Alison…
An amazing “chronicle” of Alisons life thus far… by Jack Radcliffe, for me this is a photographic delight, great moments captured in real life and handed to us to see… perplexing…
If you are into photographing people, check this out, if not, take a look from the development of life side of things… So much said without words.
Art From peoples stories.
This is a neat concept, one that could be interpreted in a myriad of ways.
What is contemporary art?
Contemporary art is a term used a great deal, but what does it mean? Let’s take a look at some possibilities and explore a bit further from there.
“The art of the late 20th century and early 21st century, both an outgrowth and a rejection of modern art. As the force and vigour of abstract expressionism diminished, new artistic movements and styles arose during the 1960s and 70s to challenge and displace modernism in painting, sculpture, and other media.”
Fine art registry – Glossary of terms.“Contemporary Art encompasses all art being done now. It tends to include art from the 1960s or 1970s through the present.”
Tennyson Gallery – Glossary of terms“Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since World War II.”
Wikipedia
Some Contemporary Art Movements, styles, variations.
1950
Abstract Expressionism
Bay Area Figurative Movement
Lyrical Abstraction
New York Figurative Expressionism
New York School
1960
Abstract expressionism
Bay Area Figurative Movement
Colour field
Computer art
Conceptual art
Fluxus
Happenings
Hard-edge painting
Lyrical Abstraction
Minimalism
Neo-Dada
New York School
Nouveau Réalisme
Op Art
Performance art
Pop Art
Post minimalism
Washington Colour School
1970
Post-Modernism
Photorealism
Ugly Realism
Video Art
Arte Povera
Land Art
Body Art
Feminist Art
Yunnan School
Neo-Conceptualism
Neo-Expressionism
Bad Painting
Post Minimalism
Demoscene
New Image Painting
Nuovi Nuovi
Ascii Art
Aboriginal ‘Dot Painting’
Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru
Mühlheimer Liberty
Trans avant-garde
1980
Free Figuration (Figuration Libre)
Neue Wilde
Chicago Imagism
Collaboration
East Village
Appropriation Art
Mail Art
Neo-Geo
Multiculturalism
Graffiti Movement
BritArt / Young British Artists (”yBa”)
Neo-Pop
1990
Net Art
Massurrealism
Information Art
Arte factoria
Toyism
Lowbrow
Grunge
New Media Art
New Leipzig School
Tiki Art
Bitterism
Post colonialism
Cynical Realism
Internet art
Young British Artists
2000+
Demoscene
Environmental impressionism/expressionism
Funism
Pluralism
Post Conceptual Art
Relational Art
Software Art
Sound Art
Street Art
Stuckism
Superflat
Thinkism
Ungraven Image
Videogame Art
VJ Art
The above list is created from a range of resources on the internet (Wikipedia is but one), the validity of any of the categories listed above is probably rather subjective in many cases, so in the end it comes back to you and your research to be able to “verify” what’s listed and not just accept it as “fact”.
Lets explore the notion of contemporary works of art and their categorisation further. Note in the opening quotes, the idea of any art created now can be classed as contemporary. As true as this is there is another factor or two that needs to be explored here. Take a look at a range of art you might see every day in peoples homes, framing galleries, or as posters etc. the works are often decorative, things of “beauty” to decorate not so much to push boundaries and or cause people to think.
Note the lists above do not have a category for decorative art, fantasy art, art therapy, nor leisure painting. What needs to be mentioned is the role of art curators, art critics, artist’s peers and the like have in supporting artistic directions, styles of art and or groups of art. In a sense art that communicates on a deeper level could be a way of summing up “serious art” and in this case contemporary works. Therefore some of the categories left out are probably no considered “High art” although the artists may have very serious intent.
In exploring the fractious and nebulous world of art, take in all comers, and check out where they “fit” in the scheme of things. It’s important to be able to measure and find a place for things, push boundaries and check out what’s taking place so you can explore things in their right context. Perhaps from this article you can create a checklist of things to consider when viewing an art work to see if it is indeed a contemporary work of “value”, decoration or a piece of therapeutic merit.
Be Bold…
Many artworks start out as a light sketch and build up from there… That’s the traditional way, but who says it has to be that way?
Try a bold start instead, you might have a light drawing or an image in your head, so get out a big felt tipped pen or a big brush with black ink on it and jump in. Explore and test out a range of options to make you think outside the “square” you might normally work in.
You can always add to the mix by putting lighter colours over the top to “tone it down” if need be and then again you can always add more black over the top.
Consider laying out a few heavy papers in a row, then doing a design on each and building the images up quickly using the above technique, you just might find some ways to express ideas you may not have explored yet.
Perhaps you can try fine dark lines instead of bold ones and if your design lends itself to a lot of lines on the page the deep and dramatic can show itself in the details, or how about changing the colour of the outlines… The skies the limit!
Geometry in Art
Through out the history of Visual Art there has been a series of reference points to the use of geometry in art and quick search on the net will show many examples of Persian tiles and mosaics, Indonesian Batiks with repetitive patterns, Japanese screens with patterns, right through to Op Art and in the digital age in the use of fractal formulas to create designs and images of intrigue and great visual depth.
It can be an interesting area to explore and often the designs have stemmed from nature, with floral patterns, symmetrical flowers, sea shell sections and crystalline structures, there are many ways that geometry manifests itself.
Finding ways to explore geometry is limitless and can often give designers and artists an intriguing source of inspiration and starting points. Look up the work of Bridget Riley, M.C. Esher or Victor Vassarely as a start…
Musically Creative
Many people work with music on, while others work in silence. For the music heads, here are a few ways you might use music or sounds to a broader advantage rather than just background melody to entertain you as you work…
- Get the lyrics - Have a favourite song? Then illustrate it. Create some designs based on the lyrics. Or go searching for lyrics that fit to the work goals and or style you have, You might just find some songs that support your cause. Many lyrics are available on line for free.
- Get instrumental - Listen to instrumental music (from classical to new age and all the “bits” in between) listen for patterns, listen for rhythms. At times you will find these stylistic devices easily, and other times not often, but if music is your thing you will be able to decipher these more readily. Now figure out how to take the “musical imagery” and translate it into “visual imagery”.
- Think fast - Try using some music that really gets your mind racing… perhaps it’s a favourite piece with a quick tempo, now, lets say it runs for 3 mins… Then draw like crazy in that time frame, and get a whole bunch of ideas flowing fast. The more you do it the more you can pick up… try the same piece at a few different times in the day or on different days, then compare the sketches, marks, imagery and intent, is the much difference? Chances are you might capture a whole bunch of ideas but not neccessarily realistic images, objects etc, you might find a more abstract or stylistic approach happens this way.
- Colour relationships -In listenting to the music, what colours and tones come to mind? Deep dark tones, or light bright ones? Cool or warm colours? Whatever it is, there is a chance to try out some colours and see what comes together from that starting point. Most Artists seem to wok from an object based starting point, but what’s stopping the creative process from evolving from another standpoint? A… Nothing but your imagination.
- Search music and art - On the internet it’s amazing what’s out there, and at times you can find links to the ways others have used these sorts of connections to create art, so see what others are doing too.
- Swap it around - Blues music is called “Blue” as it is often sad and makes people reflect on or feel “blue” what if you were to chage it so that the music could reflect an opposite stance? What if you did blue pictures but in vibrant oranges and yellows? the results could challenge some of your perceptions about the way objects and colours interact…
- Do the reverse - If music can inspire us, then what about art inspiring music? Hey do a search on the net for that… Or if you are musically inclined can you make music to an artwork? Go on give it a try and see where it leads to.
- Nature’s music - How about sounds in nature and considering recordings of sounds that are nature based? If a group of birds were chirping for a few minutes, could that be the starting point for creative exploration? You bet… If you could record some natural sounds and on a computer soundtrack program (Like Garage Band on a Mac) you could play about with various sounds on a variety of tracks, then you might create a starting point to explore.
That’s Eight starting points to creating musical starting points, are there any others? Sure there is, and if you want to share them here, add a comment to this post to explain how you or others went about it.
Re “Contextualise”
In the pop era (to name just one…) Artists took things from the everyday and presented them to us in different materials to put them in another context, and cause us to look at them with fresh eyes. Perhaps this can be a starting point for you to explore things too.
Take a cast off item of any kind and try out some different ways of decorating it, to make it different.
Take a chair for instance, paint it in stripes, or a cast off computer printer, or a cabinet. Think decoration, think make it very different to it’s normal decoration or use. try tissue paper scrunched up and attached with glue, wall paper, plaster thrown on and sculpted.
There are a million and one possiblities so explore… a group exercise might be to take a well known object (lets say a cereal packet) and re contextualise it, a group of 20 students would clearly have 20 different apporaches to the one object, the value of the end product? Probably low as an object of “collectibility”, but as a process in creative exploration, quite possibly priceless…
Google Me An Art Work…
Stuck trying to come up with an idea or series of works? Or do you lack stimulus for ideas… well take a look at google maps, if you want to create an interesting landscape check out some desert areas with meandering dry river beds, more the page about until the image look right, the use a program like GRAB for the mac, you can use it to grab a screen shot of the section you want, save it for further use.
Or for a comment on things urbane, check out views of towns and cities, again go for a composition that works, grab the image and off you go.
Or try selecting a panorama type format and make some wide format studies.
Perhaps go for a conceptual approach and pick a place name and see how many places have that name… compile a work based on that place name. It could be a collage, an installation or whatever.
You could try train stations, air ports, sports stadiums, schools the list is endless.
So go and map out some art ideas, if you run out of inspiration from this source I would be surprised!
Thinking about adding more?
It’s too easy to think of a painting (or any medium for that matter) as a canvas with paint on it, but it can be so much more. In a formal sense it’s called collage.
Think a bit more about what’s in front of you as you plan an art work, if it’s a painting you can attach other things to the canvas, you can create collages of text and images, you can make the work more 3D by attaching all manner of bits and pieces, the aim here is to make sure you attach the items well and ensure they are light enough for the canvas to handle the weight. As with any work of art a starting point would be to consider the end product, what you want it to look like and what you may be aiming to communicate.
In parctical terms cyou can attach most things to canvas with a good PVA type glue, its fairly acrylic based and can be watered down with water to make a thin transparent glaze. Not sure? grab an offcut of canvas, and try out a bunch of things, see what sticks and what doesn’t.
Working Away From the Void
Occasionally artists end up so wound up about a set topic or theme they have been working on, they can fall into a void, believing the topic has been somehow exhausted. Or they go to start some new work and find a creative slump, and a “black hole” or “void” has got them in it’s spell… Breaking free from that can happen, however at the time the situation can be daunting if not debilitating.
One approach might be to develop a small sketch type book or visual diary, where you push other boundaries of exploration around your topic. Perhaps there are small drawings, words to associate (or not), different colour schemes, alternative symbols, metaphors or visual devices of some kind.
Clearly the aim is to develop ways of knowing when you are close to a void, and how you might manouvre to stay away from it. Hopefullly these will give you a starting point to work with.
Creative Twists
Any one that has done effective brainstorming in a corporate setting and put the solutions into action will know the process can be very useful, sometimes a facilitator will use some form of creative brainstorm to get people thinking.
Often they use words, statements, short stories or symbols with some form of puzzle or conundrum to tease the participants minds into a creative approach.
Artists can use this to, and I find often that artists are perhaps more natural or less inhibited in coming up with creative approaches as it happens at a more unconscious level (especially with practice.) So lets take a simple approach and twist it.
Write down five things that interest you (it could relate to a theme or line of research on a topic) then for each thing write down something different to that, do that 5+ times for each word, then it’s up to you. For me the first “logical” thing would be to take the last words from each list and then figure a way to make these fit to your original “theme”.
To take this further you could do the same with symbols printed off a computer. Or explore the first word exercise using symbols to respond to the last word you got. Or take all the words, put them in a bowl and randomly select a few and group them together.
Ideally I guess the “creative process” is about taking the absurd, mixing it with a dash of logic, and exploring the boundaries. Then in a useful stance the organised artist would possibily create a dictionary or encyclopedia of wierd creative approaches, systems or ideas…
Drawing Straight
Try working on a drawing using only straight lines, often used in life drawing classes you can use it on any subject.
Instead of drawing the outline of the object you are looking at, use loose straight strokes of the pencil or crayon, having some part of the line you have drawn become part of the object you are drawing. You will end up with HEAPS of lines on the paper and suddenly you will probably have found out something about exploring negative and positive space…
Exploring Drawing
There’s lots of ways to explore drawing skills and for many the task of sitting down to reproduce an object causes them some stress, will I get it right, will my brain hurt afterwards… well here’s a simple exercise that can take the edge off things and give your brain a few chances to explore but not hurt too bad! (No promises…)
Fold a piece of paper in half, on one half draw a continuous line with a reasonable amount of twists and turns on it, start at the top and work your way down.
Now open the paper up, half has what you have just drawn the other half is blank (well it should be!) now fold it back closed, and put it on a light box or against a window (so you can see the design through it.)
Using your other hand trace the outline of the design (yes the picture shows up on the back of the page). Now open out the page and see if you can draw a mirror image of your first design (freehand this time) on the original blank part of the page.
The more you try this the more you will exercise your brain and be able to come up with a range of more complex designs.
Exploring More Colour
In exploring colour options for art works many people will be familiar with primary colours and then secondary colours, but wait there are tertiary colours… what about those?
When you get let loose to create anything you want and start to explore things you get to a point of realisation there are many colours not on a standard colour wheel, then you find as you mix varying proportiions of more than two colours you get the tertiary mix.
For many their first foray into tertiary colours looks like mud on the page! So it requires you to handle it carefully so as not to end up with a mess.
as an exercise in colour mixing you can play about with dashes of colours painted on a page and rotate the page every so often (Hey it’s probably not High Art but its an exercise to try out things…) you might mix a palette of say 5 tertiary colours and tone them with small amounts of white, while every so often trying a new colour and some more white.
As you play about with the colour on the page, consider the design, consider if there is usefulness in overlapping the colours and letting one show through the other. Also consider the white space, is there enough to balance the way the painting looks (what ever that means to you and the image you are creating!)
You want more? Consider the metallic colours silvers, gold, iridescents… There is now a great range of these and they offer a whole range of possibilities for mixing colours that sparkle and shine in different lights.
Even though it’s JUST a colour exercise, use the opportunity to explore some form of design on the page, so you can come up with more than a colour exercise. Perhaps a great design copied and coloured in a bunch of different ways might be a useful exploration.
If you want a real twist try playing with stripes of colours going light to dark in a range of tertiary colours, perhaps expore some “Op Art” designs, or find a 3D object you can “decorate” with your stripes, imagine a 3D Op Art box suspended on a fishing line and rotating in mid air, it could be a great start to a whole new group of art woks for you.
The Paper Cut
Check this image out…
So simple yet so powerful! The placement on the page, the framing the whole thing… Now get your thinking caps on and come up with some ways you could do the same, perhaps consider simple shapes, perhaps shapes cut out appearing to fall off the page… perhaps different coloured shapes.
Of course there will be a million different ways you could cut paper to communicate a concept, but it would seem that often the simplest seems to work the best.
Have a go and see what you can come up with.
Oh and who is the artist? Well have a look and see. http://www.petercallesen.com
Going Abstract
The word “abstract” is generally thought of as the opposite of “realistic;” although abstract art is not realistic it can range from stylised (or simplified piece of work), to a totally abstract piece that is a completely new object in the world.
While “abstract” is often thought of as a specific style, there are as many branches of it as much as there are ways to use abstract to explore visual concepts. An artist might choose to do an abstract work to somehow communicate different things than a realistic work might. When it came into being, being able to do things abstractly, freed up artists to explore their worlds in fresh ways.
So let’s do some basic exploration, starting with a realistic drawing, trace it and simplify it’s structure, then trace the initial tracing searching for aspects of the original you may want to alter and shift. Take this piece and now evaluate it in basic design and compositional terms adjusting it to suit. Perhaps you have been able to keep some of the original “feel” of the initial drawing and have now used it as a catalyst to explore other aspects of the drawing.
There, you have just created something abstract or at least stylised. Playing around with these types of techniques can give you the chance to explore media, design elements and aspects of communication which may be worthy of future exploration.
An extension exercise might be to create as many stylised versions of a drawing as you can, selecting a few and using different media to alter them from their original concept.
The Month…
Here’s an art activity to perhaps keep you from falling into a void with your work, (Not that this ever happens!) or exploring the media and things that happen in our daily lives.
For each day of one month, make an art work about something that happened in the news, you could go for sensational headlines, or page three small stories of low interest but perhaps piercing value.
Perhaps some of the days you will just enlarge a section of the paper and create a simple collage, if ideas are not forthcoming… Perhaps the main works will be the same size all the way through. Perhaps the works become a wide “digital” panorama image on a wide website site where the viewer scrolls through the days.
Whatever the end product, the aim is to work with the inspiration of daily news (images, text, sound, video’s etc.) then explore how this connects each day (or not.) think about abstract ways you could present the information, or ways to use text in the works, and will you let the viewer know what day each one represents?
You could adapt the exercise to look at set chunks of history or a time based piece that explores the same time of day or night over an extended period.
Dream Journalling
The surrealists used dreams to make art, and so can you, the challenge though is to remember the dream or enough of it, so that the next day you are able to use the imagery as an art starting point. So here’s one way you can turn that around.
Start by keeping a dream journal and keep it near your bed, when you rise in the morning make it the first thing you do, jot down the dream you had. It might start out that you remember a few people in the dream, or a place, but then over time more details will emerge as the days go on.
On doing this myself many years back, I found I had so much information and detail to write down, I would run out of time in the morning… I should have had a tape recorder to speak it out rather than write it.
Using the information gathered you could use that as direct material or as inspiration for works. Either way it can be a very compelling as well as highly useful way to develop your art ideas.
Self Portrait Exercises
To many students the idea of doing a self portrait is a challenging experience, especially if it’s at the start of a course of study… “What me on a canvas?” Well I am sure the teacher had good intentions in mind, like wanting you to look deeper at yourself and what you stand for. Also, if you ever get stuck for subject matter, you know yo will always be around to draw.
Here are some ideas to get you started with many taking the “you” out of your portrait.
- Silhouette - Grab a digital camera and take a profile shot of you, on the computer tweak it so you only see a silhouette (you might play with contrasty lighting in the initial shot to make it easier). Then play around with ways of using the image (multiple tonal overlaps, outline and tone overlaps, include other objects in the silhouette, play with words and statements.) have a play with it and see what happens.
- Installation - Use the silhouette as a starting point and copy a heap of them, paint one side one colour and the other another, then create a sculptural installation hanging them at varying heights with fishing line. For a variation consider stripes or contour lines, or how about a collage of images on each.
- Negative you - No not a negative “image” a negative image… So yo take the silhouette and cut out the you bit, put that aside, now use the bit around you, the negative image… decorate that and see what you can get.
- Half you - Take a contrasty photo and enlarge the image cover half of the face and leave it blank or decorate it, use some of the above techniques to explore with.
- All of you - Grab a big sheet of paper (a roll of newsprint or something heavier is good) lay it out on the floor, lay on it, and have someone trace you with a pencil, top to bottom, now take that outline and decorate it, make a giant collage, colour it in, maybe make a few of them and create an installation, try a heavy outline in texta. What about the other side? How will you present it?
- The real you - SO the teacher is harping on about “I want to see the real you, no silhouettes!” so create a “real” picture (use a mirror to draw you) then copy it and slice it up in to strips or “chunks” and arrange that as in a collage… Sneaky huh! and the variations are endless.
- More of you - Create a card board 3D you perhaps a “box” or three attached together, that includes your head and torso. Attach drawings or draw or paint directly on it. You could have someone take four views of you on a camera, project them onto the “boxes” draw, paint, decorate!
- Use your arms - Not your head? Wow how does this work? (pay attention and I’ll tell you…) It’s simple, place your arm on paper or canvas and trace the outline on to it, then the other one… then fill in the space with collages about you, include pictures of you. Pretty handy eh! You can do multiple of these and have fun figuring out how to present them. Want to be more abstract, then find ways to paint or decorate the inside, hmm or the outside… that add depth to your arms and what meaning you want to give them. Stuck for how to decorate? Try a fish bowl approach, put fish in your arm…
The above ideas are starting points around a self portrait, hey you might not love the subject matter (yet) but these exercises can give you some creative options to explore, the sky’s the limit. Try brainstorming some other options with friends or classmates and see what you come up with. Have fun! exploring yourself might be deep and meaningful at some stage, but it does not have to always be that way and often a deeper connections with yourself can come about by more “casually” exploring who or what you are and stand for etc.
Throughout history many artists have explored themselves through self portraits with interesting results, do a search on Rembrant, Albrecht Durer, Andy Warhol and see how they tackled the subject in fairly formal ways.
Review the self protrait exercise (if you have done any) and jot down (where’s your Art Journal) what comes to mind, was it an easy exercise?, what would you have done diferently?, what’s stopping you from doing more (if anything)? and how about creative processes, did you really explore the posssibilities of way’s to “decorate” your portrait?
Visual Art Diary - Art Journal
Many Students have these, and most have them because they are told they have to as part of their studies! Ok get over it, you should use one because you want to, not as a have to.
So what’s the value, the benefit, the reason… Well most people who say have one, will have seen the benefit and should be able to tell you, it’s for exploring, writing, gathering, giving you points to reflect on and not just as a sketch book, it’s more than a diary to write in, note the title “Visual Diary” or “Art Journal”.
My suggestion is to see the Journal as a way to keep things together, so that when you want to show how a work or your thinking has developed you have the “evidence” rather than just having some new art tangent you have miraculously plucked from “thin air”.
In simple terms it’s a diary on steroids, not just a collection of past events, but of present thoughts and ideas as well, that you can reflect on and use in the future. A personal resource of information (it can include anything and everything you can think of that fits on to a flat page.)
Do a bit of internet searching and you will probably find lots of outlines for how to create a journal, but the key to creating one is making it work, and that’s simple, get one and use it all the time. Example, I bet you have a mobile phone with you all the time, same with this, you can even have a small one so you can carry it with ease then add your entries to a big one if you want. If the first one gets filled up grab another one and add to that to. One thing I will say, NEVER throw out rip out any part of the diary, keep it in tact, you never know when some info you were going to throw out will be useful.
The Journal can be great to have at an interview for courses of further study, as it can reaveal a great deal about HOW you work and back up the actual work.
Creativity, Words & Pictures - A Dada approach
There are many ways to develop a creative approach to subjects and themes, one I learned many years back was how the Dada artists created poetry, in particular they were interested in taking an anti art stance and as such often broke a lot of “rules” around writing and art, the great thing for us is they found some very creative ways to explore things.
One of the things that stands out about this technique (or at least my version of it) is how easy it is to get something going, have fun and watch it evolve (sometimes not, but most times yes!)
The can be a fun technique to explore with friends at a party (when all else seems dismal…)
So the idea is to grab a book or three and aim to grab snippets of information, words, phrases etc and string them together randomly, sometimes the chunks can seem to have some form of connection though.
One way to do this is to flip through the pages and see what grabs or stops, take that page and go for a stab in the dark, point at a section and write down the words or statements, then string them together and read what you get.
Another approach is to copy a bunch of pages randomly from books on a topic or theme, and then cut up the lines of words, and paste them together in various was, read it out and see what you get.
Often the most absurd strings of words and phrases give the best result.
Now having created the words and or “poetry” your aim is to use the information to form a foundation for an art work. Consider a collage of copied sections of writing, enlarged, painted over, stained, used as a decopage/collage over an object. or perhaps the words in your poetry suggest an image or series of images that relate to your theme or subject, therefore leading your creativity.
It can be a fun technique which might give you ideas and options to explore some creative approaches to your work, now you need never be struck with a blank canvas again.
There are lots of ways you can make this work, adding pictures and so forth to create collages and so on. Think of a few variations on the basic theme of random searching and come up with some techniques of your own, then write them in your Art Journal for future reference.
Creativity is… And?
Here is a little snippet of an article on creativity from Linda Naiman at Creativity At Work feel free to explore her website and find more information on creativity.
I define creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being…creativity requires passion and commitment. Out of the creative act is born symbols and myths. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness–ecstasy.”
— Rollo May, The Courage to Create
“A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates further work and ideas, the more the product is creative.”
— Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd
That’s a basic foundation to work from, now the question could be, how do we develop it? Or perhaps the question should be why should we develop it?
Why indeed, the artist or the student of Visual Arts is a person interested in creating things anew and exploring options around subjects and concepts, so the notion of creativity and fostering it should be of high value, especially if you get writers block or you see a blank canvas staring back at you in times of creative drought.
So understanding creativity is one thing, developing it is another, and as such I will leave the development of it for another time. Essentially creativity, it’s develoment and understanding is vital to the artist and finding ways to over come challenges in the development of concepts and subjects is an importnat set of skills to learn.
Creativity Starts Here, Or Not…
I came across this website years ago and was blown away with the simplicity of what Michael Hewitt Gleeson chats about. His 10 part email training is simple and as effective as you might want it to be. Simply put it’s about thinking, but not in a heavy science kind of way, this is practical material you can use daily, regularly, easily.
I urge you to take a look and see if it can assist your creativity to be all it can be.
http://www.schoolofthinking.org/about/
Oh and it’s free!
Note when you have a look you will notice it’s not an art site, nor does it mention art in any way, but the principles for developing creative approaches are in here, so go take a look, sign up, get the emails and let us know what you think.
Exploring Culture in Visual Art
Culture, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the devices that give such activities significance and importance.
Now with that definition in mind Artists might find themselves saying, “So when am I not exploring culture…” Great point, and while you are pondering that let me get on with some other bits… Thanks…
So patterns of human activity, things we might do repeatedly, things that have significance or importance that are repeated.
Therefore there are a lot of things that could fall into these category’s, the artist therefore using these to communicate and or explore “stuff” about them could find some interesting starting points, here are a few I am sure there is more.
- Popular culture - Looking at the popular things of the time and their impact - Social - Sports - Politics
- Religious culture - The history - The rituals - The beliefs
- Historic culture - The things that happened of significance - Wars - Natural disasters - Other
Take any of these and consider ways to utilise them as a starting theme - then figure a few ways to make art with the cultural starting point. How about this War - There are many ways to depict war in art, but what if I was to collect copies of war time newspaper articles and create a collage of the cut up articles… I could cut out shapes of guns and overlay them, I could make patterns out of the collage guns, the result is a starting point on the theme of war.
So that’s a start, you could take almost ANYTHING you are interested in and explorre it this way. perhaps a collage might lead you to thinking about a drawing or painting, or ideas for photographs themed from the collage.
By following a train of thought, then exploring it further lyou could be creating your own level of significance and importnace about something, so you would be creating your own culture! Oh yeah I figure that’s why art is a called a cultural activity. Hm if I use that sort of thinking sport could be art…
So there you have a simple way of starting to look at culture and how it might fit to your exploration of the arts.
Exploring colour
One of the best things I remember at art school was being given a task to develop a range of colours for a litho print, 2 days later I had an amazing array of colours in little foil packets ready to select some for the print. Thing is I could not tell you what the print turned out like but I remember the process of mixing small amounts of sticky ink and wrapping it up for later use!
Using colour in art is important and over time I have seen various exercises that explore primary and secondary colours but going to pastel and tertiary colours is another thing, here are a few things simple projects you can do on your own or at school to explore colour more.
Colour explorer
Create a series of squares on A4 card (about 6 is good) and divide the squares in half, now put colours in each side and add contrasting colours to the other side of the square, create multiple versions of these practicing better paint application, and colour combinations. I am sure it can be done on a computer with a simple paint program, and it would save a lot of time, but if you want to be a painter the brush technique development and mixing paints is invaluable.
Other approaches - Divide the squares into three sections – Make larger squares – Make a series of five stripes of varying widths and explore the colour combinations – Use strips of coloured paper in varying widths to make a collage of coloured strips – Use overlapping coloured paper shapes to explore colour and design ideas.
Even though these seem simple the variations are endless and can help you to develop an understanding of colours that work well together and those that clash. In a sense it’s like creating your own colour swatches, the type you see in paint stores.
Want to take it further, cut up coloured strips of paper and create stylised (simplified) landscapes using the strips pastes in various combinations, try it and see what happens.
Brainstorming on a Fresh Level
I have just come across this, tried it a bit and thought “let the world know…” In an art sense I am big on using words to explore things creatively and one of those is brainstorming.
Here is what I found it’s an online brainstorming tool that’s free to use and allegedly you can have others access the same site and work collaboratively, and for a group art project (say a community arts project) that could be very useful.
I am think however that its just a great tool to use just on my own to explore ideas.
Nice site dear bubbl people! (hey I wonder if they look like Michelin men? 
Investigate and experiment
In the early units of study for art in secondary schools there is an emphasis on investigation and experimentation. The aim being to give you some starting points to creating and looking at art.
One of the big challenges I see with this is the time given to do it in, so often teachers do what they can and hope for the best. If you want to get ahead in the “study stakes” you might find you need to create a whole HEAP of homework for yourself! hey don’t stress out from it, just think of it in terms of “I want to do art and I want to make sure I give it my best shot” so here are a bunch of possible ways to “get ahead” and stay there.
- Visit art galleries - An easy option but too many people don’t do it, jump online (oh wait, you are already…) and start googling art galleries in your area and beyond. Go for commercial galleries and make a habit of getting to as many as you can during holidays and weekends. Analyse everything and collect postcards, invites and other information to give you ideas and ways to explore art further. Remember many galleries change the displays every 3 - 4 weeks so know when the next show is on.
- Explore a variety of techniques - Example drawing, with pencil, charcoal, crayon, pens, brushes, paint, sticks dipped in paint or ink… Check out art classes offered during holidays and weekends, they may give you access to materials and process you don’t have at school…
- Chat to artists - Find ones with websites, there might be a number of local ones you can catch up with, ask them questions, interview them, find out what makes them tick. Then use that information to give yo more starting points.
- Use a journal or visual Diary - Whatever you want to call it, put all your images, drawings, scraps etc in one place, then use it as a resource to explore visual ideas more deeply. Often you can get ideas for new works by flipping through a journal and seeing what images or concepts stand out to you.
- Explore creativity - This is not often taught in schools, many teachers may think that students that do art have some special “talent” it’s not always the case. If you have some art ability and you are studying at this level check out as many ways that you can find to be creative, check out lateral thinking, critical thinking, problem solving… do searches on these and other topics to do with the creative process and see what others are doing.
- Use words - Okay it’s visual art, so why use words? Well not all of us have a “visual mind” or if we do it may need a break from pictures and words can do that. Words, phrases, poetry, stories, metaphors, all of these can give you creative starting points to work from. One way is to look at writing or mind mapping a bunch of words on a topic and then checking out the connections that may arise from the investigation. Stories might give you a way to illustrate a theme, it might lead you to writing a story to then illustrate, either way they can be powerful starting points for you.
- Ask questions - Chat to people about art, survey them if you like, to find out what their opinions are… you might be surprised at how much people know… or don’t know about art.
If any or all of the above don’t get you thinking about ways to investigate art further then I’ll eat my hat, you will note that it gives a bunch of starting points to work with that should spark some interest for you at some stage.