Achieving your goals > Breadth Studio Activities
Goal Concept:
Understand and be able to cultivate creativity strategies and improve time management.
Access Prior Knowledge:
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ~ Pablo Picasso
Instructional Strategy
- Ques
Learning Activity
New Information:
Salvador Dali
Keith Haring
Jackson Pollock
Frida Kahlo
Working like an Artist
Time management helps you achieve your goals. Work smarter not harder.
Set the Stage
Choose when, where and how to work. If you like staying up late, bring work home and draw after dinner. If you are distracted by clutter, clean your desk before working. Minor actions like these will increase your productivity.
Choose when, where and how to work. If you like staying up late, bring work home and draw after dinner. If you are distracted by clutter, clean your desk before working. Minor actions like these will increase your productivity.
Prioritize
Set goals, make lists and determine priorities. Note which tasks are urgent and which are important. Timing is crucial, finish urgent tasks quickly so you can focus on important tasks.
Set goals, make lists and determine priorities. Note which tasks are urgent and which are important. Timing is crucial, finish urgent tasks quickly so you can focus on important tasks.
Incremental Excellence
A journey of 10,000 miles starts with 1 step. A big project can seem overwhelming and even cause creative paralysis so break it down ‘bird by bird.’ By doing any job incrementally, you learn more, procrastinate less and increase your completion rate. Projects are best done in a specific sequence. For example, start with research, make thumbnail sketches, asses the results, make a full-size rough layout, consult, and then complete the fine artwork.
A journey of 10,000 miles starts with 1 step. A big project can seem overwhelming and even cause creative paralysis so break it down ‘bird by bird.’ By doing any job incrementally, you learn more, procrastinate less and increase your completion rate. Projects are best done in a specific sequence. For example, start with research, make thumbnail sketches, asses the results, make a full-size rough layout, consult, and then complete the fine artwork.
Start Early
Momentum is extremely powerful. Start a long-term assignment right away. Even one hour of research will help focus your attention and get you going. A slow start is better than no start!
Momentum is extremely powerful. Start a long-term assignment right away. Even one hour of research will help focus your attention and get you going. A slow start is better than no start!
When in Doubt, Crank it Out
Fear is one of the greatest obstacles to creative thinking – we avoid action and miss opportunities. Both habit and perfectionism feed fear. Creativity takes courage. When in doubt, do! By starting each project with a sense of adventure, you increase your level of learning, creativity and production.
Fear is one of the greatest obstacles to creative thinking – we avoid action and miss opportunities. Both habit and perfectionism feed fear. Creativity takes courage. When in doubt, do! By starting each project with a sense of adventure, you increase your level of learning, creativity and production.
Work Together
Collaborative thinking helps complete projects that are too complex or time-consuming.
Collaborative thinking helps complete projects that are too complex or time-consuming.
Read More:
Auguste Rodin
Alexander Calder
Georgia O’keeffe
Instructional Strategy
- Cooperative Learning
Learning Activity
Understand > The Discussion Web Activity
The Discussion Web uses graphic aids to clarify the central topic and then structure your thinking and participation for a group discussion.
First, we set a purpose for reading and spark interest.
1. Creativity is something that comes from within. Agree___ Disagree___
2. I need to be inspired before you can create good art. Agree___ Disagree___
3. Making art is something separate from the rest of what I do. Agree___ Disagree___
4. When I think about making art I think about setting time aside. Agree___ Disagree___
Engage > Three Ways to Eat an Elephant by Debra Fitzsimmons
How do you eat an elephant? Answer #1: One bite at a time.
OK animal lovers, don’t be alarmed! It’s just about another life-guiding philosophy. To me “one bite at a time” means do what you can, when you can, often. I don’t keep a regular sketchbook. It would be inconvenient and I’d probably misplace it if I tried to carry it around. Instead I sketch out or jot down ideas as they occur to me, or as soon after as I can, on scrap sheets of paper. I put the scraps of paper in Ziploc bags labeled by idea categories. The bags accumulate on my studio countertop. I also keep digital text and image files. My background in academic research helps me to further develop ideas. As the plastic bags and digital file folders begin to fill, they provide direction for review of formal written research and informal Internet searches on a social issue or situation. That information is analyzed for properties, categorized, and joins the sketches in the plastic bags or digital folders. An idea in a bag may “talk” to me right away or sit for a long, long time. Once an idea begins to “speak,” I begin to develop more intentional visual source material. Depending on the idea’s needs, I may draw from life, take photographs, or collage appropriated images. I often collect objects related to the idea; for instance, I collected hundreds of expired credit cards for a series on personal and national debt. I seek out what is metaphorically needed. I searched for weeks though thrift shops and antique shops for a certain “look”.
OK animal lovers, don’t be alarmed! It’s just about another life-guiding philosophy. To me “one bite at a time” means do what you can, when you can, often. I don’t keep a regular sketchbook. It would be inconvenient and I’d probably misplace it if I tried to carry it around. Instead I sketch out or jot down ideas as they occur to me, or as soon after as I can, on scrap sheets of paper. I put the scraps of paper in Ziploc bags labeled by idea categories. The bags accumulate on my studio countertop. I also keep digital text and image files. My background in academic research helps me to further develop ideas. As the plastic bags and digital file folders begin to fill, they provide direction for review of formal written research and informal Internet searches on a social issue or situation. That information is analyzed for properties, categorized, and joins the sketches in the plastic bags or digital folders. An idea in a bag may “talk” to me right away or sit for a long, long time. Once an idea begins to “speak,” I begin to develop more intentional visual source material. Depending on the idea’s needs, I may draw from life, take photographs, or collage appropriated images. I often collect objects related to the idea; for instance, I collected hundreds of expired credit cards for a series on personal and national debt. I seek out what is metaphorically needed. I searched for weeks though thrift shops and antique shops for a certain “look”.
DISCUSSION WEB
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Creativity and Making Art are ongoing processes that are not separate from the rest of my daily moments.
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Reasons not to Support
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Reasons to Support
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CONCLUSION
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How do you eat an elephant? Answer #2: With a Friend.
Having an artist friend with mutual artistic interests is rare and valuable. My artist friend is Dr. Suesi Metcalf. Suesi works with 3D constructions and installations. Although our artwork is visually different, we find ourselves pursuing similar issues. About once a month we will each have built up enough thoughts for discussion. We critique each other’s ideas and artworks, and work together to document artwork, and investigate shows, galleries and sales. These collaborations help keep our ideas sharp, support quality in our techniques, and motivate us through the drudgery of the business side of art. How do you eat an elephant?
Having an artist friend with mutual artistic interests is rare and valuable. My artist friend is Dr. Suesi Metcalf. Suesi works with 3D constructions and installations. Although our artwork is visually different, we find ourselves pursuing similar issues. About once a month we will each have built up enough thoughts for discussion. We critique each other’s ideas and artworks, and work together to document artwork, and investigate shows, galleries and sales. These collaborations help keep our ideas sharp, support quality in our techniques, and motivate us through the drudgery of the business side of art. How do you eat an elephant?
DISCUSSION WEB
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I can call my art mine only if I came up with the idea and I created it myself.
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Reasons not to Support
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Reasons to Support
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CONCLUSION
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How do you eat an elephant? Answer #3: Bring it to the table and sit down.
I don’t always eat dinner, but I usually do. I don’t always get into my studio daily, but I try to. As a college student who had not found inspiration, my professor chided me, “Debra, a good artist is not one who works when the muse hits; a good artist is an artist who works daily.” I have taken that advice to heart. If you are constantly collecting ideas and supportive materials for ideas, you will always have something to bring to your art. Even if I am clueless about what I want to do with any of the many ideas in the bags, I get to work. Just the action of experimenting with media, images and ideas gets my brain going. Once a direction is solidified, working frequently keeps the idea and imaging concise and allows for cohesive progression across a series of artworks. Some work days, I’m in the studio only a half hour; but sometimes I get up early to put in two hours of studio time before going to work. Some weekends I work in the studio all day long. Sometimes I take a nap after work and then get into the studio from dinner to bedtime. Some days I veg. out in front of the TV; but guess what? That means more information on social issues! What I have found is that over days, over years, if you let your fingers make one hand and have a strategy for eating the elephant, art happens.
I don’t always eat dinner, but I usually do. I don’t always get into my studio daily, but I try to. As a college student who had not found inspiration, my professor chided me, “Debra, a good artist is not one who works when the muse hits; a good artist is an artist who works daily.” I have taken that advice to heart. If you are constantly collecting ideas and supportive materials for ideas, you will always have something to bring to your art. Even if I am clueless about what I want to do with any of the many ideas in the bags, I get to work. Just the action of experimenting with media, images and ideas gets my brain going. Once a direction is solidified, working frequently keeps the idea and imaging concise and allows for cohesive progression across a series of artworks. Some work days, I’m in the studio only a half hour; but sometimes I get up early to put in two hours of studio time before going to work. Some weekends I work in the studio all day long. Sometimes I take a nap after work and then get into the studio from dinner to bedtime. Some days I veg. out in front of the TV; but guess what? That means more information on social issues! What I have found is that over days, over years, if you let your fingers make one hand and have a strategy for eating the elephant, art happens.
DISCUSSION WEB
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I have to have a good idea and know what I’m going to do before I start making art.
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Reasons not to Support
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Reasons to Support
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CONCLUSION
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Apply Knowledge and Skills:
Instructional Strategy
- Nonlinguistic representation
Learning Activity
Create > Shiny Silverware (or anything) Still Life
Goal: Accurately rendered reflective surfaces.
Studio Activity > Shiny Still Life
Set up a still life of shiny metal silverware. Keep in mind the rule of thirds for a good composition. Drawing reflective surfaces is easy if you see and draw the lights and darks. The shadows and highlights are clearly defined and warp to the shape of the metal object. You may want to photograph your still life and turn the image upside down to draw it. Check this tutorial > http://goo.gl/rdfZ05 and watch this time lapse video > How to Draw Spoon > http://goo.gl/BH3Kjr
Trigger Mechanisms: Design, Value, Accuracy
Materials: Toned Paper, pencil, tortillion, white charcoal
Apply Knowledge and Skills:
Instructional Strategy
- Nonlinguistic representation
Learning Activity
Create > Circular Narrative
Goal: Create a series of images illustrating a narrative over time
Studio Activity > Circular Narrative
Make a series of photographs that illustrate a narrative and depict the passing of time. Begin by coming up with ideas for the last image and then work backwards in your storyboard. Think about backstories for gifs memes > http://goo.gl/Xi5bmN .
Trigger Mechanisms: metaphor, fantasy, narrative
Visual Examples: http://www.reddit.com/r/behindthegifs/ > http://goo.gl/bJyVKM > http://goo.gl/5uSmQk
Materials: Digital camera, picmonkey, collage apps
Generalize, Publish and Reflect:
"The advice I like to give young artists is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you.
If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case."
~ Chuck Close
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 >
- Evaluate > Thinglink Rubric Scoring Guidelines > http://goo.gl/ejQq7B or AP Padlet Scoring Guidelines > https://goo.gl/a70ikP
Joan Miro
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