Artistic Thinking - Week 12

Week 12 

Read and React

Hetland Chapter 6-7

Chapter 6

Learning to Engage and Persist: Committing and Following Through

            Sometimes students need encouragement and guidance when completing a task or project in the art room.  During this time it is important to acknowledge that the students have a difficult task ahead of them, tell them they have done a great job so far, try to keep them focused on the task at hand, and encourage them to persist through what they may not like at the moment because art is about the process. 

            One teacher expressed these guidelines to his students:
            -Stick to what you’ve begun

            -Slowing down is sometimes a form of persisting

            -Even if you’re not happy with your work right now, it’s important to keep going

            -Learn to manage time as you work

            “By going through the process and coming up with something, students realize that not everything works.”  This, again, is all part of the process.  Remind students of expectations in the classroom and of student work.  Encourage them to challenge themselves.   Sticking to a project involves the habit of Envision: The end product should motivate students to keep working.  “Teachers often play a role of gently keeping students on task and making sure they persisted in their engagement.”

Chapter 7

Learning to Envision: Planning Beyond Seeing

           

            “Envisioning includes the acts of generating mental images so that one can imagine how a work will look, and planning ways to achieve that image.  Observation and Envisioning are ends of the same continuum.  When we observe, we look closely at the outside world.  When we envision, we imagine and generate images of possibilities in our mind.” 

            This chapter discusses some ways students can be encouraged to envision:

-Generate a work of art solely from their imaginations, rather than from observation.

            -Imagine how their work would look if they made specific changes.

            -Make a “unit,” repeat it, and then combine the units into sculptural forms.

            -Imagine all the ways they can vary a line, a shape, a color, or a composition.

            Ask students to think explicitly of what they are trying to represent.  One example of asking a student to envision is by having them “Determine where on the page a new color could be used.”             

            Envisioning helps students to invent rather than copy.  It allows them to better represent themselves in their artwork.  One teacher said, “I want to give them the tools so that they can be innovators and come up with their own problems and their own solutions and their own questions.”

Twyla Tharp:

“Scratching”

            In this reading, scratching refers to the action within the first few steps of a creative act.  The author describes it as “digging through everything to find something…Scratching can look like borrowing or appropriating, but it’s an essential part of creativity.” 

            Scratching is one way to get ideas.  “A good idea is one that turns you on rather than shuts you off.  It keeps generating more ideas and they improve on one another.  A bad idea closes doors instead of opening them.  It’s confining and restrictive.  The line between good and bad ideas is very thing.  A bad idea in the hands of the right person can easily be tweaked into a good idea.” 

            The author recommends focusing on scratching for little ideas.  Without little ideas there are no big ideas.  Sometimes all you need is a small idea that will lead to more and more ideas.  She also suggests that an artist actively engage in their medium in order to allow their brain to fully generate ideas.  For example, “If you’re a painter: You can’t imagine the work, you can only generate ideas when you put pencil to paper, brush to canvas—when you actually do something physical.” 

            The reading lists four ways that ideas can be acted upon:

            “First, you must generate the idea, usually from memory or experience or activity.  Then you have to retain it—that is, hold it steady in your mind and keep it from disappearing.  Then you have to inspect it—study it and make inferences about it.  Finally, you have to be able to transform it—alter it in some way to suit your higher purposes.” 

            Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, and nature are all examples of scratching. 

ENGAGE AND PERSIST ASSIGNMENT

1. Blog Reflection

Reflect on strategies you use to combat these five struggles/ideas in your own work:

Motivating and instilling passion—This is a hard one.  I don’t feel like you can force feeling motivated or passionate about art, or a piece of work.  I believe these notions come after being persistent in working through the dry parts of your work.  Sometimes you won’t feel motivated or passionate, but you most work through those times to get to the wonderful moments when you feel so motivated and passionate you might burst.  There are definitely highs and lows; the key is to keep your work pattern consistent.  I believe it is important to take time to look at other art that inspires you.  Maybe make an inspiration board on Pinterest.  Gather up anything and everything that makes you feel passionate and then go work!

In the classroom, I would remind students that persistence builds passion.  I think it is important to acknowledge to students that it is okay to feel unmotivated or a lack of passion at times, but it is in those times when you can learn the most.  Those moments are valuable.  You can look back after the piece is finish and be proud that you worked through it and look at what you learned about the process of artmaking.

Cultivating sustained attention—During times of low motivation and passion, you may feel like working less and giving it time.  While sometimes it is good to put some space between yourself and a piece of artwork so that you can come at it from a fresh perspective, generally, I think it is important to have a consistent working pattern.  Knowing there are times when you don’t want to work on a piece of work, I think it is wise to have a scheduled time per week, or biweekly, or whatever it is you have time for.  If you have a scheduled time then you know you have to work on your project once that time hits.  You have carved out time for it.  Even if it is just a time when you’re “playing” or processing, etc.  You must do it!

Similar to the classroom strategy of finding motivation and passion, cultivating sustained attention comes with persistence.  Persistence might come in the form of a schedule.  It might come in the form of taking away all other distractions for a period of time so you can remain focused.  I think it is important to remind students to figure out what works best for them to remain focused on the task at hand.  Help them figure out what they need to focus their attention.

Combating Frustration—This is a hard one.  You can’t really help the emotions you feel.  If you feel frustrated, you feel frustrated.  Again, I think this goes back to keeping a schedule and working through the frustration through consistency.  With that said, if you need to take a break from a specific project and go back to something that is more inspirational, something that will instill motivation in you, and then do it!  Sometimes we need to be reminded of the things we love about art.  It is important to take time to do that.  In the classroom, I would do just that.  I would recommend if the student is frustrated, they take a quick break and “play.”  Find something to reignite their interest and passion for art.

Working hard to meet a deadline—This simply comes down to will power.  Do you have the ability to a) Keep a schedule, not procrastinate and b) Work diligently for long hours to get a project finished if there is a short work period of time?  I think it is important to have self-control and self-discipline to create a work ethic in which you set out time to work on a project so that you’re not doing it the night before a deadline.  Sometimes you run out of time and have to work long hours to finish the project in time.  This takes a lot of will power.  This is when you need to be goal-oriented and stay motivated by the finish line. 

This is what I would remind my students as well.  Have self-discipline to not procrastinate.  Which took me years to figure out.   The sooner students can hone in on a good work ethic and schedule, the better their artwork will be.

Developing the ability to delay gratification (working without seeing the endpoint)—Of course, in some cases, there is no finish line.  That is to say, there is no obvious reward or acknowledgment of your progress other than your own.  Or sometimes a project is so long-term it is hard to feel motivated by a finish line.  I think this idea of “developing the ability to delay gratification” goes back to finding your gratification in the process itself.  It is important, as an artist, to appreciate and value the process of a piece, although this is sometimes very hard to do when coupled with frustration or lack of motivation.  Just keep reminding yourself of the value in the process!

For students, I think it is just as important for them to find value in the process.  While in school, students usually have deadlines and grades that give some satisfaction to a finished product, it is important to instill in them a satisfaction that comes with learning through the process.  If student understand this notion they will resultantly create better work.  

2. Studio Assignment

Progress and written reflection on how the ideas of engagement and persistence have factored into this work thus far (or how you envision them factoring in over the course of the next few weeks).

            I have finished an introductory piece for my body of work.  I wanted to get something on paper that was rolling around in my head.  I like some aspects of the piece and dislike other parts.  After working on the piece for a few hours I was extremely unimpressed.  I wanted to start over, but instead decided to keep adding layers to see if it would come together.  For a first piece I am happy with how it turned out.  I like the use of watercolor and line throughout the image, and yet something about the way it flows together seems unprofessional to me.  I dislike the architectural image in the center.  For my next piece I would like to make images either more abstract or more realistic.  The illustrative approach in between of the structures in this piece bothers me.  I would like to build on what I’ve learned from this first piece by eliminating the aspects I don’t like and adding onto the aspects I do like.  I would like the next piece to have more layers and a more defined approach before I begin.

System A

Watercolor, Acrylic, Pen, Graphite

INVISIONING ASSIGNMENT

1. Evidence of Scratching: Pinterest inspiration board for this specific body of work.  After having completed an introductory piece in my body of work, I am now going to do research on where I want the project to go from here.

Link to Board: http://pinterest.com/cjcover/memory-map-project-inspiration/

2. Blog Reflection

In what ways could you teach the processes of generation, retention, inspection, and transformation as part of the envisioning process?  Give Examples of a project for each idea.  Or how the 4 might be used together in a particular lesson/unit of study?

“First, you must generate the idea, usually from memory or experience or activity.  Then you have to retain it—that is, hold it steady in your mind and keep it from disappearing.  Then you have to inspect it—study it and make inferences about it.  Finally, you have to be able to transform it—alter it in some way to suit your higher purposes.”

Lesson 1: Generation

Students will create hand-bound journals out of paper, recycled paper, found paper, altered book paper, etc.  These will be their art journals for the semester. Students are expected to make two entries a week that can include any of the following: Sketches, ideas, writing, processing, questions, answers, random thoughts, artists name/work, cut and paste images, photographs of student work, artist statements, etc.  This will be a tool for students to generate ideas.

Lesson 2: Retention

Students will choose an idea generated in their artist journals for further development.  They will create three pieces encompassing a body of work.  These pieces will cover a general theme/concept, but show different approaches to physically manifesting this concept (Different mediums, different perspectives, different subject matter, etc).  While these are not final pieces, they should be thought out, crafted, and executed with excellence. 

Lesson 3: Inspection

Based on these three pieces, students will choose the approach they find most successful.  They will reflect and respond by investigating and researching their concept further.  They will find an artist that creates work pertaining to a similar concept or similar medium and use their work as a platform of inspiration.

Lesson 4: Transformation

Lastly, students will begin their final piece based on the concept and artist they chose from lesson 3.  They will create a piece of work that visually demonstrates understanding of their medium technically and their concept is communicated through content.