Summer Break Assignment

With the end of the 2009-2010 school year approaching, I wondered if you had plans for a creative vacation during your summer break? Let me encourage you to develop a unit design as you would a list of sights to see on any vacation. A unit design turns what you see in the world around you into art. Your unit shape will be the focal point of your creative journey. First, you will simplify, and then you will organize what is around your simplified unit shape into a composition that draws attention.

 
Unit shape of leaves

As you would use words to make a list of tourist sites, you will use the elements of design to write your images into your composition. Does this sound too much like school? Am I asking you to “control” your creativity?  Rollo May, author of The Courage to Create, said,”Creativity is best when it has limits, which force the ‘dream’ into usable form.” Planning before you create frees you from stopping to make design changes.  With no plan it is difficult to know when one is finished.

Completed work by art educator, Diane Maxey

Your goal, should you accept it, is to create one unified design product during your summer break! Use the following Elements and Principles of Design:

Line      Movement

Shape         Emphasis 

Form      Balance 

Value       Contrast

Color      Harmony

Texture     Rhythm

Space         Variety

Combine letters, numbers, shapes and other symbols into a unified composition.

Search for interesting patterns in nature:  weave of a bird’s nest, shadows on a stone patio, pulp of a fruit slice, anything that brings a smile!

Work to music and draw from the rhythm & melody to break some rules!

Change your point of view-above, below, inside out . . . think “outside the box!’

I was demonstrating painting techniques for a 2nd grade class a couple of weeks ago and one of the children exclaimed, “It even smells like grass!” Work with all your senses!

Use your camera viewfinder to compose and try a macro setting to zoom in like Georgia O’Keeffe.

Once your unified shape is set into your composition and into your mind, lose the plan.  Put it away and do what the painting, collage or project needs.  As Tim Gunn on “Project Runway” would say, “Make it work!” Have fun & lose yourself in creativity!

-Rebecca (Becky) Guinn