3.2 ART MAKING EXERCISE:
SEEKING INSPIRATION WITH OUR CAMERAS
The world outside of our doorstep is so visually rich, we’re going to go out on a hunt for things we’d like to explore in our sketchbook, we’re going to go and find visual clues and visual triggers in the world around us. In my experience the act of seeking leads to finding. The lovely bonus of actively and purposefully searching for visual interest is that it forces us to better understand what we find visually interesting. It also makes our lives more interesting because we find more to be interested in.
Above is the collection of photographs I took on the walk around town. I have also included a selection of photos from our local park if corners of graffiti are not your thing.
I invite you to go and seek your own visual interests and clues and record them on your phone or camera. Here are some prompts:
Colour and colour juxtapositions - you could go out and hunt for interesting colour combinations, blue or orange objects etc
Juxtapositions - where two things meet
Patterns and disrupted patterns
Interesting lines
Interesting shapes or silhouettes
Textures and surfaces
Looking through, looking up and looking down - a new angle on life
Surprising pairs or things out of place
Circles, triangles, checks, grids or stripes
Reflections
Corners, edges and transitions
Hidden and revealed
Clashes and contrasts
Harmonies
Passing moments
Lost and found
Movement
We will be using some of these visual references within our sketchbooks in a later lesson (lesson 5.4)
Idea at a glance
By seeking visual interests in the outside world, we notice more and become more aware of the things we are interested in. We are curating our own visual library of references