Submitted by: Don Stewart, Artist
The DS Art Studio Gallery 2805 Crescent Avenue
Homewood, AL 35209
1-800-372-7864 http://www.dsart.com
Composite Imagery
(Substitution and Visual Punnery)
A Five-Day Lesson Plan
Day 1. Puns
Definitions:
Pun: A play
on words, usually the assignment of different meanings to similarly sounding
words or phrases, with humorous intent.
Visual Pun:
A drawing, cartoon, photograph, etc. depicting objects arranged so that the
names of the objects or a description of their placement suggests a play on
words.
Examples: Hot
Dog (a dog in the sun), Fast Food, Pie in the Sky, Little Brother
Exercises:
1.
Encourage students to think of as many puns as they
can, and list these on the board.
2.
Describe a picture that would illustrate one or
several of these puns. (A dog in the sun, etc.) Draw one or more of these
examples for the class.
3.
Have each student create a line sketch of a simple
pun from the list.
Day 2. Shapes
Purpose: To
enable students to recognize common geometric shapes in different
contexts.
Exercises:
1.
List common geometric shapes (circle, square,
triangle, rectangle), and draw each shape on the board or projector. Discuss
and list real-world objects that have these shapes. (e.g. Circle: pizza,
tire, checker, coin, etc.)
2.
Have students draw each shape at the top of a sheet
of paper, then write down as many objects as they can think of that conform
to the shape.
Students should spend the
remainder of the period examining the classroom, or looking through magazines,
newspapers, etc. to find examples of different shapes. These should be added
to their shape lists.
Day 3. Shape Drawing
Purpose: To help students use common
shapes to construct complex objects.
Exercise:
1.
The Teacher should provide an example (photograph,
drawing, or model) of a complex object (e.g. a train, cathedral, grandfather
clock) and point out the individual geometric shapes that make up the details
of the object. (Circles for wheels, rectangles for bricks, etc.) This example
should then be rendered as a line drawing, using only basic shapes.
2.
Students should select a subject containing a
variety of basic shapes, and create a line drawing composed entirely of
geometric figures. Shading and texture are unimportant in this exercise.
Day 4. Substitutional Imagery - Collage
Purpose: An
opportunity for students to practice identifying and selecting basic shapes
in print media, and reassemble them into a collage rendering.
1.
Using their previous Shape Drawings as a guide,
students should cut out pictures from magazines, catalogues, etc., and,
substituting for the original geometric shapes, paste these together into an
approximation of their original subjects. (Many of these cutout pieces will
not be exactly the right size or configuration to fit the subject. No matter.
The goal here is to reinforce the process of shape recognition – and to make
students aware that the real world does not always fit the artist’s vision.)
Bonus: Students may attempt to limit their shape
selections to items that collectively or individually create one or more
visual puns.
Day 5. Composite Drawing
Purpose: Practice drawing basic shapes such as those
identified in print media, and assemble them into a collage-type composite
drawing.
1.
Again using the Shape Drawings and Collages as
guides, students may now draw their selected subjects as a collection of
appropriately shaped items (rather than simple line shapes), substituting for
the original geometric aspects of their chosen subjects. Emphasis should be
on shape, not technical ability. Line representations are fine; it should be
noted, however, that the subject should at least be recognizable – and the
drawing should look more like the chosen subject than the collage.
Bonus: Students may attempt to limit their shape
selections to items that collectively or individually create one or more
visual puns.
Resources
The
following definitions are copied from a web site –
original URL has been lost. They are shown here for study.
Visual
Puns: Visual pun is
the use of symbols to suggest two or more meanings or
different associations. Visual puns combine two or
more symbols (picture and/or text) to form a new meaning.
The viewer must mentally elaborate on the visual stimulus
to interpret the message –
Visual Puns: Creating an artwork in which several visual forms which
look alike (thinking by appearance in the right
hemisphere) are connected and combined so as to bring out
two or more possible meaningful ideas in a humorous way.
Because of the obviously separate nature of the two forms
being humorously combined, visual puns are a lower form of
visual metaphor.
Visual Satire: Art forms that use bisociation in an intentional way to
make visual "look alike" comparisons between
unlike objects to make meaningful exposures of vices,
follies, stupidity, abuses, or hidden character. A more
sophisticated form of bisociation than visual puns, works
of visual satire imply that serious purpose is intended,
even when it is communicated in a humorous way. Caricature
is a form of visual satire.
Bisociation: The mixture in one human mind of visual physiognomies from
two contexts or categories of objects that are normally
considered separate categories by the literal processes of
the mind. The thinking process that is the functional
basis for metaphoric thinking. This is a term coined by
the author Arthur Koestler in his book "The Act of Creation."
Koestler invented this term to distinguish
the type of analogical thinking that leads to the acts of
great creativity from the more pedestrian associative
(purely logical) thinking, with which we are so familiar
in our everyday lives.
Visual Merging: Term coined by NAB to specify a level of bisociation where
the separate objects with their associated physiognomic
qualities are being merged toward the level of hidden
metaphoric expressions (disguised symbolism). The objects
at the visual merging level are, however, still
identifiable as separate objects being referred to
visually.
Suggestions from
Getty TeacherArtExchange List Members
Fun with Words
http://www.fun-with-words.com/
(warning site has pop-up ads)
In
American Artist
(1993) there was a great article
on visual puns by Scott Moore – A Getty ArtsEdNet Talk list member used to do a
surrealism/collage lesson with middle school students
based on this article.
Children's books to look at are by Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster) - The King Who Rained,
A Chocolate Moose for Dinner,
A Little Pigeon Toad
-Check with your language arts teacher for lists of
idioms, metaphors, compound words -
Design Synectics
has a list on page 19...
- Watch
Dog
-
Fan
Club
-
Second
Hand Store
-
Water
Closet
-
Strong
Box
-
Photo
Bug
-
Bookworm
-
Loud
Tie
-
Toothpick
-
Gatorade
-
Handcuffs
-
Horse
radish
-
Fireman
-
Wisdom
Tooth
-
Mail
Man
-
Boxing
Match
-
Book
Worm
-
Butterfly
-
Moth
Ball
-
Garden
Hose
-
Horse
Fly
-
Eye
Ball
-
Handball
-
Football
Another
artist translated the word "dog"-- a sculpture
made from watches called "watch dog," "hot dog,"
"dog
gone,"
"dog
days of summer."
One of the paintings is titled "Star Gazing" -
he started with the word star, wrote down related phrases
(shooting star, starry eyed etc...) until he thought of
star gazing - changed it to star 'grazing' and the scene
is a herd of cows among a star cookie cutter, rolling pin
and a sky with the stars cut out like cookie dough - the
cows are star grazing - several good examples -
Roukes book - Humor In Art
has wonderful
examples - and an algorithm or formula for designing puns -
From Sharon Kennedy: Some of my students are working on
projects inspired by the book From Ordinary to Extraordinary
by Ken Vieth. One created a drawing
that's a visual pun, though neither she nor I realized it
until after she'd completed it.
List
from Chesterfield School (Web page no longer active)
Lesson
Plans
Camouflage Visual Puns
Bev
Doolittle's camouflage paintings were the first use of
this term. The image of another entity, such as a horse
and rider, lies within a natural landscape. Seeing
pictures in clouds is the kind of visual play that spawns
this kind of pun. See one of her paintings, "The
Forest has Eyes"
Reading
an image – some basic questions to ask when viewing
images:
http://www.englishcompanion.com/room82/readimages.html
Thomas
Nast – political cartoon
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/1112.html
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=255 (lesson plan for political cartoons –What Portraits
Reveal)
See the political cartoons on Daryl Cagle's site.
Visual Puns/Oxymorons
from Anne Carman-Hendel
I have been interested in the thread about visual puns. It occurred to
me that oxymorons would also be good source of ideas---those seemingly
incongruous words that are used together like 'jumbo shrimp,' 'working
vacation,' and 'pretty ugly.'
I
located the following web sites that have gobs of
oxymorons in case someone like me was still intrigued by this idea.
http://www.ethanwiner.com/oxymoron.html
http://www.topskills.com/oxymorons.htm
[Photoshop
lesson plan page]
