2D UNIT IX: Time, Change, and Motion

Project IXD

 Collaborative Mural

 

Objectives
  • To gain experience with sequential imagery to convey time, change, or motion.
  • To develop visual images and symbols using a collaborative process.
Project Overview As part of a collaborative design team, plan and execute a mural comprised of series of chronologically sequenced panels.

Project References

Vocabulary time, still image, time frame, sequential images, story board, chronology, mural, collaboration, artist collectives
Materials open
Process

On Your Own

1. Before coming to class, review the theme of Collaboration as found on the website. Read the Time, Change, and Motion Unit IX overview.

2. Make a list of concepts that for you are fundamental to successful collaboration.

With Your Team

1. Break into teams of 3 - 5 individuals.

2. Compare your list of "collaboration words" generated independently with those of your partners.

3. As a group, discuss what themes or topics will serve as the basis of your mural. Ideas might focus on particular cultural or historical groups in your area, changes in industrial technologies, sports, key moments in state history, local fauna and flora, common interests among group members, etc..

4. As a group, create a "story board" that seems to effectively illustrate your particular issue.

5. As you plan your project, remember to focus on methods for conveying time, change, and motion.

6. Put all of your "prelims" into your notebook.

Final Project Development

1. Determine what scale and context would best serve your idea.

2. Consider what media would best serve your idea. Will you use multiple photographs? Drawings? Original paintings?

3. You may want to create a scaled version that serves as a proposal for an actual site (this could serve as your final project in and of itself). Consider opportunities for collaboration with other members of the local community. In the latter instance, the issues that you may choose to focus upon could be arrived at in conversation with a community or school group. Write a 1 - 2 page description of theme of your project.

4. If possible, make a pitch to a local business or school to actually sponsor the mural on their building. Use the drawings and texts generated by the group to make a presentation to the host organization.

5. Plan a series of days for actually painting the mural on the wall of a building. You will probably want to use projections to translate your scale drawings to the actual wall. It may be necessary to project the images after dark.

6. Painting the actual mural is very labor intensive. You may want to enlist others from the class to help in the final work. Check with your instructor regarding appropriate materials and techniques for your particular wall surface.

Critique Ideas

 

Consider the following:

1. Describe the techniques for creating time, change, and motion that you and your fellow artists used and explain how various effects were achieved.

2. Point out any symbols the team used to indicate a particular meaning.

3. Discuss ideas the artwork seems to communicate. After some sharing of interpretations, attempt to state the message of the project in one sentence. (This artwork is about. . .)

4. Explain how the shapes, symbols, or other elements of the composition support its message.

Return to UNIT IX Overview