Mosaic
"Mosaic in an art from associated more with antiquity than with the modern age, but there is a continuous historical tradition that can be traced from classical greece to the present day." - Tessa Hunkin, Modern Mosaic, 2003.
Used as an early form of art, mosaics can be seen through-out history right back to 8 B.C. Mosaic is the art of creating an image using materials such as stone, glass or even black eyed peas. These materials are usually coloured and when combined together they create a much larger image, much like pixels do, but in a more obvious way (it takes millions and millions of pixels to create an image compared to a mosaic). These designs are usually seen in historical buildings such as churches, cathedrals or ancient ruins, although this is not to say that they are not used in modern design.
Halftone / Ben-Day Dots
In a similar style to mosaic, which uses smaller objects to create a bigger image, the technique halftone/ben-day dots uses a series of different sized dots to create a larger image. When viewed close up these dots are very visible, but when viewed at a distance they are seen complete images. This technique is commonly used in print.
Roy Lichtenstein
An artist who emphasises the halftone/Ben-Day dot technique is pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. His artwork contains big bold comic book style characters blown up to a size where most of the individual dots are visible. The images are very bold and use brightly coloured colours which have big black outlines which make his work stand out and instantly recognisable.
This all links back to the 'Deadline' animation where a series of smaller objects create a larger image. For my animation I plan to use an object that used everyday by nearly everyone in the western world and that is the milk bottle top. The reason I am going to use this is because it is the perfect shape to represent a Ben-Day dot, which when combined in a mosaic of many bottle tops will create a larger image.
