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Final Written Exam

498days since
Final Art Project

Visual Journal

Students will work independently in their sketchbook with a wide variety of mediums.  The purpose of the sketchbook is to give students the opportunity to experiment with art making techniques, tools and to further develop their own ideas.  Sketchbook entries will be evaluated twice a semester.

Visual Journal

 

What is a Visual Journal?

 

A visual journal can take many forms but is essentially a sketch book filled with collages, stamping, painting, drawing, bits of paper we collect here and there and written text that allow us to express, with creativity, the thoughts and details of our daily lives.

 

It is the most important process in developing our ideas.

 

Visual journal Web Resources

Check out these interesting web-sites for inspiration.

Illuminations

http://www.kporterfield.com/journal/Illuminations.html


Maya´s Visual Journals

http://ritualesgallery.blogspot.com/


Dan Eldon.org- he´s awesome!

http://www.daneldon.org/


How to Create a Visual Journal

http://www.visualjournaling.com/sketchbooks.html#


Journal Fodder Junkies

http://journalfodderjunkies.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-it-started.html

 

BRING YOUR SKETCHBOOK TO ART CLASS EVERYDAY

 

USE ANY ART TOOLS YOU WISH

 

How to use your Visual Journal

 

Ø  note taking

Ø  sketching

Ø  experimenting with different media

Ø  collecting resources

Ø  writing

 

Visual Journal Due Dates:

  November 22, 2010

January 19, 2011

 

Your visual journal is like a bank:  invest in it and you will have a wealth to draw on.  Be playful with your ideas.  This journal is more about process than product.

 

 

You will choose visual journal assignments from the list provided.  Be sure to add the DATE and the ASSIGNMENT NUMBER on each completed page in your visual journal.

 

You are expected to complete a total of 10 exercises in your visual journal outside of class assignments.  Journals will be collected twice over the semester handing in 5 exercises each time and will be evaluated according to the following criteria.

 

An outstanding effort

Your journal successfully and consistently demonstrates an independent, exploratory approach to research, expressed both visually and in writing.  You are relentless in your search for relevant information (visual and written) that relates to our class sessions.  You are willing to look in unconventional places.  Your research shows depth and breadth and includes various types of original and recycled images, text, media experiments, technical practice, and lots of reflection.

An excellent effort

Your journal generally demonstrates an independent, exploratory approach to research, expressed both visually and in writing.  Your research shows both depth and breadth, and includes various types of original and recycled images, text, media experiments, and technical practices.  You include and discuss your ideas.

A very good effort

Your journal consists of some completed pages but it tends to depend on fairly conventional and easy to find sources.  There is some evidence of personal reflection, experimentation and technical exploration, but it has not gone beyond class sessions.

Work of uneven quality and commitment

Your journal consists of few completed pages and tends to depend on fairly conventional and easy to find sources.  There is little or no evidence of personal reflection, experimentation and technical exploration.

 

 

 

 

 

Visual Journal Assignments

You will choose 10 assignments to complete from the lists below.  Your visual journal will be collected twice over the semester so you should aim to complete 5 assignments for each due date.  Each assignment should be at least one page.  You will work on these assignments independently but will have some class time.

 

  1. Create a 2D Collage that uses a variety of materials (watercolours, pencil, magazines, etc.).  In your collage, somehow incorporate contrast (old/young, light/dark, ugly/beautiful, you get the point).

 

  1. Create an absurd poem.  Cut words out from magazines, newspapers, books, etc. and mix them up and randomly put your poem together.

 

  1. Draw a souvenir that has special meaning to you.  You may color it or shade it in with your pencil.  Try to do this from observation.

 

  1. Comic strip artists use outlines to create their characters.  Draw an original cartoon of someone/ something or comic strip (sequential art) of something funny, ironic, or tragic, that’s happened to you, someone you, or create it from your imagination. This can be in any style you want and may or may not include frames.

 

  1. Sketch a full page of friends, family, or classmates.

 

  1. Draw an object by only drawing the negative spaces. Try to choose an object with interesting holes and spaces like the example below.

 

 

 


Example of Outline

Negative space is the gray

Example of negative space

 

 

 

  1. Choose a letter of the alphabet other than E as in my example to the right.  Repeat it throughout a composition, changing the position of the letter and the values of both positive and negative space.  Notice how the negative space stands out clearly from the composition in some cases, and appears neutral or insignificant in others.  Use at least 3 ranges of value.

 

 

 

  1. Crumple up a blank sheet of white paper really well almost into a ball.  Draw this from observation in your sketchbook (still thinking about creating an interesting composition).  Then, go back and use shading, to create a full range of value. Use a pencil to shade the object with many light-valued grays for both the shadow on the object and the cast shadow on the surface of whatever it was resting upon.

 

 

  1. Find a shiny surface with reflections like a bathroom faucet, spoon, or door knob.  Depict it shading, reflections, and highlights to make it look real.

 

  1. Draw something you did or saw over the summer. 

 

  1. Draw something you did or saw over the Christmas holidays.

 

  1. Draw for AT LEAST 30 MINUTES!! Do a detailed value study of at least one item of clothing or fabric arranged in an interesting pattern of wrinkles and folds.  Find a quiet corner in a closet or room that has good lighting. 

 

 

  1. Fill the page with overlapping shapes that run off the page on all sides. No positive or negative spaces larger than a fistprint. Fill each positive and negative space with smooth pencil gradations (from light to dark).

 

  1. Design a logo for a company or band.

 

  1. Draw a self portrait.

 

  1. Select an object that has meaning to you and make a drawing of it and write down the memory it recollects.

 

  1. Photograph or sketch your room.  What have you done to make it yours?

 

  1. Do a full page doodle.

 

  1. Fingerpaint.

 

  1. Draw an everyday, common object.

 

  1. Do you think graffiti is art?  Ask a friend and a parent/guardian.  Compare their answers to yours.

 

  1. Create a picture out of a non-traditional medium.  For example, gum wrappers, ketchup, etc.

 

 

  1. Create a full page composition using a combination of 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional arrows. Use overlapping to break up the spaces into interesting positive and negative shapes. Outline with felt-tip pen. Think up an interesting color scheme and fill the shapes with colored pencil.

 

  1. Glue magazine pictures in the background and draw the foreground.

 

  1. What makes something a work of art?  What isn’t art?

 

  1. Write down the lyrics to your favourite song.  What meaning does the song have to you.

 

  1. Record a conversation between yourself and someone else in your visual journal.

 

  1. Do a full page of texture rubbings.

 

  1. Write yourself a letter.

 

  1. Change the words in an advertisement.  How has the meaning changed?

 

  1. Go for a walk and collect objects or photograph interesting objects that you find.

 

  1. Draw the sunset or sunrise.

 

  1. Listen to a piece of music and create a painting or drawing about what you hear.  Fill the entire page.  Be sure to write down what the music was.

 

  1. Draw the moon.

 

  1. Design a tattoo.

 

  1. Record a dream.

 

  1. Draw your lunch before you eat it, as you eat it, but not after you eat it!

 

  1. Experiment with watercolour, charcoal, ink, or pastel.

 

  1. Digitally alter an image.  Show both the before and after.

 

  1. Draw studies of your hands. Try a variety of positions or overlapping them.

 

  1. Draw the contents of a trash can.
  2. Draw a portrait using light and shadow- place the light from different angles than "normal" -under the chin, behind the head, in front of the face.

 

  1. Draw several studies of your eyes, nose, and mouth in a variety of positions and poses.

 

  1. Try to make as many types of lines as you can. Repeat each type of line several times. Try all types of lines: wavy, curly, jagged, dashes, fat, thin, etc. Fill your page with as many lines as you can.

 

  1. Using pen and ink, use a minimum of five different techniques to create value to shade from black to white. Fill the page. Try to go from light to dark in the sections.

 

  1. Draw or design any kind of vehicle.

 

  1. Take out a library book or look online on any artist of your choosing and duplicate their art work. ­Please make a Xerox copy of it for your reference.  Why do you like this artist?

 

48. Copy a work of art.

 

49. Make a collage about something about the environment.

 

50. Take pictures of garbage.

 

51. Write a poem.

 

52. Using your black felt-tip do two blind contours of your teachers. Use two pages; draw one on each page. Using coloured pencils, turn the most interesting of the two blind contours into a color wheel. The colors must flow in the order of the color wheel.

 

 

  1. Begin by drawing one outline shape, then overlap partially with the same shape again, letting the first one show through. Overlap again and again, creating interesting paths across your page, filling it. Remember to plan your paths to create interesting negative shapes around them, too.   Color: With colored pencil, begin at any point and color the original shape in entirely. (Light pressure works best!) Choose another color and color the next whole overlapping shape, even where they cross. (Easiest with analogous colors!)

 

  1. It's fall and harvest time! Go "harvest" some leaves!! Find several different types (shapes) of leaves and trace them into your sketchbook. These may have to be repeated several times to make a good composition.  Now divide the page into four separate areas. Please do this creatively also! Then using coloured pencils, colour each area in one of these four colour schemes:

Complimentary colors: colors opposite each other on the color wheel

Analogous colors: three or more colors touching each other on the color wheel

Tints and shades: one of the above two color schemes with white and black added to lighten or darken.

Monochromatic: one colour with different values.

  1. Start: At any place on your page - this example started at the lower left. Draw the first letter (from your name) with an outline shape (lower case letters are the most interesting.) Before you draw the second letter, turn it, so that it creates interesting negative shapes. Let the letters touch each other in order to close off more of the negative spaces. Fill your page, adding and turning letters, and creating interesting negative spaces between them.