Primitive postcard. 4 x 6 watercolor and pen on 140 lb. cold press paper. © 2014 Sheila Delgado
“Man’s earliest ambition is to create. Man appears everywhere impressed with the beauties of nature which surround him, and seeks to imitate to the extent of his power the works of the creator.” These two statements start off Chapter 1, Ornament of Savage Tribes in The Grammar Of Ornament by Owen Jones.
Hands in the air if you agree.
OK, you can put them down now.
Owen Jones might not have fully appreciated the ornamentation he found in each culture, but he did understand the shared need for expression.
I may not agree with all of his suppositions, but I am so thankful that he felt the need to produce this collection of design elements. What a fun (and work!) it must have been, to visit each locale, collect the specimens, and then produce each sample. I mean really, I would have volunteered in a heartbeat!
The Grammar of Ornament, Owen Jones
Each postcard I have created feels so incomplete to me. There is just no way to capture the essence of a culture in a 4 x 6 inch area. I want to include them all. I had some fun with this design in Photoshop. Just by changing the Hue/Saturation setting, I came up with several different versions.
What do you think?
What hue are you?
Looking at this now, I think I need to go back in and add some color in the “woven” section. I didn’t get that quite right.
Owen Jones and The Ornament of the Savage Tribes
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
It is so fun to see your designs and what you pick to include on your cards each day. Thank you for introducing me to this book. Do you have the hardback edition? I looked for it on Amazon but many people warned that the paperback edition has no color pictures!
Pam, here is the link to the copy I have. There are pictures, and they are beautiful. It says that this is the first American edition on the inside cover. It is a paper back, but they must be talking about a different version. I know that there are many available at Amazon. Some of them are a lot larger and would have the whole plates seen as they were originally. I think they are broken up to fit the scale of this book. I haven’t even touched on any of the scroll work, mainly because I am not sure I can pull it off 🙂
http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Ornament-Owen-Jones/dp/0789476460/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390264419&sr=1-1&keywords=the+grammar+of+ornament
Thanks, Sheila. I’ve added it to my wish list.
You’re welcome Pam 🙂
As a weaver and teacher of traditional crafts, this caught my eye. Now I want to look into the book. Thanks for the post.
Sandra you would enjoy the Textile blog. There is a lot of information on there. Thanks for visiting Sandra 🙂
Stepping back and looking theough different colors is so useful.The book looks great. Your pattern is nucely Aboriginal.
Thank You Susan 🙂 Enjoy your painting today!