Rob Stenzinger

Principles of Perception, Design, and Comics

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Filling in the gaps. Bobby McFerrin didn’t ask everyone to guess a sound - he started a pattern with one sound, then another, and another. The relationship between those sounds is design (the Pentatonic Scale), the audience participating to fill in the gaps demonstrates the Closure principle of perception.

I came across this video while preparing for a special series of the Lean Into Art Cast centered on the topic of Design. Andy Rutlege’s blog is a fantastic resource on Design. A great place to start exploring his writing is his 5 part Gestalt Principles of Perception series.

Worth noting: both Uniform Connectedness/Good Continuation and Closure have extra strong ties to the underlying mechanisms of comics as a highly participatory form of communication.

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Songs for the Lean Into Art Podcast

Lean Into Art is an online art center/learning network I’ve been building this year with Jerzy Drozd. As part of the project we started a podcast called The Lean Into Art Cast which needed an intro and outro song.

Looking back at the official intro song it feels as if I was channeling the up-beat let’s-go-kick-some-monster-butt feeling of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme.

LIA_Theme_-_intro.mp3 Listen on Posterous

My initial theme attempt was a rough doodle trying to do something funky, happy, and a little bit metal. It ended up being a mishmash and didn’t speak to me. None of the riffs had enough of a hook and I quickly set this one aside.

LIA_Theme_-_intro_-_rough_and_funky_attempt.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Then I made the official outro, some days I really dig this one, others not as much.

LIA_Theme_-_outro.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Last I worked on a third candidate for the official intro. I set it aside, forgot about it. There’s a little special something about it, though it’s a tad too long to fit an easy outro.

LIA_Theme_-_intro_-_alternate_attempt.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Lean Into Art - LIA Cast 08 - Participatory Culture!

Can a podcast episode about artistic self determination and participatory culture be interesting?

How can it not be?

That kind of topic exploration is developing into a pattern for our show. The Lean Into Art podcast is only 8 episodes along. However, in a way, that’s 8 iterations.

Each episode Jerzy Drozd and I are both building off what we think was working from the prior eposides and keep trying new things. It’s early to say, but I think we’re finding one of the cornerstones of the show: ask questions about a gray-area visual storytelling topic of one another and explore by constructing and deconstructing the ideas we share about the topic.

We’re sharing it in the podcast to discuss with you as well.

Full audio and video at the Lean Into Art blog.

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Lean Into Art - Workshop Schedule Filling Up!

We’re beginning to fill November’s calendar for the big 30 Classes in 30 Days event! Here are some of the great workshops you’ll get by signing up:

Comics Fundamentals with Jerzy Drozd
A four-part series of workshops taking you from blank page to a developed comics story.

Creating Crazy Characters! with Krishna Sadasivam
A four-part series of workshops where you’ll learn how to use line, pose, and silhouettes to create memorable and dynamic characters.

Foundations of Dynamic Linework with Brandon Dayton
Get a top-to-bottom understanding of how you can use lines to create focus and structure in your illustrations.

Creating Compelling Characters with Tyler James
The creator of the 30 Characters Challenge shares some advanced techniques on how to create characters readers will care about.

We’ve also scheduled some Lab sessions on the calendar. Like a lab in school, these will be informal sessions led by an instructor with a proposed topic, though you’re welcome to bring your own wonderings or questions to discuss in a roundtable format.

You can subscribe to our public calendar using the following links to stay informed on what workshops are being added to our schedule as we drop them in:

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And don’t forget! Only a few more days to take advantage of the early bird discounted registration for the event! After this coming Friday, registration fees will increase. So sign up soon!