Volume 1. Chapter 4. Motion

Seed

Movement begins everything. Place a pencil at a point and move it to form a line. From a seed a stem, from a stem a leaf. Multiple lines, multiple points, irregular, straight, curved, connected, and disconnected create distance, velocity, harmony, and disjunction.

Contrasts

Movement is formally expressed in contrasts, inside and outside, dark and light, straight and curved, connected and disconnected, simple and detailed, blue and orange. The result is energy.

Growth

Plants grow from the center outward; they grow outward longitudinally and horizontally in layers. Boundaries between layers and contrasts show their forms.

Point, line, area, space

The mind’s eye never abandons all dimensions including time. If you stare at a gray field it begins to dance.

Pen techniques

Parallel lines of changing thickness show depth and density. Agitrons, blurgits, and indotherms show heat and motion.

Progression

Lines increasing in thickness, decreasing in separation, have spacial effects. Progression, tension, radiation, rotation, variation, stratification. The eye traces paths that pull inward and push outward.

Circle, square, triangle

One is the circle, encompassing. Two is the square, horizontal and vertical. Three is the triangle, a trinity. Each form has its tension and its resolution— seed, stem, leaf.

Parallels

Streams of water in a river. Strands of grass, stands of willow. Tail feathers of wading birds. Progressive deposits on the banks. Rock strata over millions of years.

Essence and appearance

The outer has a relation to the inner. Rays that begin at the center may be blunted. An essential movement can be cloaked by materials and reactions with the environment. Therefore, we compromise and develop hybrid forms. We should see the essence in the appearance.

Space

Space has no boundary and no form. Consider boundaries. Boundaries resist movement and deflect it. Boundaries separate inner from outer, and inner from innermost. However tenuous, contrasting substances create a boundary.