuing the theme for this month of visual elements, this week I’m going to be discussing this portrait of Gandalf by John Howe. I love so many things about this piece. Also, it’s kind of calming even though Gandalf looks annoyed as hell (but when is he not annoyed as hell?). Line: The tree cuts a diagonal line right to the middle of the composition, but it also frames Gandalf’s face. It’s kind of like he’s sneaking around in the woods and is just peeking around the corner. Shape: The leaves and mushrooms have a very organic shape to them. Value: The differences between light and dark aren’t very drastic, but you can tell where the light hits things and see the shadow underneath. Color: Like in The Dark Tower the colors are soft and muted almost, but this time they have an autumnal feel, like the aging of the world. There’s also a nice contrast between the orangey-red of the leaves and the cool colors of Gandalf and the background. Texture: The individual ...

This month I’m taking Digital Illustration. I’m both excited and intimidated. I can’t wait to see what kinds of things I’ll get to create, but I’m not looking forward to finding out how much stress I’ll be under. We’ll be working with Adobe Illustrator some more, and while I understand it’s usefulness and can manage my way around, I don’t know if I’ve warmed up to it yet. I won’t give up on it though. For the next few weeks I’m supposed to blog about the visual elements used in artwork by an artist of my choice. While we’re going to be using Illustrator, this class is focusing more on art and design from a composition standpoint. And true to Bridgetarian format I picked John Howe, who, if you don’t know, is famous for his Lord of the Rings artwork and did conceptual art for the film trilogy. The visual elements of art are: line, shape, value, color, texture, space, and time and motion. The piece I’m going to talk about today is called The Dark Tower. Line: The lines of Barad...