Thursday, November 10, 2016

Create > Visual Metaphors

Create > Visual Metaphors


Goal:  Develop a visual metaphor diptych for each of the following prompts

Concept: Creating a personal metaphor reminds you of your own greatness and how you can serve and inspire both others and yourself.

A metaphor is defined as a figure of speech, or something that we use to  replace "normal" words  in order to help others understand or enjoy our message.  A visual metaphor is the representation of a person, place, thing, or idea by way of a visual image that suggests a particular association or point of similarity.  Metaphors are ways of thinking and ways of shaping the thoughts of others.  

“In metaphor, you are really taking two different elements and bringing them together to form a third,” said Mr. Lyons, 84. “It’s like Dylan Thomas, his use of the word ‘green’ in one of his poems, where he places it changes the implications of the color.” > http://goo.gl/TmbkBc

1. Read > Your Life Metaphor Matters > http://goo.gl/0OMjzy

Studio Activities: Metaphor Diptychs

Diptych 1:  
Create > Significant Individual Metaphor
  1. Choose a historical or contemporary individual that has inspired you and write their name     
  2. Find a quotation by or about the significant person and copy it.      
  3. What image, object or place comes to mind when you think of this person and the quotation?  
  4. Write your response and make a diptych photograph that captures this
(maybe juxtapose a portrait of the individual or the quote with your original metaphor photograph)
     
Diptych 2:  
Create > Parent, Relative or Friend Metaphor
  1. Choose a relative or friend that has inspired you and write their name    
  2. Write below a quotation, lyric or passage that they chose because it is a favorite of theirs.    
  3. What image, object, or place comes to mind when you think of this person and the quotation?  
  4. Write your response and make a diptych photograph that captures this
(maybe juxtapose a portrait of the individual or the quote with your original metaphor photograph)
          
Diptych 3:  
Create > Musical Lyrics Metaphor
  1. Choose favorite song and write the lyrics below.  
  2. What image, object, or place comes to mind when you think of this?  
  3. Write your response and make a diptych photograph that captures this

Diptych 4:  Personal Metaphor
Develop > Personal Metaphor Statement
Here is how to craft a personal metaphor statement for yourself
  1. Identify a solution or outcome that is desperately needed in the world or your community.
  2. Identify and element or subject in nature that inspires you.
  3. Identify the qualities within that element that inspires you.
  4. Identify who it is that will benefit from your solution.
  5. Identify what they will then be able to do as a result of learning of your solution.
Now put it all together and fill in the blanks with your responses.
Complete the sentence and post it to the community.
I am a __(2)__, who __(3)__, who helps __(4)__ to __(1)__ so that they may __(5)__.
Create > Personal Metaphor
Use the prompts from the other diptych metaphors to help you.  
Also consider:
What hobbies do you have?
What do you spend time doing?
What do you collect?
What events in your life had a profound effect on you?
What things do you feel a special connection with.
Trigger Mechanisms: Comparisons, Analogy, Juxtaposition

A Westosha Art Student’s Personal Metaphor Example:
How can an image of a street be a personal metaphor?
Consider the symbolic nature of an image of the street you live on or a street you travel daily.
Compare streets and life:
  • both evoke thoughts of a journey
  • Both take us somewhere
  • Sometimes we don’t know where they end up (look at the images, is that represented?)
  • You travel roads everyday to get places, you live life everyday to take you places.
  • The road leads to the future just as your life keeps moving forward.
  • What do you think the artist meant by fracturing the image?

Generalize, Reflect & Publish:
Instructional Strategy
  • Evaluate the results
Learning Activity
Reflect >
Did I achieve the goal?
  • Goal:  Develop a visual metaphor diptych for each of the following prompts
Should I go back and rework anything?
  • How did you combine art elements (line, color, shape, texture, value)  to develop art principles? (Unity/variety, balance, emphasis contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationship)
  • Where are the dominant shapes, forms, colors, or textures that carry expressive significance?
  • Why Is the work ordered and balanced or chaotic and disturbing?
  • What gives the work its uniqueness?
  • Is symbolism used in the work to convey meaning other than what one sees?
  • Does the work evoke any feelings?

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Recognition
Learning Activity
Publish > Share your album to our G+Community > Concepts & Creations category
Display > Add your photos to the Event

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Feedback
Learning Activity
Critique >
  • Give positive feedback > +1 every image that deserves it
  • Give peer feedback > Give 2 peer images a VTS critique > http://goo.gl/1WWmBY
Self-assess >
Life Skills Survey > http://goo.gl/iEUqr (responses > http://goo.gl/8YDnYF)

Visual Examples:





Create > Submerged Things

Create > Submerged Things

milk bath photography

Goal:  Create a series of photographs of objects partially submerged in liquid.

Studio Activity:
Be inspired by the works of Rosanna Jones > https://goo.gl/PB6fGe .  She photographed things submerged in colored liquid or milk bath.  The images above show a figure lying in a lukewarm bath of powdered milk. This results in beautiful, semi-translucent, ghostly images, with dramatic focal areas and a high-key effect.  Experiment with the liquid by dropping things as you shoot.  Or have things floating while others are submerged.  Exploit the distortion the water creates on things below the surface.

Trigger Mechanisms: Manipulate, Distort, Mystery

Generalize, Reflect & Publish:
Instructional Strategy
  • Evaluate the results
Learning Activity
Reflect >
Did I achieve the goal?
  • Goal:  Create a series of photographs of objects partially submerged in liquid.
Should I go back and rework anything?
  • How did you combine art elements (line, color, shape, texture, value)  to develop art principles? (Unity/variety, balance, emphasis contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationship)
  • Where are the dominant shapes, forms, colors, or textures that carry expressive significance?
  • Why Is the work ordered and balanced or chaotic and disturbing?
  • What gives the work its uniqueness?
  • Is symbolism used in the work to convey meaning other than what one sees?
  • Does the work evoke any feelings?

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Recognition
Learning Activity
Publish > Share your album to our G+Community > Concepts & Creations category
Display > Add your photos to the Event

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Feedback
Learning Activity
Critique >
  • Give positive feedback > +1 every image that deserves it
  • Give peer feedback > Give 2 peer images a VTS critique > http://goo.gl/1WWmBY
Self-assess >
Life Skills Survey > http://goo.gl/iEUqr (responses > http://goo.gl/8YDnYF)

Visual Examples:

HESITATE, 2012 160x80 cm, Edition of 3 | 50x100 cm, Edition of 5 | 75x37.5 cm, Edition of 7

Head Trip in process

HEAD TRIP, 2012 100x100 cm, Edition of 3 | 75x75 cm, Edition of 5 | 50x50 cm, Edition of 7

Hesitate // Activate in process Photo by David Branson

ACTIVATE, 2012 100x100 cm, Edition of 3 | 75x75 cm, Edition of 5 | 50x50 cm, Edition of 7

WHITE OUT, 2012 160x106 cm, Edition of 3 | 100x66 cm, Edition of 5 | 75x50 cm, Edition of 7

Generalize, Reflect & Publish:
Instructional Strategy
  • Evaluate the results
Learning Activity
Reflect > Should I go back and rework anything?
  • How did you combine art elements (line, color, shape, texture, value)  to develop art principles? (Unity/variety, balance, emphasis contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationship)
  • Where are the dominant shapes, forms, colors, or textures that carry expressive significance?
  • Why Is the work ordered and balanced or chaotic and disturbing?
  • What gives the work its uniqueness?
  • Is symbolism used in the work to convey meaning other than what one sees?
  • Does the work evoke any feelings?

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Recognition
Learning Activity
Publish > Share your album to our G+Community > Concepts & Creations category
Display > Add your photos to the Event

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Feedback
Learning Activity
Critique >
  • Give positive feedback > +1 every image that deserves it
  • Give peer feedback > Give 2 peer images a VTS critique > http://goo.gl/1WWmBY
Self-assess >


“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad:

 :

Create > Cutout Character Scenes

Create > OCD Patterns

Create > OCD Patterns


Goal:  Create images by organizing subject matter into patterns.

Studio Activity:
Be inspired by the work of Jim Golden > http://goo.gl/p18fNo.  Jim Golden purchases obsolete technology at yard sales and thrift stores and to arrange them into dramatic patterns reminding us of our progress and temporary nature.  Be the picture director.  Photography students often get caught up in finding a perfect scene or moment before they push the shutter button, completely forgetting that they have direct compositional control.  Objects or scenes can be deliberately arranged and composed, creating meaningful installations or repeating patterns.  Placing hundreds of near identical objects next to each other forces viewers to confront figure ground relationships and compare and contrast patterns and differences.  

Trigger Mechanisms: Arrange, Repetition, Organize

Generalize, Reflect & Publish:
Instructional Strategy
  • Evaluate the results
Learning Activity
Reflect >
Did I achieve the goal?
  • Goal:  Create images by organizing subject matter into patterns.
Should I go back and rework anything?
  • How did you combine art elements (line, color, shape, texture, value)  to develop art principles? (Unity/variety, balance, emphasis contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationship)
  • Where are the dominant shapes, forms, colors, or textures that carry expressive significance?
  • Why Is the work ordered and balanced or chaotic and disturbing?
  • What gives the work its uniqueness?
  • Is symbolism used in the work to convey meaning other than what one sees?
  • Does the work evoke any feelings?

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Recognition
Learning Activity
Publish > Share your album to our G+Community > Concepts & Creations category
Display > Add your photos to the Event

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Feedback
Learning Activity
Critique >
  • Give positive feedback > +1 every image that deserves it
  • Give peer feedback > Give 2 peer images a VTS critique > http://goo.gl/1WWmBY
Self-assess >
Life Skills Survey > http://goo.gl/iEUqr (responses > http://goo.gl/8YDnYF)

Visual Examples:





Generalize, Reflect & Publish:
Instructional Strategy
  • Evaluate the results
Learning Activity
Reflect > Should I go back and rework anything?
  • How did you combine art elements (line, color, shape, texture, value)  to develop art principles? (Unity/variety, balance, emphasis contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationship)
  • Where are the dominant shapes, forms, colors, or textures that carry expressive significance?
  • Why Is the work ordered and balanced or chaotic and disturbing?
  • What gives the work its uniqueness?
  • Is symbolism used in the work to convey meaning other than what one sees?
  • Does the work evoke any feelings?

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Recognition
Learning Activity
Publish > Share your album to our G+Community > Concepts & Creations category
Display > Add your photos to the Event

Instructional Strategy
  • Providing Feedback
Learning Activity
Critique >
  • Give positive feedback > +1 every image that deserves it
  • Give peer feedback > Give 2 peer images a VTS critique > http://goo.gl/1WWmBY
Self-assess >
Life Skills Survey > http://goo.gl/iEUqr (responses > http://goo.gl/8YDnYF)