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The Some Of The Bits??

© Jo Murphy

The whole is understood as something more than the sum of the parts.

When a student is learning to paint murals or to draw, it is wise to tease out the elements of design and consciously practice them separately. Once understood the elements of design can be re-assembled to create a polished artwork. This ongoing process means that the artist will build a repertoire. With this toolbox at the ready any muraling assignment can be approached with confidence. Used simultaneously, quickly and intuitively, the elements come together to create an integrated aggregate. We often refer to this final piece as a 'statement.'

[I suggest that the artist use a Visual Journal daily, so that the process is manageable. Training Your Creative Self: Five Tips for Ultra-Creativity. By Angela Booth.]

Gestalt Psychology formulated several laws of perceptual organization. I am going to use these notions when talking about the way artworks take on a life and meaning far beyond the simple elements of design, and the perceptual stimuli that make up the sum of the parts of the composition.

NB* Don't make the mistake of lining me up too closely with the Gestalt Psychologists Theoretical Frame Work, because what I am referring to is a very loose abstract way of interpreting meaning in artworks and definitely not what the Gestalts often refer to as formal theory of learning mechanisms. They go off into a branch of special education that is way beyond the scope of this essay.

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When we look at objects we don't really see them. Draw What You See. Adrian Ludwin. This can make learning to draw difficult. Rather than see the whole object the mind does a form of visual shorthand. We see our environment through the filter of the interpretation of our mind. This is a survival mechanism. If we did not have this mechanism we would be overwhelmed by the ammount of sensual stimuli that enters our visual field at any given moment of the day. There have been many testimonies made by blind people who have had operations to enable them to see. They say that at first the sudden overwhelming entry of visual stimuli allowed them to see nothing but a blur because they had no skills with which to interpret them. To overcome this problem human beings develop a type of visual shorthand. We learn to group visual stimuli into a bundle and then interpret it - verbally. Please note that I said verbally! This means the information is interpreted by the left side of our brain, which is connected directly to the rational, logical, ordered, literal side of our thinking mind.

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