>>> Item number 37847 from WRITERS LOG9410A --- (64 records) ----- <<< Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 16:29:46 EDT Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: "ties! (wink)" Subject: EXERCISE: Major Art Attack!!! (with thanks to Mark Kistler's Imagination Station and the New Hampshire Public TV network who sponsor this wild sketch artist-- thumbs up for ART!) Experimentation--(snooty dictionary reading voice, pah-leese!) "to establish a hypothesis and conduct trials or tests to establish the truth or falseness of the theory which produced the hypothesis..." (return to normal slothfulness...:-) look around, try it out, and learn! analyze what's happening (put your hand on your chin and think deep thoughts) then try it! see what happens! so... 1. take a story, poem, or other bit of writing. 2. look for the following elements in the structure. o foreshortening (stuff in the background is shorter than stuff in the foreground, and stuff at an angle is twisted...) o overlapping (stuff in the foreground hides some things in the background) o size and placement (just where in the story does a person or action appear? how much of the story does it take up? balance?) o shading, shadows, and light! lines (thickness, peek-a-boo, and borders) are fine, but SHADOW and LIGHT make the depth. Analyze your light--where is the sun? the blackest shadows, the depth of night, are those points away from the light. and don't forget the lighter shades of grey and faded colors washed out in the light... [BONUS!!! sound effects--does this story have zap-bam-pow? or maybe the William Tell Overture (known to most Americans as the Lone Ranger Theme)? do your shoulders move, mouth hum along, fingers beat out that rhythm? don't be afraid to let your whole body tell the story...] Last, but definitely not least, every day let yourself have a major ART attack. Run wild with that sketch, that plot outline, those rhymes and dissonances, whatever turns you on... and let that feed back into your more disciplined work. Incidentally, Mark Kistler mentioned the 12 key words of the Renaissance. Being artistic, he didn't bother listing them, just tossed off the fact that there were 12. Wonder what they are... [BTW--those of you who want to complain that I'm using words and terms from drawing/painting as if they applied to writing...I sure am! complicate your paradigms, criss-cross and switch hit, and see what happens!] ye unquiet tink er (plato? plato? did you find the knibbles and bits I set out in a mobius bowl last night? why are you howling in the wind again? quiet, now, and let's go baldly where few hairs grow...a drop of elixir from the klein bottle for the introverted folk:-)