Visual Arts : Artistic Expressions

My thoughts on Arts ……..(in my first poetic expression ever)
 

 

It abides in the world around,

Where ever beauty and imagination abound.

It is revealed in a palette of colours, shapes and sound,

Through movements, scents and flavours that confound.

It tempts you with the gentle curves of a smile or the sculptural silhouette of the trees

It soothes you with a symphony of rains or a lullaby of tapping seas

It beguile you with the treasures it conceal

And capture your senses with its appeal.

It opens up the windows of our creative minds,

Letting in splendour and joy to our lives,

You get to see the world through someone else’s eyes,

You travel in another’s footsteps for a few miles,

It breezes through the barriers of language and culture

Oh! Yes.. Arts.., the hope of a better future.

 

In the visual arts workshop today, we played a ‘Picture Word’ game in which we were asked to expand the letters of alphabet to describe the desirable attributes of an art teacher that we could think of. Then we had to express these attributes with drawings. Remaining students had to guess the attributes using the clues given in the pictures. For Example, one of the attributes that start with letter ‘G’ was ‘gifted’. To illustrate the idea a picture of a wrapped present and a teddy bear was drawn. So the students guessed ‘Gift’ + ‘Ted’ as ‘gifted’.

 

Drawing of the word ‘Gifted’

Ideas for teaching

·       Get students to write poems or find creative expressions for topics chosen as a way of portraying  

      their thoughts and ideas.

·       Picture word game-This can be taken further to get the students to expand their vocabulary using the alphabets in their own names to describe their personal attributes. Or else we can get the class to expand the alphabets in the name of a particular student and make a poem with the list of attributes developed.

·       Another creative path  through which we explored the name or ideas was to develop a montage using the alphabets

 For Example,

S- Star sign-Capricorn/goat/dragon/need things to make sense, simple explanations
 

O- Origin/Background-Aum-India-yoga-wisdom

N- Natural- interests-reading/architecture/gardens/organic culture/ Organic/Sustainable

 

A-Dislikes/aversions

T-Temptations

A-Things that are admired

Any of these ideas can be adopted and adapted as required to enhance engagement in a classroom.

I was very apprehensive about this workshop because of my lack of familiarity with the creative expression. But to my surprise it was fun and I was engaged throughout the hour. Time flew. But no one wanted the session to end, which is what a teacher hopes for in a teaching session. As argued by Gibson and Ewing (2011,p.4), arts definitely has the potential to spark the creativity  in a learning process and increase our capacity to make meaning in various ways which enables a deeper understanding of the world.

References

Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts. Palgrave MacMillan: Melbourne