Free To Create: The Big Eight

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you know that for the past eight weeks, I've been addressing individually our visual vocabulary, the elements. I've tried to show how each can play its own role in our painting not unlike parts of speech in the spoken language.

A noun names -- a shape defines
A pronoun stands in--size relates
A verb acts -- value structures

An adjective defines -- hue describes

An adverb modifies -- temperature harmonizes
A preposition links--a line leads
A conjunction connects--direction controls
An interjection accents--texture intrigues

We don't need to know what a noun is to ask for a refund, nor do we need to know what a verb is to spend the refund once we get it. English speaking people can communicate very well without knowing a thing about the structure of the English language. But once we DO know how these parts of speech work, we can use them to express ourselves more adequately.

It's called communication. As artists we're involved in a two-sided activity: on the one side we express ourselves--on the other, we communicate what we have expressed. No matter how poorly we have expressed it, something gets communicated even if it's total confusion.

But the better we understand the tools with which we work, the more in control we are with what they can do. The bigger reward, though, is this: the better we understand our tools, the freer we are to be creative with them.

Now, there's a lovely Springtime thought!!!