Art Seeds
Art Seed Bank is a new section on this website that proposes mini explorations or art challenges for your students. These are intended to get them looking, thinking, and creating, at any point in the course, in any order. Seeds can be given as one offs, or as starting points for further development. The tasks are open ended, non-prescriptive, with very brief instructions.
Each seed is a small invitation to make and think/write about art. The activities proposed stimulate independent creative thinking, innovation, exploration and problem solving. They also encourage conceptual thinking, making links with TOK and developing more sophisticated modes of visual communication. And they are fun!
A seed can grow into a plant, even a tree, if it finds fertile ground and gets some nourishment. Scatter some seeds and see what happens....
How to use the Art Seed Bank
Seeds can be explored initially in the visual journal and the experimental nature of these activities makes good PP material.
Introduce new artists
All seeds have links to a related artist so students can include critical investigation for the Process Portfolio if they wish. Great way to discover new artists!
In Year 1 a weekly seed may be a regular assignment, or for when you get the " I dont know what to do now" response. Seeds also introduce students to new and exciting artists and help them to discover art works for The Comparative Study
In year 2 a seed can be a welcome break from the intense focus of preparing a final portfolio or an energizing injection for the student who is in a slump. A seed that sparks a real interest may lead to developing studio work, maybe even aid in finding focus and direction for the exhibition.
choose a seed
Teacher can direct individual students or a whole class towards a particular Art Seed, or students can choose their own from the Art Seed Bank, just make the index page available to your group in student access and all the sub pages will be available too.
New Art Seeds will be added to the seed bank regularly, making this a rich and varied teaching resource.
Some of these seeds and other starting strategies appear in my text book Visual Arts for the IB Diploma in chapter 1 Start Exploring