Monthly Archives: February 2025
Pen and Ink Series #35: Visual Language: Time Zones, LA, 2025
Lately I’ve been thinking about the differences between visual language and spoken (or written) language. When ideas are transmitted veyrbally or in written form, one must process them sequentially. In painting and sketching, all the ideas (in the form of visual elements) are presented to the viewer at once. In the experiment below, I broke […]
Pen and Ink Series #34: Irritated Point, LA, 2025
A couple of posts ago, I addressed the concept of a visual language, and placed pictograms (anthropomorphized alphabetic letters) in a pattern. However, this missed the mark: my pattern is sequential. In a visual language all symbols are presented simultaneously without obvious relationships among elements. I am still trying to gather more information about visual […]
Pen and Ink Series #33: Ribbons, LA, 2025
Pen and Ink Series #32: Language in Visual Art, LA, 2025
I have been reading about the art of Paul Klee, one of my favorite visual artists. One writer notes (if I’m correct in recalling his thesis) that the visual elements in Klee’s work are ideograms (like emojis that relate abstract ideas). He also notes that the ideograms are used a visual language. What is fascinating […]
Pen and Ink Series #31: Unintended, LA, 2025
Lately, my favorite line to draw is a long, vertical one that angles slightly and ends in a slight spiral. That’s how I started today. I added a flourish of spikes around the curve at the bottom of the page. I echoed the tail the other end of the line in three quick strokes beside […]
Pen and Ink Series #30: Dancing Lines, LA, 2025
Pen and Ink Series #29: Focal Point, LA, 2025
According to Paul Klee, making artwork is not a matter of having an idea of what the finished product will look like, but rather constructing a vision that emerges as the work progresses. This is a great idea. BUT how does one start. There has to be a germ of an idea that can be […]
Pen and Ink Series #28: Fast and Slow Lines, LA, 2025
I’m reading about the art and philosophy of Paul Klee. He considers the definition of space to include the element of time. Klee is famous for his idea that a line is a point that has been taken for a walk. It takes a moment or two for a walk. Since lines are elements of […]
Pen and Ink Series #27: Origin of an Idea, LA, 2025
I started reading about my favorite artist (Paul Klee) again recently. Paul Klee’s elemental theory of creativity is that “[I]t is imperative that the artwork embody not merely the form that appearances assume, but the forming by which it is installed.” according to John Sallis in his essay, “Klee’s Philosophical Vision”(1). Although the meaning of […]
