Sources of Ideas and Experiences
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| experiences/ekˈspɪərɪənsɪz/ | Events, activities or encounters a person has lived through and can draw on in developing ideas. |
| research/rɪˈsɜːtʃ/ | research |
Experience informs everything
- Artists' experiences 经验 inform why, how, and what they draw (CED 1.A).
- Ideas come from observation, memory, other subjects, and other artists' work.
- Ordinary subjects carry authority — the kitchen table you know beats a fantasy castle.
Where does the idea come from?
Sort each starting point by its source category.
According to the CED, what informs why, how, and what an artist makes?
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Experiences inform the whole practice.
Document as it happens
- Document experiences as they happen: photos, thumbnails, notes, collected objects.
- Research 研究 feeds drawing — anatomy, costume, botany all sharpen observation.
- Cultural sources bring personal context into mark and composition choices.
Six sources that feed a drawing practice
Ordinary, familiar subjects can carry real authority in drawing.
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What you know deeply, you draw convincingly.
Studying anatomy or botany to sharpen observation is a form of ____.
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Research feeds drawing.
Select all legitimate sources of drawing ideas.
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Uncredited copying needs citation and gives you another's seeing.
Keep a source bank
- Keep a source wall or folder; when momentum dips, the collected material restarts it.
- Recording experiences becomes a resource for the whole investigation.
- The richest sources are the ones only you have access to.
Match the source to an example.
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Three ways ideas arrive.
Copying a striking photo off the internet gives you someone else's seeing — and needs a citation. Your own experiences and reference photos are stronger source material and keep the work honestly yours.
A student's night shifts at a bakery become a whole investigation: flour-dusted hands, 4 a.m. light, the same ovens drawn twenty ways. No one else on earth has that source — and that is exactly why the work feels true.
Ideas come from experiences: observation, memory, research, culture, and other artists. Document them as they happen and keep a source bank — and your own lived material is the strongest and most honestly yours.
Write from 5 bus sketches
- A student who rides the bus each day makes 5 sketches from that ride.
- Those sketches feed a larger inquiry.
A student makes 5 sketches on the daily bus ride and later uses them in an inquiry about waiting. How is lived experience informing the work?
A repeated daily scene can supply both images and a question.
What do the 5 bus sketches do?
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The ride is the experience. The sketches turn it into material for the work.