# How visual art is constructed

Every artistic work has a focal "vanishing point" that directs the audience's eyes.

- It is usually with mostly straight lines, but can be curved lines or approximate triangles.

With [cameras](engineering-camera.md), the effort is within the specific timing and placement of the photographer, combined with post-production effects.

All the focus of the work is centered on the focal point.

- Whether it's a photograph or a painting, that center will be what everyone notices as their eyes take in the experience.

Compared to other media such as [writing](language-writing.md), visual presentation is particularly dramatic because the information arrives very quickly to the audience, and then they have a delay to process what they saw.

## Visual design software

The very essence of visual design has been radically redefined due to the prevalence of [graphical manipulation](engineering-graphics.md) software.

To digitally reproduce a form, do a photostudy first:

1. Break down the shapes and color you're studying.
2. Convert the color to greyscale.
3. Fill in the color and textures.
4. Use different layers for lighting and shadow.
5. Tweak it until it feels right.

There are some tricks that make visual design easier.

- Whenever the software supports it, divide each visual element that *remotely* interacts with other elements into separate "layers", which allows more granular control when you need to change things later.
- Avoid ever "flattening" the elements until you're ready to send it out.
  - If you accidentally flatten something you didn't mean to, duplicate the layer and then adjust the brightness and contrast on one layer until the undesirable element (e.g., line art) disappears.
- When changing skin tones in a color picker without a premade palette:
  - To make the skin tone darker, move diagonally downward.
  - To make the skin tone ashy, move downward vertically.

## Specific and notable arts

Kintsugi, originated from Japan, is the portrayal of imperfection as a celebration. The simple idea is to reconstruct broken things:

1. It uses mugi urushi, which is mixed cake flour with water into dough, and then mixed with raw urushi.
2. The missing structure is then filled in with kokuso (mugi urushi mixed with wood dust and polishing compound) and then applying sabi urushi (polishing compound mixed with a little water).
3. Then, the cracks are painted over with black urushi lacquer to create the final restored form.
4. On top, bengal red urushi adds a bit of color to the final product.

Pixel art has been associated with [video games](fun-games-cs.md), but also represents a severe form of minimalism.

- Most effective pixel art conveys tremendous meaning with one simple pixel color alteration.

Latte art is the domain of making beautiful patterns with [coffee foam](fun-coffee.md).

- At the farthest end, expert latte artists can create foam that actually builds legitimately non-abstract forms.