Week 12 Envisioning Assignment, Read & React

1. Studio Assignment

The most challenging part of my project is coloring with watercolor. I don’t think I have a good understanding about its characteristics and techniques. So I spend some time researching watercolor for this week’s assignment, as a process of envisioning and scratching. I especially studied tools for watercolor such as pigment, brush, watercolor pencil and paper in order to efficiently use and express watercolor. I have also searched watercolor storybook images which could not only inspire me but also show watercolor’s various techniques. As Hetland and Tharp point out, this process certainly help me scratch for the project and envision result of the project.

2. Blog Reflection

Reflect upon how you might use the Kosslyn 4 to develop a systematic method of envisioning for students in your classroom. In what ways could you teach the processes of generation, retention, inspection, and transformation as part of the envisioning process?

. Generation
Students could be more inspired, motivated and come up with new ideas when they are exposed to various information and sources. So I would encourage students to keep looking for new information and sources which could inspire them to create arts. To efficiently support this generation process, I would recommend that students use web blog or programs such as Blogger Popplet, Inspiration map and Pinterest which enable students to write their journal or save their images, sketches, comments and ideas. Through this way, students could systematically manage what they saw, felt and thought.   

. Retention
Looking at their sources on web journal, students could choose some ideas that they want to develop. I recommend students to choose at least two ideas in order to more open possibilities. Once students choose an idea after doing some research, I would encourage students to go ahead for exploration and experiment. First, they need to know what kinds of research and experiment they need in advance before they work on their project. I have them use online journal to save their research and envisioning process. If time permitted, it would also be a good idea to discuss each student’s retention process.   

. Inspection
It is valuable for students to keep studying whether their idea is good enough. I would teach them that any changes are fine if the idea could be developing. This process requires critical thinking skills. Sometimes, discussing with their peers about ideas or research could be very beneficial since others could more critically evaluate ideas and find its weak points. They could also provide great suggestions or advices. This group interacting is a good chance for students to make improvement and differences for their work.   

. Transformation
After students critically evaluate and check their ideas through inspection process, students could alter their ideas in some way to make better results or suit their purposes. I would encourage students to create journal post about what kinds of changes they made and why they made the changes in detail. Through this process, students could learn how to develop ideas and be fully engaged in envisioning process for their project.  


Read & React

In the chapter 6, Hetland explains and suggests how and why teachers help students learn to engage and persist in visual art classroom. Through examples of both Jason’s Tile Project and Kathleen’s Puppet Making Project, I had a better understanding about not only the process of teaching engagement and persistence but also an important role of art teacher. As a future art teacher, it is scary enough that I need to efficiently motivate and inspire my students to be engaged in the art making process. It might require a lot of practices and researches. Besides, I might undergo trial and error for a while even if I believe I would be well prepared. There might also be challenges and frustrations. Looking back to my past, I found that I hadn’t been fully motivated and engaged in art class. This experience makes me to think of ideal role of art teachers. It absolutely contains the process of teaching engagement and persistence. I believe students could learn various abilities and attitude through this process, such as self control, concentration, experimental attitude, patience and endurance. These are the most valuable abilities for students to learn within arts classroom.    

Students are taught to focus, to develop mental states conductive to working, and to develop inner-directedness. They are taught to break out of ruts and blocks, and to feel encouraged about their learning so that they are motivated to go on. When students are truly engaged, they lose themselves in concentration, forgetting about time, fully focused on the moment. Theyu are in a state of “flow” (Csikszentimihalyi, 1990)

It is very important to imagine how my work will look like before getting into the artmaking process. It can give inspiration and provide an opportunity to critically evaluate and develop the initial ideas. Throughout chapter 7, Hetland discusses how to help students learn envision. As the author points out, I also believe when we envision and imagine, we imagine and generate images of possibilities in our mind. This envisioning process which enables us to think our artworks we will achieve contains various ways such as observation and researches. I would encourage my students to collect images of other’s works which inspire them or influence their idea. Students could also think how to express and represent their ideas through looking for new and creative ways. Hetland suggests some of many ways students were encouraged to envision like below.

. Generate a work of art solely from their imagination, rather than from observation.
. Imagine how their work would look if they made specific changes. Gere, the skill of Envision is used in planning a work.
. Make a “unit”, repeat it, and the combine the units into sculptural forms. This is an example of another kind of envisioning focused on “improvisational” planning.
. Imagine all of the ways they can vary a line, a shape, a color, or a composition.
. Imagine implied forms in their drawings- forms that cannot be seen in full because they are partially occluded.
. Observe the underlying geometry of a form and then envision how that geometry can be shown in their work.

The term, Scratching Tharp describes is very interesting to me. Tharp points out “Scratching can look like borrowing or appropriating, but it’s an essential part of creativity.” I agree with her that to get good ideas, we should be very sensitive to new information and keep looking carefully at outside world because ideas are all around us. I found that people who frequently come up with new and creative ideas tend to be very sensitive and open-minded.
The author also explains the differences between good ideas and bad ideas. The definition of good and bad idea is pretty interesting because, sometimes, it is very hard for us to judge whether our idea is good or not.  

 “A good ideas is one the turns you on rather than shuts you off. It keeps generating more ideas and they improve on one another. A bad idea closes doors instead of opening them. It’s confining and restrictive. The line between good and bad ideas is very thin. A bad ideas in the hands of the right person can easily be tweaked into a good idea."

Tharp also introduces Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn theory that ideas can be acted upon in four ways. Looking carefully at each stage of the theory, I thought of my case. I think I am good at generating ideas and holding on to it. However I am often having a hard time inspecting and transforming ideas. I think I need more practices to study and make inferences about my ideas and alter the ideas in some ways. I believe the process certainly require critical thinking skills.