High-Octane Contrast

Last week I participated in an online workshop for visual artists. The workshop was hosted and led by Nicholas Wilton of Art2Life. Over five days, he taught three lessons on basic principles of art and conducted five live studio training sessions in which he dove deeper into the topical lesson(s) of the day.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about the importance of fundamentals in all that we do. This is the reason I participated in Nicholas’ workshop - I don’t have much formal training in visual art. It’s a double-edged sword: when making visual art, I’m not boxed in by classroom theory, which means I have unhindered freedom; however, I lack the basic fundamentals of visual composition to control my artwork and produce my desired intent.

I’ve been feeling like a hermit crab. Every now and then they relocate to a new shell because they’ve outgrown their current one. This year I’ve been feeling more and more cramped. I’ve grown a lot in the last two years. I have momentum in my work. I’m hungry for growth, and the Art2Life workshop was a means of satiating that hunger.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the workshop. Years of lackluster streaming series and movies have conditioned me to go into something new with as blank of a slate as possible. (There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence - for another time, and I digress.)

With as foggy of an expectation as possible, I quickly understood that the lessons were… not vague, but broad. The concepts were high-level and abstract (right up my alley, more on that later in this entry). Nicholas wasn’t teaching participants techniques on painting landscapes or portraits, but rather a few core principles - fundamentals - which can be applied to any style, genre, or medium of visual art.

The three lessons were Design, Value, and Color. Each of these principles have been areas in which I’ve wanted to improve, so yay me for doing this. Even more helpful, though, was the overall concept which tied the entire week together: that differences and Contrasts are what hold interest.

Contrast was brought up in each video, and Nicholas discussed how each of the three lessons can be used to control Contrast - which ultimately controls how our audience digests our work.

Now, I phrased the last part of that sentence the way I did because of what I’m about to discuss - hang on to your undies, because we’re about to go somewhere with this!

About midway through the workshop, with the concepts being so broad, I began thinking about how they might apply to other creative fields. Of course my go-to was music. I didn’t have to think for very long about how Contrast applies to music. Music is interesting because of Contrast.

“Verse chorus verse chorus,” not “verse verse verse verse.” Right? Even within a single verse, there are chord changes and different words being sung. The drummer isn’t just playing the high-hat - they’re playing the kick and the snare and maybe some toms and the crash cymbal.

The music that Jeremy Soule wrote for both Oblivion and Skyrim are full of Contrast. His track, From Past To Present, contains only two 8-measure themes essentially on repeat for most of its five-minute lifespan. Yet the whole length of the track is interesting because of how he keeps each statement of each theme different in some way.

Even Terry Riley’s In C, a piece written for ensemble in which the only notes played are C, contains Contrast to keep the listener interested: adding or subtracting instruments, loud or soft dynamics, and new combinations of instruments.

That’s all fine and well, and it was a pretty easy leap to carry Contrast from visual art to music. So I kept going: What else does Contrast apply to and in what ways?

What about in game design?

Oh. My. Yes! From chess to Tetris, games are full of Contrast. In chess, the pawn and the knight don’t function the same way. There are eight pawns and two knights. They each play a specific role in the overall game. And then there is player choice: Do I move my knight to protect the bishop or do I sacrifice my pawn to open an attack on their rook?

In Tetris, there are five (seven if you count orientation) different types of blocks. The game spawns a new block at random, which the player then decides where to place.

Imagine playing chess with only pawns or playing Tetris with only the “T” block. Either would be boring to play. The interest and engagement in either game is in the Contrasts present.

A term often used in game design is “design space,” which is a broad and abstract playground in which a piece of a game functions. In chess, the pawn and the knight each have their own design space because they function differently and fill their own unique role. The same idea applies to each type of block in Tetris. Two or more parts of a game can overlap with each other, but they should never fully overlap.

Keep hanging on to your undies! Time for a u-turn back the way we came!

When I made the connection to design space, I had a HUGE “aha!” moment. Jeremy Soule keeps the listener interested in the same two melodies for five minutes because each statement takes up its own design space! Yes! Exactly! Anda Bob Ross painting works because the mountains and the happy lil trees each take up their own design space too!

Bingo.

Once I U-Haul’d the “design space” concept back to music and art, the floodgates opened. I mean o-p-e-n-e-d.

Cooking: you don’t just use one ingredient. You use several ingredients to make a dish. Each ingredient has its own design space within that dish. And for a meal? Each dish has its own design space within the meal. You aren’t just going to eat only chicken for the appetizer, main course, and dessert. No, you have a veggie salad, a grilled chicken breast, and then a little slice of double chocolate cake (because I love chocolate).

Sports: you don’t just have a goalie or an offensive line. A team is a team because of the positions being utilized. A coach, a goalie, a few forwards, a few players on defense, a quarterback, a kicker - whatever the appropriate positions are for the team. Everyone has their own design space to fill.

Cars: it’s not just wheels or doors or air filters. No, it has axles, gears, pistons, exhaust, wipers, a battery, air intake, brakes, a frame. Each part takes up its own design space that, together (and when working properly), makes the car function.

Woah! It all connects.

When I signed up for Nicholas’ workshop, I didn’t know what to expect or what I’d get out of it. I figured at best I’d gain a starting point for understanding the fundamentals of visual art, at worst I’d be lost and confused.

But I’m a hermit crab, hungry for new ideas. I feasted from the workshop right down to the bone. If I don’t feast - if I don’t learn or try to improve myself - I grow comfortable.

And comfort doesn’t grow.