Wrapping up

Everyone is ready for the semester to come to a close. As each semester winds down its almost like you can feel the motivation and determination drop away with each passing day. While classes are in full swing students get into a routine, and become accustomed to the rhythm of the school year and its demands. However, as the countdown gets lower and lower, it becomes more difficult to stay focused.

But, this is the last stretch. Just one more week of studying, getting up early, and rushing in a panic to get studio art projects complete. Just one more week before a glorious, restful span of time away from school. This break will not only be chance to relax and catch up with family over the holidays, but will also serve to refresh ideas. After three months of consistent work on art, I have begun to run out of good ideas.

The break will give me a chance to stop thinking about art for a couple of weeks. Or, at least, it will give me a chance to stop thinking about the same ideas I have been thinking about for months on end. The time off will renew my idea store-room, and definitely allow me to come back to the new semester with fresh ideas and motivation to make a lot of art.

Lesson Idea

Students could take on the assignment with the requirements of having to draw themselves from life, and combining that with a made-up representation of a "thought". The image below is a good example of how the two drawing styles can be combined:

Unknown Artist. Pencil Drawing.

Students would be able to work from reference materials such as photographs, drawings or paintings in order to create the imagery necessary for their "thought". They would need to be able to explain how the imagery they chose to draw relates the viewer to the place, time or event that they are attempting to express.

Importance of writing

There is something in the act of writing that creates clarity. Whether it is the physical act of  transferring ideas and thoughts onto paper, or just the amount of focus required to organize thoughts in a logical structure, I do not know. Either way, writing can be a useful tool whenever an individuals thoughts are cluttered, or ideas are scattered.



Many people think of a journal as a personal item, used only to write about emotional experiences and private thoughts. I think that a journal can be a very useful tool when used in a public way, though. In my art classes I plan to have my students keep a journal/sketch book that they record subjects and topics they have been thinking about, as well as ideas for projects and art. I would inform students that this notebook would be a public item, and that I would be reading through it at several points through the semester. This way, students would be able to keep their personal, private thoughts out, and include only ideas they wished to share. Students would also be able to write in whatever style they felt most comfortable with, whether that include only drawings, only writing, or a combination of the two.



The journals would help me, as an instructor, to get a better sense of what my students are interested in and how they are currently thinking about art in relation to other topics. I would be able to keep current with my own assignments and be better equipped to keep my students interested in what I am trying to teach them.