Words can Say it When We Can't

"Words are the ultimate abstraction"

When I first heard this saying I was a little confused as to what it meant. I have always found words to be the best way of expressing myself and the most effective way for me to communicate. This does not just mean "talking" with words, for me it is using words mixed with photos or images. Using words in poems or song lyrics, or added with an image has always been to me a direct and CLEAR way of saying what I felt. Then while learning about text and words in class I began to consider how the idea of words being the "ultimate" abstraction is could be an apparent contradiction.

The idea of words being an abstraction on their own and then adding the idea of textual design and fonts and how they then add additional meanings is a little overwhelming at first. Thinking about the additional meanings of the textual design itself and what that is "saying" to someone or the font that is used is "saying" something to people in addition to the actual spelled out word and what that means to people, so essentially to one person ONE word could hold the meaning of 3 different things. Each element that went into making this "word" and how it appears to us means something, but the meanings are not an abstraction they are clear meanings to us as individuals. So the saying the words are the "ultimate" abstraction would appear to be far from what words really are; which is something clear and distinct in meaning. Clear in the definition of the word, clear in how the textual design means or portrays a meaning on its own, and the font shows meaning or implies something as well. One object 3 separate , clear, meanings. That would make words clearly NOT an abstraction.

I think in order to understand the idea of the contradiction you have to have some knowledge of texts and fonts to be able to see or know that they too, in themselves have a meaning. Personally, words will always be a way for me to be able to communicate by using them with other forms of images. But words will always now have a meaning deeper than what they just spell out.

Say "cheese"

This photo taken from www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com does not fit what we "traditionally" see for a family photo. However, a few things are similar to what we would normally see. I will start with the few things that are common in this picture and most other family portraits.

All the family members are wearing the same type of outfit so that they are dressed the same. They are all wearing a type of white shirt and blue denim jeans. The dad and the boy children all have short sleeves while the mom and daughter had 3-quarter sleeves. They all chose a common background color of blue. This is about all that is normal about this picture.

What first struck me as odd about this picture was that two of the boys were sitting on the floor while everyone else was standing, then I noticed that they are grasping their parents legs. This is not a normal set up. The boys look as if they are holding on for dear life and they are definitely in my opinion too old to be holding onto their parents legs for any reason. Let alone posed like this. My attention then went to the third son who is leaning on his father as if the father is his backboard. Then he too is grasping and interlocked with the fathers arm. The whole "holding on for dear life" thing again. The father however, does not even seem to notice that his sons are attached to all his limbs. Another thing is that the father is the center piece this is not uncommon but what is, is that the rest of the family is all surrounding him and holding tightly to him rather than just standing next to him. He is standing with his arms on his hips while everyone else is holding onto him in some way. The lighting used is somewhat normal it appears to be just inside lighting with a backdrop which is used often for portrait style pictures but it looks like there are shadows behind the standing children? and that is weird you normally do not see shadows in an indoor posed photo. There is just something odd about this picture to me.

I would never want this to be my family photo and have to be one of those middle aged boys holding onto my parents legs.

Lines and Shapes coming to Life

Although this comic strip is not in color it still shows detail while just using different shades of black and grey ink. In the first box if you look at the tree behind the grandma there are lines on the tree trunk that make it so it is apparent to the viewer that this is indeed a tree. The lines are textural and somewhat directional. The lines drawn towards the sky and upward help to show direction or indicate size. Also, they help to add or show texture to the tree so that we know that it is possibly bark or darker pieces of wood that is slightly extended off the stump showing texture. This is just a few of the lines used in this comic.

In the second box we can clearly see as the viewer that the grandson is looking towards the ground. We know he is looking towards the ground because of the use of "eye lines". Eye lines help show the viewer where the people in the image are looking. These lines help indicate where the people are looking and help to also show some emotion. The grandson has his eyes drawn looking straight down, showing disappointment and lack of enthusiasm towards what his grandma is saying. We know all this because of the eye lines drawn.

In the third box we can tell that the grandma is wearing a long sleeve shirt that she possible had rolled the sleeves up on. We can tell this because the lines that are drawn on the shirt closer to where the end of the sleeve is, look to appear like the creases in fabric as well as the lines that show a rolled cuff at the bottom of the sleeve. These lines drawn on the shirt help us see what we are looking at. They gave more description to the shirt. We now were able to tell that it was loose and rolled and possibly from cotton material. All from the lines, which we call these lines descriptive lines. The shirt at the cuff also uses what is called a contour line.

Contour lines are lines that help show or add image to an object or person. In the last box if you look at the arms of the chair that the boy is sitting in we can see that the end of the arms of the chair are rounded and appear smooth like. We can see detail added with gestural quality lines that are the actual "curving" or "rounding" of the line. This gives shape to the chair and help us to in vision it. The lines drawn on the inside of the chair help to show the texture of the chair. It give the look of a soft chair that forms to the boys shape and gets the "sinking" look with ripples in the fabric of the chair.

There are a lot of things that go into making a comic and making it appear some what realistic so that the viewer can relate to or see what the object is. Lines of all types help to do this. When drawn a certain way within a certain object lines help to define the drawings.