A Visual Verbal
March 5th 2008 03:35
( If you are looking for an instructional on Visual Verbals this is not quite it, but I can show you how to drive your art teacher insane!)
From primary school up, I was the queen of 'Projects'. You know the ones - you get an extra large book, with lined and blank pages, and fill in information and pictures to show you have absorbed vital information. If you have a good teacher, they will also grade you on how you have absorbed it. Then, in Art one day, the rules changed. I think it was year 10....And my art teacher asked for a visual verbal. I compromised - cutting up photocopies of the artworks I was analysing, breaking up short paragraphs of text with a piece of image. Since it was an abstract artist, it all worked rather well. I didnt like the colours, but as usual had left my final touches too late and wasnt left with much choice.
I remember the teacher liking it - for a small town school we had incredibly 'hip' and 'now' art teachers, so he probably thought my riot of conflicting colours were intended to be 'cutting edge'. I figured I had mastered it.
Some time later I failed. Im not sure what I did or maybe my teacher had had a bad day - I dont know. I did ok on my first year 11 Visual verbal assesment, and for this I expanded upon an old theme - The bloody web (which is around here on an old post).
(Id just like to mention, my teachers were very big on expanding upon themes, and I have so much evidence to prove it! Planning pages, original ideas and then evolvement evolvement evolvement! I thought they were all full of absolute rubbish - but partly the purpose to these posts is to show thats EXACTLY what I have been doing, working and expanding on certain themes, Im even planning them out in ways that would make my teachers proud!)
Now, you'll have to forgive me my pages - these were obviously done on one of those mammoth sized bookes not designed to fit into any backpack, and Ive only scanned sections of those big pages. Since my works were usually done across a double page, its hard to give you more than the gist. What you can see however, is a strong base colour, a contrasting web, (yes, they did takes ages to dry but sometimes you actually have to suffer for your art) and a breakup of the Post Modern images I was analysing. To mix things up, Ive made some 'bugs' to stick in the web, some hold information, others not. Some of the information seems caught in the web too. By the little smiley faced sticker I found, Im guessing this one was a winner.
Next, we started on the spirituality subject. What does spirituality mean to you? How is it shown in art with these categories?
I remember handing something in. I remember screaming. I remember being told that I didnt know what a visual verbal was - there was no art to my sensless blocks of information! I remember being told to do it again.
Here is what I provided.
On the subject of spirituality in art we were given six categories.
First, we shall explore Specific Faith and Denomination, and I chose Donald Friend.
Next, The spiritual forces of ancestral beings carried into the next generation by art, I chose Mawalan Marika.
Profound life changes through spiritual practises like meditation or trances, Anne Judell.
The influence of other cultures and events, James Gleeson.
The commonlace transformed into the magical, William Robinson.
and finally, The awesome and Powerful character of Nature, with Nicholas Cevalier.
It was days after the other assignments had been marked and handed back when my art teacher had admitted, she hadnt even looked at mine yet! I was already accomplished at essays from being the only student in the school to undertake 3 levels of Related english, as well as being first in Ancient History. Did you know there are SEVEN essays in the Ancient History exam? Anyways, I was familiar with taking my theme and expanding on it with my quotes and observations. Of course it was harder in art, where you had to express of that with artistic expression.
So, teacher admitted being 'terrified' of reading my assignment....She knew she had to read every word to mark it properly....And as you can see Ive made that rather difficult. Still she perservered to give me my well earned and awesome mark....And me wondering what the hell I had done to piss her off in the first place.
Now, if youve been following, you will have seen the doodling sketches Ive been up to lately, and where theyve been headed. You'll also know theyve evolved.....And this post is just an introduction into what my sketches have evolved into. Ive found it necessary to break down the visual verbal as I feel its inspired me. What also seems to have inspired me is the art teachers - as well as others - for I have followed their instructions without even realizing it and progressed along strange new roads with my creativity.
Read on...
From primary school up, I was the queen of 'Projects'. You know the ones - you get an extra large book, with lined and blank pages, and fill in information and pictures to show you have absorbed vital information. If you have a good teacher, they will also grade you on how you have absorbed it. Then, in Art one day, the rules changed. I think it was year 10....And my art teacher asked for a visual verbal. I compromised - cutting up photocopies of the artworks I was analysing, breaking up short paragraphs of text with a piece of image. Since it was an abstract artist, it all worked rather well. I didnt like the colours, but as usual had left my final touches too late and wasnt left with much choice.
I remember the teacher liking it - for a small town school we had incredibly 'hip' and 'now' art teachers, so he probably thought my riot of conflicting colours were intended to be 'cutting edge'. I figured I had mastered it.
Some time later I failed. Im not sure what I did or maybe my teacher had had a bad day - I dont know. I did ok on my first year 11 Visual verbal assesment, and for this I expanded upon an old theme - The bloody web (which is around here on an old post).
(Id just like to mention, my teachers were very big on expanding upon themes, and I have so much evidence to prove it! Planning pages, original ideas and then evolvement evolvement evolvement! I thought they were all full of absolute rubbish - but partly the purpose to these posts is to show thats EXACTLY what I have been doing, working and expanding on certain themes, Im even planning them out in ways that would make my teachers proud!)
Now, you'll have to forgive me my pages - these were obviously done on one of those mammoth sized bookes not designed to fit into any backpack, and Ive only scanned sections of those big pages. Since my works were usually done across a double page, its hard to give you more than the gist. What you can see however, is a strong base colour, a contrasting web, (yes, they did takes ages to dry but sometimes you actually have to suffer for your art) and a breakup of the Post Modern images I was analysing. To mix things up, Ive made some 'bugs' to stick in the web, some hold information, others not. Some of the information seems caught in the web too. By the little smiley faced sticker I found, Im guessing this one was a winner.
Next, we started on the spirituality subject. What does spirituality mean to you? How is it shown in art with these categories?
I remember handing something in. I remember screaming. I remember being told that I didnt know what a visual verbal was - there was no art to my sensless blocks of information! I remember being told to do it again.
Here is what I provided.
On the subject of spirituality in art we were given six categories.
First, we shall explore Specific Faith and Denomination, and I chose Donald Friend.
Next, The spiritual forces of ancestral beings carried into the next generation by art, I chose Mawalan Marika.
Profound life changes through spiritual practises like meditation or trances, Anne Judell.
The influence of other cultures and events, James Gleeson.
The commonlace transformed into the magical, William Robinson.
and finally, The awesome and Powerful character of Nature, with Nicholas Cevalier.
It was days after the other assignments had been marked and handed back when my art teacher had admitted, she hadnt even looked at mine yet! I was already accomplished at essays from being the only student in the school to undertake 3 levels of Related english, as well as being first in Ancient History. Did you know there are SEVEN essays in the Ancient History exam? Anyways, I was familiar with taking my theme and expanding on it with my quotes and observations. Of course it was harder in art, where you had to express of that with artistic expression.
So, teacher admitted being 'terrified' of reading my assignment....She knew she had to read every word to mark it properly....And as you can see Ive made that rather difficult. Still she perservered to give me my well earned and awesome mark....And me wondering what the hell I had done to piss her off in the first place.
Now, if youve been following, you will have seen the doodling sketches Ive been up to lately, and where theyve been headed. You'll also know theyve evolved.....And this post is just an introduction into what my sketches have evolved into. Ive found it necessary to break down the visual verbal as I feel its inspired me. What also seems to have inspired me is the art teachers - as well as others - for I have followed their instructions without even realizing it and progressed along strange new roads with my creativity.
Read on...
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Comment by tlcorbin
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
For someone who claims he's not a poet, you always have such beautiful words....
Good to have you back.
Comment by tlcorbin
Comment by Ash
Flashes of memories
wow you guys did such interesting stuff in Art - I gave it up when our teacher would just make us draw fruit or dead fish. YAWN - that`s not art!
You did a great job here K, I reckon you would make quite a good teacher in these subjects actually
Ash
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
Thanks hun, Ive always felt I make a better teacher than doer actually. Riding is another place where thats true.
Dont worry - we drew lots of fruit. 'Still life' and then perpectives lines lines and more lines, followed by colour wheels, warm and cool paths.....The boring stuff continued pretty much right up to year 11 where we started doing our own ideas.
No matter which class Im in, if the teacher wants us to do something boring, I always assume there is a purpose to it and they are trying to teach me something, so just suck it up placidly with my trust in them. Most of the time its paid off.