Inspiration can be hard to find, and when you do it's always important to jot down your idea or image before it's gone. This is where a sketchbook or notepad comes in hand, while you might not want to tote a large, bulky book around you can always keep a smaller version with you and then later translate those ideas into the sketchbook you will be handing in. But where can you even begin to find inspiration? It can come from anywhere and at any time, and as school descends again I usually get caught in a funk. I wake up, go to school, come home, do homework and repeat. What ends up happening is that there is nothing new being injected into my life and art gets put on the back-burner. When I do find the time to focus on my work I have no inspiration or motivation on what to put my energy into.
Below I am going to share some of my favorite places to get the right side of your brain up and running again, but first there is something you should do right away... get outside! Go for a walk, bring a notepad, a camera, a pail or a recorder and just walk. Make sure you clear your head of all your other subjects' work and personal to-do's and walk around. Keep your eyes and ears open, if you don't have much time just walk around your house - if you have more time try walking farther away. Observe the world from different perspectives (both physical and mental). When you think of something make sure to ponder it, let it sit, develop it, drop it and come back to it. Only go back inside when you have one good, solid idea.
Great!
If you totally ignored everything I just said that's okay, just make sure to come back to it - if not for your art then at least for your health.
Now, here are some things you can do on your computer. Starting with visually driven websites:
- Pinterest
- Tumblr
- Stumbleupon
- 500px
When you get there, explore and drift. Waste some time (and make sure you take notes). Listen to some new music; either on Youtube or on 8 Tracks or Stereo Mood or even watch a movie. Here are a few favorites to get you started:
- A Single Man
- Beautiful Losers (Doc)
- Exit Through the Gift Shop (Doc)
- Mona Lisa Smile
- Helvetica (Doc)
- Waste Land (Doc)
Make note of sites and artists you like, or feelings you get and want to learn to replicate with your art. You could also always pick up a book on something you want to learn more about.
Last but not least, you should spend some time getting to know your fellow IB art students in your cohort and what they are doing. You can bounce ideas of them, get some positive critiquing going and just chat about nothing in particular - who knows what might come up and lead you to a new project?
Friday 4 January 2013
Thinking of a Theme
One of the first things you will likely be asked to do when you begin your time as an IB art student is to develop a theme of which all of your work will be centralized around and grow from. The theme in this sense is obviously very important to your work, and the sooner you figure out what yours is going to be the sooner you can start "making art". Right?
This is what I thought when I started the program, I was told to think of a theme - something specific yet general enough to give me room to work with many concepts and platforms of art. I soon realized that this was extremely difficult. This thing that I had to choose at the beginning of grade eleven would dictate what art I could pursue up until the time I graduated. My thought process went a little something like this....
1. Random broad ideas of no great value
2. Random specific ideas of no great value (for a month I thought my theme would be birds .... I don't even like birds that much, they kind of scare me)
3. Giving up and just doing some raw "uncensored" art (this is important)
4. Gradually figuring out what I like (and don't like) to do
5. Assigning a name
That name would end up being my theme, something I am now almost 100% pleased with, but as you can see I wasted a lot of time in the beginning trying to find words to describe the art I would go on to create.
This was all wrong - so learn from my lesson! Instead of spending the first couple of months trying to find a theme, a title to define the work you would later create, let your theme come to light and expose itself as you experiment with different art forms and find your niche. This isn't a math question where logic rules and you have defined steps to get you to your answer and it's not an English paper where you can brainstorm what you want to say based on prior knowledge. This is art; something that looks like the easiest subject in the IB hexa-thing but is probably the hardest because of the amount of motivation, exploration, trust, talent, and perseverance the student has to have (not to mention the personal development they have to go through).
Another thing to remember is that you need to create ten to fifteen works, while that may seem like a lot it really isn't in the grand scheme of things - so don't blow the situation out of proportion. Take time to explore different ideas before you settle down with one, and always know that you are in control of where you take your theme as it grows and develops over the course of a year or two.
Before I go I thought it would be only right to disclose my personal theme with you as it currently stands: Patchwork and Pattern.
This is what I thought when I started the program, I was told to think of a theme - something specific yet general enough to give me room to work with many concepts and platforms of art. I soon realized that this was extremely difficult. This thing that I had to choose at the beginning of grade eleven would dictate what art I could pursue up until the time I graduated. My thought process went a little something like this....
1. Random broad ideas of no great value
2. Random specific ideas of no great value (for a month I thought my theme would be birds .... I don't even like birds that much, they kind of scare me)
3. Giving up and just doing some raw "uncensored" art (this is important)
4. Gradually figuring out what I like (and don't like) to do
5. Assigning a name
That name would end up being my theme, something I am now almost 100% pleased with, but as you can see I wasted a lot of time in the beginning trying to find words to describe the art I would go on to create.
This was all wrong - so learn from my lesson! Instead of spending the first couple of months trying to find a theme, a title to define the work you would later create, let your theme come to light and expose itself as you experiment with different art forms and find your niche. This isn't a math question where logic rules and you have defined steps to get you to your answer and it's not an English paper where you can brainstorm what you want to say based on prior knowledge. This is art; something that looks like the easiest subject in the IB hexa-thing but is probably the hardest because of the amount of motivation, exploration, trust, talent, and perseverance the student has to have (not to mention the personal development they have to go through).
Another thing to remember is that you need to create ten to fifteen works, while that may seem like a lot it really isn't in the grand scheme of things - so don't blow the situation out of proportion. Take time to explore different ideas before you settle down with one, and always know that you are in control of where you take your theme as it grows and develops over the course of a year or two.
Before I go I thought it would be only right to disclose my personal theme with you as it currently stands: Patchwork and Pattern.
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