Thinking through Drawing

 Though this course was on thinking through an idea or a concept, one of the ideas for an assignment came from a conversation I had on the phone. The assignment was to design through drawings a step by step process of assembling a product. The conversation I had on the phone had directly nothing to do with the assignment. But the content of the conversation made me think about how a person puts things together. There is a step by step process to most of the things we do. In our lives, we tend to follow patterns and routines. This way it makes it easier for us to function in an orderly fashion. The conversation we had also followed a certain pattern- the most important things were talked about first and then the less important things. The thread throughout the exchange was of our collective memories together and thus building on the past, what we saw of our future for the coming months. This made me plan out my work with clarity. I thought of the process of putting up a plastic Christmas tree, step by step; just like the way we lead our lives- step by step. 

Basic Principle

The idea behind the wall mural came from everything but mind maps, thumbnails and brainstorming. I spent much of that evening doing routine things like watching TV and cooking.I watched this program on Mtv called Roadies 5.0. It is about youngsters from different cities travelling and competing in various tasks held in places around the country. It’s both mentally and physically challenging. I watched one episode where a jury was holding the auditions. As eager contestants came and gave their interviews and answered some tough questions, it made me think about how different we all are in the way we think and how we look at ourselves. The one thing that all those contestants had in common was that they wanted to be a part of this series. Yet, each person thought differently, spoke in their own way, felt different emotions. They each had a character that was unique to them. This then made me think of college and realize that each student has their own character and thinking and it is this difference that enables everyone to study together. Each student has their own learning style and they bring to their work not only intelligence, but also creativity. This was the idea behind the wall mural that we designed.  

Form & Content

Form & Content

 There was a young lady whose bonnet

Came untied when the birds sat upon it

But she said, “I don’t care! All the birds in the air

Are welcome to sit on my bonnet!”  

Illustrating in Form & Content was really interesting and a lot of fun! One of our assignments was to illustrate a limerick. Just like other limericks are funny and quirky, the one I illustrated was too. Illustrating does not in any way limit ones imagination. It makes one think laterally and draw the wildest illustrations, but illustrations that somehow complement the text, nevertheless. 

As I started on my illustration, I remembered how when I was young, my dad would read me the funniest limericks from a limerick book we had. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them as they never ceased to make me laugh, as their content came to life in my mind. So when I was faced with the task of actually visualizing one, I drew from my imagination. 

I drew distorted shapes just to see whether they would resemble any of the forms in my limerick. Sometimes my illustrations became too stereotypical and I resorted to listening to music at top volume to clear my head. When that didn’t work, I went for a long walk to imagine the limerick in different ways. I read other limericks on the web. This made me remember how much I used to enjoy listening to limericks. I think that my final illustration was born out of a need to recreate in an illustration where my imagination used to take me as I listened to my dad reading them out.

the Listener…

I finally raised my hand, after years. 

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.

I looked up.

I saw what felt like a million pair of eyes on me.

Did they want to hear what I was going to say?

I spoke anyway.

Even as the silence fell and I could only hear me.

That’s when I learnt that what I had to say would make a difference to the discussion.

And how much better I had felt for being heard. 

 

 

Medium Exploration

The day I did this impressionist painting was a good day to sit out in the sun and enjoy the sunny weather. I picked a good place to do my painting. I started my impressionist painting by dabbing paint on my hand just to see what kind of technique I would be applying and how I was going to use my brushes. I took a long time to complete my painting, but I enjoyed doing every bit of it. Before i applied the paint on the paper, i would visualize how it would look each time. I wanted to apply the technique perfectly. I sat alone on the steps in front of the administrative office. I needed silence so that I could concentrate on my painting. I spent a lot of time understanding how everyone else was creating an impressionistic style painting. I also day dreamed a lot – about school, the book i was reading, mostly wondering if the painting would look like an impressionist painting.

On Learning…

We spent the first morning of our learning course understanding the term ‘learning’ and how important it is in understanding the world around us. Learning refers to a process in which we understand something for ourselves. We are constantly learning throughout our lives and it is an infinite process. Sometimes we do not know how we learn, but each one of us has a unique learning approach that we use every time we want to understand something around us. 

We learn to understand life around us and to adapt to it. Learning is also a process through which we adapt to various situations. We apply our learning in most situations in life. We may learn the basics of a concept, but through exploration and questioning we can apply our learning of these fundamental concepts to any situation in life. We learn in order to survive and it then becomes a need. This kind of learning, of need, is universal. On the other hand, we also learn things that are relevant in today’s world, and may not necessarily affect us in any way. 

Learning is born out of a curiosity of things. Learning cannot be imposed on anyone. One must be motivated in order to learn. I think that learning is about understanding not just what is taught, but also through exploratory and introspective thinking. We also learn through failure and making mistakes. Thus learning is about being willing to think and explore; it is about bring motivated enough. 

For me, learning is about asking questions and understanding things by oneself not only through introspection but also through experience. Experience plays a major role in our individual learning. It gives us first hand information about situations. Learning through experience is unique to each person and thus everyone makes learning their own. 

 We each learn in different ways and methods. For some, visuals are effective and for others, understanding theory is equally effective. Whichever approach we take to learn, we benefit greatly from it. Sometimes, we tend to unlearn something. We unlearn things that we’ve learnt before. We even learn unconsciously. It is possible that one can apply their learning without the conscious act of learning taking place. We hardly ever think about how we learn or even that in everything that we do some learning takes place. It is a very important process, and once we understand our own approach to learning we can then seek to understand things with more clarity. 

It is amazing that we’re constantly learning new things everyday in our own unique ways.