Before the Men there was the Woman

Hilma af Klint: a painter possessed

Connotative Image Making

If you've been following my blog recently, you'll know that I am toning my visual muscles with a MOOC from CALARTS called Fundamentals of Graphic Design. The second optional assignment was to take the household object we had worked with in the previous assignment and create three connotative representations. Here are mine:

I frequently look through magazines etc and wonder at the illustrations used in articles. How to they come up with their ideas? It was mysterious. This project however 'shed some light' - excuse the pun - on the thoughts and experiments illustrators might go through. I always thought about the concept before the image or how images might match the message. This course is teaching me to look at images first and the meanings we impose upon as secondary. This is an idea or process that I think I  need to explore further.

I don't believe all three of these images are that effective of conveying my messages but I did enjoy the practice. So much so that I would like to attempt the first two assignments with other objects as well as continue to explore the lamp image.

Process, Generation, Iteration I

 The project on the surface seemed commonplace or even humdrum. Create multiple images of the same household object. I chose a lamp in honor of the Pixar people who studied at CALARTS. The aim of the assignment was to get us creating.  From every image and technique I used I learned something new. Even something as straightforward as scanning something, making every image the same size opened a world to me I had only been vaguely aware of before. Not know how techniques would work led to happy accidents as well as disappointments.

I was required to make ten images but I made many more, subsequently I had to decide which ones to submit and that was a challenge. Not because I loved them all but all had something of interest.

As I worked on the assignment over seven days I was reacquainted with the pure joy of doing and learning. There was also a feeling of relief, that I am not focusing on words and phrasing but another way of communicating that shows it itself through action.

Art and Experience in Action

The Woman Bridging the Divide Between Art and Poetry

Towards a Visual Language

watch this space....

My odyssey through the visual continues. I am taking a little break from the evening classes for a while and instead exploring an online course on graphic design. The MOOC I am doing is through Coursera and is a CALARTS course. I have done their courses before and they were excellent, I am really motivated. So far I have been impressed. 

Over the weekend I mulled some of the conclusions I am coming to. I had come to a point where I could see that process without some aim isn't going to take me anywhere. I originally thought that the answer was to plan a show but on close consideration I think this isn't a good idea. 

I have decided that I want to marry my beliefs in adult learning with some kind of visual project or works. It has taken me a couple of years to come to this idea. A couple of years of exploring what it is to be an adult learner, to embark on the unknown and to struggle to learn new skills. So deciding on this direction is a big achievement for me.

How to execute this is a different matter. Trying to develop a visual body of work feels a lot like when I learned a new language. And like language the only way I will improve is through practice. Fortunately this MOOC has provided some fascinating opportunities for me to develop making as a habit.