A very common thing I find from going to art school is ,
many students tackling the problem of coming up with ideas..
for paintings,
for fashion design
or other kinds of design
etc
I mean how easy is it to just go by what you like
You like light colours, you like a certain person's work
you try it yourself...
...very easy
but this all just melts down to imitation and copying , no ?? Although could it be deeper than that ,
how could two people, looking at the same object for inspiration ...one person be drawn to taking one idea based on the object
and another person a completely different aspect...
It's not really imitation
rather something more personal
inside each person that wants to express itself ??
The topic for this thread is on conceptualization...
Let's discuss the process of coming up with ideas...
What is your take on it...
post thoughts
books
quotes
It's very open-ended ...
How/When do you get inspired?
I was wondering this since I have to find the things that inspire me for a project.
I found it very hard to find inspiration at command. So I wondered.....
How/When do you get inspired?
For me it often comes when listening to music or being in nature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crying_Diamonds
I get inspired very randomly, and they tend to be around a lot of the same things.
I'm really, really fussy about what I like, so I don't get inspired often.
And when we're given crappy projects like "Archive" I just hit a brick wall and I am like paralyzed to do much until I find some sort of inspiration.
Inspiration is very important to me.
See the 'Inspiration' thread in 'Personal Style'
me , it happens the fastest at the library
in the paintings section
or watching films on the telle .. jane marple, sherlock holmes
randomly viewing things
more 'visual' than auditory .. so music is a no for me ^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by nangnangnj
Quote:
Originally Posted by gius
...jane marple, sherlock holmes
I love that, it made me smile
Music is really good for me but also reading...especially interviews with other artists or books about other artists...
For eg. I really hate drawing class but it's part of our course, we have to do it...At the time I was reading those Taschen and Konemann books the ones you get at galleries and museums etc...anyway the Leonardo one really blew my mind...all of a sudden I was getting busy in my visual diary for drawing class!!!
i guess when i get going , music does help a lot to tie things together.. the mood ^^
nang that's great about the visual diary !
what an interesting idea
Quote:
Originally Posted by nangnangnj
Yeah I don't know why books do it for me, even fiction books that might have nothing to do with art.
Eg..I might be reading a book and find myself imagining the setting...what the character wears, the room she/he is in, the walls, the rug, the chair
It's strange because there are no sounds or images to prompt it....maybe that's why books are great because you have to force yourself to imagine and participate in the story....
Quote:
Originally Posted by gius
is this for woven fabric design ?? ^
Quote:
Originally Posted by nangnangnj
For anything!!
Eg...that chair the character is on...is that seat a weave?!! What are the colours?...the materials?..how does it feel?
Or those walls...I might start thinking about the mad wallpapers that were made 100/200 years ago.. hand printed or sometimes handpainted ....or maybe it's the crazy felt type one....or maybe it's one that grows like the one Max had in his room that grew a forest
Now you tell me about the rug...what can you see?!
The topic for this thread is on conceptualization...
Let's discuss the process of coming up with ideas...
What is your take on it...
I had an idea for the thread like this. Thank you for putting it into words gius. Flower!
This is sort of like when I took English in high school. "What do you think Chaucer meant with the red horse?" Honestly, I would reply with, "What if Chaucer wanted the horse red because he cut his finger on his quill and bam: red?"
But if I'm sketching or trying to be creative in birthday cards or outfits, I get it from someplace else. I have a hard time creating something from my own mind without any outside help. It'll be the fusion of multiple ideas that I get from people or things already manufactured.
For example, I saw a Christmas card last year that was made of paper and had little glued on faux gems for detail. I took that idea and made holiday cards with construction paper. I used foam paper for the marshmallows in the cups of cocoa I cut out with shiny ivory paper to make the mug look like it was made of whatever it is mugs are made of. And if I need to make an outfit, I incorporate what I see to what I have. I have to be true to myself; I won't be comfortable in an outfit that's not mine own idea. So I wore a hoodie with a fancy scarf today.
Very interesting question .
And very hard to answer.....
I think ideas mostly come up at random. And it depends a lot on what kind of things you are attracted to, or focus on.
Like gius I am very visual too. I am attracted to colour, text, pictures, painting, story's I read ect. If I would see a movie
I might get inspired by the visuals, like the surroundings.
But someone who is more attracted to sounds (auditory) might get inspired by the music.
But the big question is: How do you give your personal interpretation of your inspiration?
And I think that is the hardest part....
Sometimes you hear people that say they were inspired by
a old teddybear or a puddle of mud and I really wonder how it relates to what they made .
It is such a personal and random proces that it's hard to follow.
At least, I know sometimes I can't follow myself when it comes to how an idea was born .
I
t seems to me that this is a hard thing to teach for schools. You might learn them the techniques to open your mind to new possibilities
and options and the steps most creative processes have. But in the end it is such a personal proces that it's hard to really learn it out of a book.
But the big question is: How do you give your personal interpretation of your inspiration?
And I think that is the hardest part....
Sometimes you hear people that say they were inspired by
a old teddybear or a puddle of mud and I really wonder how it relates to what they made .
It is such a personal and random proces that it's hard to follow.
At least, I know sometimes I can't follow myself when it comes to how an idea was born .
....
I think fewormany posted a good question
--forming a personal interpretation...
which all could have bene influenced in any way by our upbringing, childhood, positive + negative experiences, environment, etc. ...
I was having a chat w/ member DevonDevore some time ago
and he was talking about some advice given to him from the people who worked at the place he was interning at
One of the things was,
to make an inspiration book ...
How important is it to know why you like something, drawn to something
I think this knowledge helps us cut off outside distractions
and focus on what's important to us
and to develop those personal visions
... in the end probably creating "your style"
It seems to me that this is a hard thing to teach for schools. You might learn them the techniques to open your mind to new possibilities and options and the steps most creative processes have. But in the end it is such a personal proces that it's hard to really learn it out of a book.
definitely
They give you suggestions
and it just happens naturally ... whether or not it happens
Maybe that is what born "talent" means...
the mid-century art school from Germany, the Bauhaus
had an interesting way to awaken the artist inside their students...
What we learn now in design is based on their teachings I think
Here is a nice book giving a general overview
artvis.bc.edu
Basically it is about the elements and principles of design
the foundations of design...
the 'basic building blocks' in creating a design
You do design 'studies'
or experiments
tests
It surrounds the idea of "contrasts"
for example, dark light
big small
long short
smooth rough
warm cold
These awaken different signals in each person...
Some people respond well to value (light, dark)
Some to line
Some to shape
Some respond to texture (tactile ... like fabric and material)
and people are usually a mix of one or few
example of Materials studies
from bauhaus.de
Itten's preliminary course, Material studies by Vincent Weber, 1920/21, waste metal, tree-bark, roots, plants, and other elements mounted on plywood
By response
I mean the students do very well at a certain category of experiments
and the students should also find them easy
and enjoyable
much more than other categories of experiments even
--I believe this determines the person's "character" or style
What this course essentially was made to do was, to help the students decide what specialty they would go into ...
architecture, weaving, glass, mural, and several others...
-------------------------
^^ Interesting. I don't know much about this, but I'm sure to find out more when I take Design Principals and Elements...which I have been avoiding so far ....because of horror stories of the work load, tedious classes, unforgiving teacher etc. (actually I've met her and she seems really nice ) So thanks for the link and info, maybe I should start some homework on it now
I find that it's easier to keep track of my ideas by keeping visual diaries. Anything I like I try to stick in there...that way I'm not thinking later, where did I see that xxx again? What was it that I liked about xxx again? And I can keep track of where I'm at and where I going by referring back to it...
Not sure if any of what I just said made any sense
For almost all our subjects at school we must keep a visual diary which count toward our final mark.
Great topic Guis! Nice to see that homework thread gave you some inspiration
__________________ An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
^^ Interesting. I don't know much about this, but I'm sure to find out more when I take Design Principals and Elements...which I have been avoiding so far ....because of horror stories of the work load, tedious classes, unforgiving teacher etc. (actually I've met her and she seems really nice ) So thanks for the link and info, maybe I should start some homework on it now
I find that it's easier to keep track of my ideas by keeping visual diaries. Anything I like I try to stick in there...that way I'm not thinking later, where did I see that xxx again? What was it that I liked about xxx again? And I can keep track of where I'm at and where I going by referring back to it...
Not sure if any of what I just said made any sense
For almost all our subjects at school we must keep a visual diary which count toward our final mark.
Great topic Guis! Nice to see that homework thread gave you some inspiration
Mine was tedious too..
I took two of them.. One for my textiles and one another year ago, when I was taking Visual Art
Yes it's tedious the way you have to do each study
I had to make collections of different lines
different shape ideas
sets of colours.. analogous scheme, complementary scheme, tertiary...
After finishing them though, how useful the book is to me now
I find I don't even need to look for inspiration
I just use these ideas
and think about , what kind of feeling I'm trying to portray in my design
I think it helps make you sensitive to the differences in what you see... Say a white shape next to a black shape as opposed to a white shape next to an egg-white shape
The Bauhaus preliminary course surrounds the same idea
using the design elements...
and modifying the basic geometric shapes (square, triangle, circle ---that's why you see these so often in Bauhaus designs) with the design elements you choose, according to your idea...
I would rather haven taken the Bauhaus course though
I was told by Sayan* the Bauhaus is not the same as it was when it started... It's like a completely other school now
How/When do you get inspired? 
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with excellent pictures
I realise it changes according to instructor
) So thanks for the link and info, maybe I should start some homework on it now 
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