Taking Aim

[Gill]

Originally Posted by CanadianScroller

I have a feeling that Gill is reading the Drawing on the Right side of the Brain book and it is settling in!

Originally Posted by CanadianScroller

So the amount of detail required is dependant on the relevance of the item in the picture.

Ah. I was going to leave this until a few more people had posted. But since you bring it up, I don't believe it is - it's dependent on the point of focus.



Gill

[Jediscroller]

Originally Posted by Gill

Ah. I was going to leave this until a few more people had posted. But since you bring it up, I don't believe it is - it's dependent on the point of focus.



Gill

Hey, now this I can identify with! As an example, with a mountain scene, you would want the whole thing in focus (max depth of field) so that would translate into a fairly (or very) detailed portrait. I can see Carl's point as well. There was a time where I made quite the income as a photographer, but it was doing weddings and such. My love was fine art photography. It's kind of funny actually, my goal with the camera was to elicit emotion from the viewer. I had 2 photos (out of thousands mind you) that I achieved my goal. One was of red peeling paint on a wooden wall. Everyone who saw it gasped, not sure what it was but it sure worked. The other one was of a swing set with all of the swings in motion but empty. I've often thought of trying to somehow capture those types of emotions in my designs, but thus far I have come up short.

[lucky788scroller]

Gill, have you considered seeing a specialist? Therapy may help. You think wayyyyyy to much!!! Dale

[Marcel in Longueuil]

Kevin,

You are bringing a good point: Photography can be many things to many people.

Gill,

Even if you consider yourself a bad photographer, you still took pictures.
A snapshot will bring memories to the viewer, the feelings you have are associated with the familiarity of the content in the image. It can be badly framed, out of focus even. it will bring feeling to you because it isn't the image that's doing it, it's the memory associated with it

On the other hand, you can have an image of an unknown subject that will stirr feelings inside of you: this is where the psychology of the image comes into play.

I had touched this in another thread, where I explained that the colors, the forms, the contrast, negative space... they all interract to create an emotion. A good artistic photographer will use them to ellicit a reaction from you when you view the image, wether it is an abstract or a portrait or a landscape.

That is why you can find many types of films, filters, lenses, and accessories: to manipulate the end result, be it at the time the picture is taken, in the darkroom, or with digital manipulation.

Maybe the same thinking can be applied to scrolling: The pattern (shape), style: fret , segmentation, Intarsia (shape), wood essence (color, texture),
finish (color, texture, negative space (backboard, frame...)) can be used to convey feelings in the viewer, with an added third dimension available to us.

Now, not only do we target the viewing sense, but the touch, and in some cases the smell. Who knows what we are doing to that poor unsuspecting public. I mean if stores spend hundreds of thousands of dollars pushing aromas in the air to get you in a buying mood, we can certainly imagine that smell is an important sense.

And touching a piece of wood that has been sanded down and finished, well my wife sometimes says it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. That means I can ellicit a maternal instinct by the touch of a finished piece of wood; it's pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.

There is a lot to this designing thing: Dare I say more than just meets the eye?

Regards,
Marcel

[Back2Jake]

Great thread Gill....

Keep thinking.

[bearfretworks]

Originally Posted by Toni Burghout

Great thread Gill....

Keep thinking.

and drinking...............heavily

Seriously, good thread Gill.

[CanadianScroller]

Originally Posted by Gill

Ah. I was going to leave this until a few more people had posted. But since you bring it up, I don't believe it is - it's dependent on the point of focus.



Gill

I have been giving this some thought, and no I really didn't lose sleep over it




Oh sorry I nodded off

Good point Gill, let me come at this a different way then. The level of detail in the pattern will change the point of focus.
Like in a wedding photograph where the bride and groom are in focus and everyone else is blurred.
If you brought uncle John with his finger up his nose in focus and the bride and groom out of focus then the picture is the same but the points are strikingly different.

So as pattern makers we have to be careful what details we put in a picture and what we leave out. If we augment the picture with text, the text shouldn't overpower the pattern unless the text is more relevant than the picture itself.

Now that this is all jumbled in my mind I am thinking back to when "stickers" joined the forum and told us of her desire to cut the Bev Doolittle picture where the camoflage is an intricate part of the picture. That will be a real challenge to balance detail and subject matter.

[Rolf]

My thought on this is simple.
Wood adds a warmth to things that no other medium can.
It has life.

On that note I have to go to a Cyber security talk. (lack of warmth)

[Jediscroller]

OK, I was curious and waiting to see other's interpretation of your comment about the point of focus Gill. After reading my reply, I was as clear as mud too, hehehe.
First, let me say what I am understanding you to mean by the point of focus. This would be the area of the composition that you want people to zero in on. With wood especially, there are many ways to draw people's eye to your focal point, whether it be with the grain of the wood itself or with leading lines within the pattern (not sure I've managed this yet in practice, but I can envision what I mean in my mind's eye) or with different heights as is done with intarsia/segmentation or the use of colors. I think in the end, there are many ways to accomplish this, hence the grand variety of scrolling and patterns we see.
I think all of these things are what attract people to certain pieces whether consciously or subconsciously. I think we have a perception in our mind of how things are supposed to look, and when a piece challenges that perception it illicits a reaction (like ooooh I like that or what the heck were you thinking). I believe many patterns use these items whether the pattern designer realizes it or not. As I said earlier, it's a matter or what looks (feels?) "right" to the viewer.
OK, this is probably my longest winded post ever...I'm done.

[Gill]

There are lots of factors to take into account with pattern design when you start to consider what it is that constitutes a scrolled picture; picture composition, contouring of edges, thickness of wood, the level and type of detail are just some of them. Nevertheless, they are all aspects of a pattern that can be appreciated in the mind's eye when undertaking a design. More than that, it should be possible to communicate them to others if we can find the right way to express ourselves.

Kevin, I'm pleased to see you acknowledge so readily that these design techniques can be used to generate a response from a viewer. It brings me to a point that I fear might offend some people. Of course, that's not what I'm trying to do, but I do think there's something that needs to be said anyway.

May I suggest that those of you who regard feelings as being important when it comes to pattern design might consider 'cause and effect' a little more carefully? It should be possible for a good designer to produce a pattern which has the capacity to please the eye and produce a sense of 'rightness' but not necessarily generate feelings. I don't see how we can predict those feelings when we're producing a pattern because the scroller can introduce so many variables which are outside the purview of the pattern designer. For example, you can design an outline of a bear which the scroller can then color realistically to produce quite a powerful image or it can be colored in bright yellow with a smiley face to make it suitable for a child's toy.

Gill