Topic: Design is Order
Studio Activity 1:
Create > Organizational Geometrics
Studio Activity 2:
Create > Design by Chance
The Big Ideas:
A system is a structure of interacting, intercommunicating components that operate individually and jointly to achieve a common goal.
Designing is creating conceptual and visual unity by giving order to diverse but interrelated and interdependent parts.
Standards:
As an art student, I will understand and demonstrate the ability to...
- Understand and apply media, techniques, and processes with skill and confidence
- Use design principles and functions to accomplish specific visual art problems
- Choose and evaluate subject matter and ideas
- Reflect upon and assess the characteristics and merits of my work
- Make connections between my art and other aspects of life
Goal Concept:
Artistic activity involves conceptual, visual and psychological order.
Access Prior Knowledge:
“There is no work of art without a system.” ~ Le Corbusier
Dialogue > Le Corbusier on Art
New Information:
Design
The term design can be used either as a noun or as a verb. Design can refer to either an object or an action. As a noun, it can denote a plan, a drawing or a representation. As a verb it can refer to a way of thinking and doing or a way of applying organizational principles, or of endeavoring to achieve a conceptual and aesthetic gestalt. John Ruskin said, “Design is not the offspring of idle fancy; it is the studied result of accumulative observation.”
A good design must have a strong foundation or underlying formal order behind its visual content. To emphasize this, painter Christopher Pratt said, “A work of art has to stand on its own merits which are independent of its source. A geometric structure should be engineered, stressed, proportioned, calculated, and balanced with the same care we would bring to the design of a bridge or the cutting of a diamond.”
Master teacher Joseph Albers wrote a poem about design.
To design is
to plan
and to organize
to relate and to control.
In short it embraces
All means opposing disorder
and accident.
Therefore it signifies
a human need
and qualifies man’s
thinking and doing.
Artist Reference:
Instructional Strategy
- Identify > Similarities & Differences
Learning Activity
Apply Knowledge and Skills:
Studio Activity 1:
Create > Organizational Geometrics
Goal: Create a well organized composition by substituting geometric shapes and form for figurative images.
Studio Action: Go to the Art Institute Chicago’s Modern art online > http://goo.gl/63vdFJ and select a reproduction of a representational art work. Analyze the work and seek out the dominant principles of design (unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale, figure/ground)Reinterpret the composition using only geometric and free form shapes in place of the original figurative images. Maintain the compositional order and proportions of the original work but feel free to manipulate the shapes and forms with value ranges, textures, patterns and colors. View the process here > https://goo.gl/photos/x17SvX4ZrnHBEwoVA
Alternate Studio Action > If accurate rendering is what you want to do, this studio activity’s goal can still be achieved by doing something similar to the works of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. View his works here > http://goo.gl/Uxh37p
Trigger Mechanisms:
Abstract, repeat, transform
Materials:
Paper, paint, markers, mix-media
Studio Activity 2:
Create > Design by Chance
Goal: Create a random ordered design using serendipitous or chance methods.
Studio Action: Cut and tear colored construction paper into various geometric and organic shapes. Without consciously controlling the placement, drop the shapes, one by one, onto a larger sheet of paper. Glue the pieces exactly where they fell. Repeat the procedure until all of the shapes are attached to the surface.
Next, make an adjustable viewfinder by cutting out two “L”-shaped pieces of tagboard and clipping them together. With the viewfinder, search the collage for an aesthetically pleasing composition.
Finally, replicate the collage composition in the form of a painting. The goal is to match the shapes, colors, tones and textures of the collage as accurately as possible.
Trigger Mechanisms:
Combine, transfer, render
Visual examples
Materials:
Paper, pencil, paint, viewfinder
- *Alternate Studio > If accurate rendering is what you want to do, this studio activity’s goal can still be achieved by doing something similar to the works of the surrealist artists of the 1920’s. Take a photo of an interior room or find one and print it out. Next cut out and or print images of random subject matter. Shake and drop the cut-outs onto the interior print out. Take a picture of your chance design and draw the image. View examples here > http://goo.gl/jTjgLA collage will NOT go in your portfolio, it’s just a guide for your drawing.
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” ~ Charles Eames
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 >
- Evaluate > Thinglink Rubric Scoring Guidelines > http://goo.gl/ejQq7B or AP Padlet Scoring Guidelines > https://goo.gl/a70ikP
