COFA Colour Colloquium 2009

The official title is actually
"1st COFA Colour Colloquium: New Perspectives to Teaching Colour - An Interdisciplinary Approach"

It's an event I attended today, which was most stimulating and in a way mentally exhausting. But it made my head swirl with ideas and my belly fill with emotions. So I had this idea, while taking down notes, to capture the essence of the speeches by using just phrases. I mean, really, who takes detailed notes these days, and more importantly, who actually re-reads them? I noticed that many ideas can be captured with just a few words, so here is my version.

Word clouds generated by brilliant Jonathan Feinberg from Wordle




Text aggregation of phrases
colour is completely subjective
colour classification is complex
lightness and darkness seem to be more important than hue
Ginger Riley
Ewald Namatjira
colour teleports us to a particular space in our consciousness
colour takes us to dreaming space
anthropology of colour
language of colour
detox from overstimulation
stop and observe
nature is the best teacher
colour detox
icons are windows to other dimensions
expand the way we deliver knowledge in the future through holograms
reduce information input and seek focus
David Bachelor
colour understanding is in observation, especially observation of nature
seeing reproduction is a very different experience from seeing the original work
go to a museum!
artwork aura
experimenting and altering perception
effect is dependent on your level of awareness
ability to perceive
walking in silence awakens heightened perception
relationship between intuition and knowledge
student needs to find a way to serve her/his individual needs
pink is the colour of the future
all the knowledge you need is out there
buy paints with single pigment
mix your own!
desire to seek
colours don't exist in vacuum
year-long cruise is best for learning

Life Drawing at COFA

Last semester I took my first Life Drawing course at COFA. The instructor was Stavros Papantoniou, and believe me, this guy can teach!

I didn't actually know what Life Drawing meant, but I knew that I wanted to learn realistic drawing, so "life drawing" sounded about right.

I did improve my drawing, but in the class I've discovered something else. A great appreciation for human body and amazing magic of the human form. I've understood what people mean by "the line" and the word that was in my mind during drawing was lyrical. Lyrical design, lyrical shape, poetic line.

Full Life Drawing album on Flickr





Full Life Drawing album on Flickr

Semester 2: Life Drawing with Stavros Papantoniou at COFA

May: Inspirations & Observations

This is the May issue of Inspirations & Observations, my monthly list of 5 things that inspired me, and 5 things that irritated the eye.

Inspirations

1. Life Drawing. I've been taking life drawing lessons at COFA to make animation and design process more hands-on, and I fell in love with drawing the human body in the process. Here are some instructional drawings by A. Loomis:
   
   
   
   
2. Neil Gaiman Sandman series. Totally inspiring, dark and accurate when it comes to portraying human nature. I was especially moved by "A Dream of a Thousand Cats"
   
   
   
   
3. Christopher Hart. I think he is the greatest teacher of comic drawing!
   
   
   
   
4. Cupcakes. I've been baking cupcakes for fun after seeing Cupcakes On Pitt store on my way home
   
   
   
   
5. Knitting - room shoes. Another one of my little projects...still in progress though
   
   
   

Observations

These are the things that didn't sit with me so well this month. It's mostly focused around usability and paying attention to your client's needs (mine in this case).

1. Xbox 360 setup and menu. I have recently purchased the Xbox (mainly to play Guitar Hero) and it felt like I needed a master's degree to set it up.
2. Western knitting pattern notations. It's interesting that I can understand Japanese patterns without speaking a word of Japanese, but when it comes to the American/Australian patterns I am having a really hard time. And I assure you that I can read and write English :)
   
3. Finsbury Paper uses iStock photos to illustration their collateral! And it's using some of the most popular images too. As soon as I received the magazine I felt, "Hm...I've seen these." Of course, a quick search on iStock revealed the answer.
   
4. Paper mail. Please, don't kill the trees for advertising!!! Send me a clever e-mail, and I might just open up my wallet.
5. Digital print shops, in this case Snap Printing. It was one of the most exasperating experiences trying to print 5 pages in the morning, which I needed that afternoon. I refuse to believe that printing has to be so complicated...but who knows, maybe it is. I did learn a lesson though: print the day before, save yourself hours of agony.
   

Previous months

• April: Observations & Inspirations
• March: Observations & Inspirations
  
• February: Observations & Inspirations
• January: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly