This project is meant to help you learn ways to explore ideas visually and improve your best tool for idea creation and generation your sketchbook.
You can check out the artist who started The Sketchbook Challenge and the blog associated with it here.
You can check out the artist who started The Sketchbook Challenge and the blog associated with it here.
Themes
As you decide on a theme you want to consider the various ways to choose one you will stick with. Here are the themes as described in the book.
- CIRCLES - exploring this simple shape can lead you from everyday things like coins, wheels, plates, fruits, the sun or the moon. But you can take this idea from the everyday to the sublime thinking of circular ideas... the circle of life, time, the change of seasons and orbiting planets.
- DWELLINGS - the house you live in is a dwelling but you can take this idea of places to live anywhere you like. You can also consider what other living things call home, a birds nest, a rabbit's hole.
- ELEMENTS - natural elements like the ones we walk on, past, and under every day. Elements that age, weather and sometimes destroy the world around us, their traces and effects can be fascinating.
- EVERYDAY OBJECTS - All I can say here is that the things we see everyday are often those we actually overlook. Taking time to notice and explore them can be fascinating and rewarding.
- MESSAGES - We all have more than our fair share of these daily. Some are obvious and revealed in print while some can be subtle and implied.
- PATTERNS AND GRIDS - Once you start looking for these they will be everywhere. What you make of them is limited only by your creativity.
- RHYTHM - As one of the principles of composition this could take you anywhere. You could work with the simple movement of color and line. You could think about it as ebb and flow.
- SIMPLE PLEASURES - What moments in your day make you stop and smile. It is "all about slowing down long enough to take stock [of them]."
- SYMBOLS - These are everything from stop signs to an Egyptian cartouche. Symbolic imagery is what you use in your own artwork to stand in for ideas you want to address. This one is rich and roomy a great place to explore.
- TREASURE - Simply put, what do you treasure? Is it gold or a favorite sweater? Tangible or intangible, you can show us.
- VISTAS AND VIEWS - "When you look out your window, what do you see? Consider exploring that view at different times of day or as the seasons change." This could be realistic or abstract. It could be the view from a plane or train, car or bus. This could be the vista you have been waiting to see all winter.
Choosing your own theme...
The adventurous mind might want to use Google and enter the phrase "random word generator" and Google will make your choice for you.
Open a dictionary and select a random word.
Use a meaningful quote or a favorite song.
If you are a collector of "stuff"use your collection as the source of your theme.
...choose something that you love or something that you hate, but choose and start your adventure.
Open a dictionary and select a random word.
Use a meaningful quote or a favorite song.
If you are a collector of "stuff"use your collection as the source of your theme.
...choose something that you love or something that you hate, but choose and start your adventure.
10 pages
Because this is an assignment and assignments need parameters, I said ten pages. The author of The Sketchbook Challenge, Sue Bleiweiss, writes this on her blog in response to the question "How many pages should I create?"...
"There's no minimum or maximum. You should work in your sketchbook as often as you like and create as many pages as you are inspired to. Of course the more you work in it, the more you'll want to so you might just find yourself opening it up every single day to add a little something to the pages here and there."
so whether you want to do ten page fronts or ten page sides, or ten pages front and back is up to you.
If you are in Painting and Printmaking class with me, you will be creating a book structure for your pages so you may want to plan how that will lay out. Here are some ideas about simple book structures.
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| Leslie Tucker Jensen |
Accordion books...
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| Monica Holtsclaw Friendship books 2009 |
Japanese Stab binding books...
Jacob's Ladder books...
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| Susan Lowdermik Power Play 2002 |
For my Advanced Art Majors you will be working in a way and in a book of your own choosing. If you want to work on loose paper and create a book afterward that choice is yours.
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