*** Mark your calendars! *** We will stage a live presentation of your projects on April 27th. *** Your attendance at this event is part of your grade for this project, and you MUST MUST MUST be at the event! ***
WEEKEND ASSIGNMENTS
Step 1: Write about the two impulses you’ve chosen to work with.
Describe each of the impulses and tell how they currently impact your life.
> For the impulse you’ve chosen to FEED, tell why it’s important to make this impulse more pronounced in your life.
> For the impulse you’ve chosen to CONTROL, tell why this impulse is something you’d like to curtail in your life.
Step 2: Borrow a strategy
One great way of improving your artwork is to borrow strategies from other works of art. There are a variety of attributes that you could borrow from a work of art, it could be an aesthetic quality, a compositional arrangement, the subject matter, a means of presentation, a sensibility, a construction technique, a sense of humor… anything at all.
For this step, you are to:
- Find an image of a particular work of art that you find compelling. (The artwork you choose could even come from the artist that you recently presented on in class.)
- Print this image out or post it to the class website.
- In your printout or your web post, include the name of the artist and the work’s title.
- Write just one sentence that specifies the attribute or strategy that you intend to borrow from the piece.
Step 3 : Visual research
Find 5 images that relate to each of the impulses that you’ve chosen to work with (for a total of 10), and print these out—you will use these images as visual references while working on your project.
Step 4 : Create sketches
Draw up plans for 2 three-dimensional forms that would affix to your body — one to FEED an impulse, and one to CONTROL an impulse.
As you create these sketches, please remember/do the following:
> One’s final product can be improved when, at the beginning of a project, one considers a variety of possible end results. For each of the impulses you’ve chosen, create at least three detailed sketches of three distinctly different project ideas.
> As sources of inspiration, refer back to the associative lists you created in class.
> These projects can be fairly large–up to even 6 or 10 feet in length, but keep in mind that you will need to surface your metal structure with a fabric or plastic, so consider your own limitations of time and energy as you draw up your sketches.
Why we write about our ideas
Every decision that you make in the planning and execution of a work of art has meaningful implications. When one begins a project by thinking about what they want to accomplish in the end, this enables them to have more control over the final meaning in their work, AND it provides one with a useful tool for editing their work during the process of creating. While one could employ many methods for thinking critically, writing is especially helpful for developing this skill because it forces one to be precise and clarify ideas.
Why we conduct visual research
Our artwork is in a dialogue with the outside world—this is unavoidable, and conducting visual research enables us to knowledgably position our work in relationship with phenomena from the world. Images are the currency of the visual arts, images are the beginning and end of artistic endeavors; we must conduct visual research in order to tap into this vital resource. Additionally, images can help accelerate our creative thinking and give us raw “material” to work with and respond to. So, collecting images/objects and other source material can practically inform your design, and it can also enlighten your thinking.
Why we create sketches
Preparatory sketches can help you plan your project on a small scale before you commit the time and energy to create the project on a larger scale. Sketches are a very fast means of “testing” possibilities. Sketching enhances creative thinking, and this frequently helps one find innovative and novel solutions to problems. This component is important because the quality of our ideas will have a dramatic impact on the quality we are able to produce in our finished product. When we generate ideas, our first idea is usually not the best idea that we could possibly conceive. Most often, our ideas will continue to improve as we consider a variety of possibilities and think about things from a range of perspectives with a flexible and open attitude. Creative insight does not typically hit a person like a thunderbolt; it usually emerges gradually, through the persistent, patient, tenacious mulling over of an idea or question.