"An idea is our visual reaction to something seen - in real life, in our
memory, in our imagination, in our dreams."
~ Anna Held Audette from the book, The Blank Canvas

"How artists get ideas" is a theme that should be examined at all grade levels. The importance of gaining the skills to successfully convey the ideas goes hand-in-hand with this theme. Activities should be structured around building skills and also encourage original thinking and imagination. Students will progress at different rates at each grade level. The process of doing and understanding should always be emphasized. Building confidence is an important goal of any art  program.

• Conversation Game: Learning to Develop Individual Self Lists of Ideas for Artwork by Marvin Bartel.
• The Secrets of Generating Art Ideas: An Inside Out Art Curriculum by Marvin Bartel
• Block Busters for Artists by Nita Leland
• How to Think Like an Artist - "@rtrageous Thinking" from @rt Room, by Dr. Craig Roland
• Lesson Plan: How Do Artists Get Their Ideas? Culture and Environment as Sources of Ideas  - by Diane Pressler. Lesson uses the work of Jacob Lawrence.
• Brainstorm Web - have your students make their own chart how artist get ideas. Print off pdf file.
• Themes in American Art: National Gallery of Art
• Great Themes in Art by John Walford. Browse some of the chapters (pull down menu at top). Many of the themes listed are universal.
• Themes in Art from ArtsConnected - found out how the artists listed get their ideas.
• Common themes in Education - Interdisciplinary 
• BBC Creative Blueprint Blast. Brainstorm ideas - choosing the best idea.
• Purposes for Art. Often the idea stems from the purpose for the art. List 1 of purposes. More on Purposes of Art.

• ART AND FEAR David Bayles and Ted Orland
• The Image Continuum 1993 This book comes highly recommended by Woody Duncan and Kathy Douglas, two talented art teachers.
• Creating Creativity - Paul Torrence and others
• Teaching Meaning in Artmaking - Sydney R. Walker - Davis Publications
• Talking about Student Art - Terry Barrett - Davis Publications
• Thinking through Aesthetics - Marilyn Stewart - Davis Publications
• Assessment in Art Education - Donna Kay Beattie - Davis Publications
• The Intelligent Eye: Learning to Think by Looking at Art - David N. Perkins 1994  
  ISBN O-89236-274-X from Getty Center for Education in the Arts 
• The Creative Artist: A Fine Artist's Guide to Expanding Your Creativity by Nita Leland.
• Talking With Artists : Volume 1,  2 and 3 - by Pat Cummings (many illustrators) 
• The Creative Habit - by Twyla Tharp (See review)

Inspirations, from award-winning director Michael Apted , is a 100-minute exploration of the creative process that takes off from the essential question, "how do artists get ideas?" and soars into the fascinating worlds inhabited by seven diverse artists--including David Bowie and Roy Lichtenstein--who discuss, sometimes freely, sometimes shyly, just how and why they work the way they do. 100 minutes. (available through Art Video World $14.95 - #8710 - 1-800-644-3429)

Why Man Creates - comments on the creativity of Saul Bass - Organized into eight major sections, the Edifice, Fooling Around, the Process, Judgment, a Parable, Digression, the Search, and the Mark. Appropriate wherever creative problem-solving is the goal. 25 minutes. 

Art Video World (division of Crystal Productions) - has videos for many individual artists and cultures. Each one goes into what inspires the artist or culture. Order the videos for your favorite artists and preview before showing to students. (for a free catalog 1-800-644-3429)

__This discussion was started by Marvin Bartel:

"It is hard to think about our thinking habits, but what if we would start an e-mail thread that lists the methods that we think certain artists use to come up with their ideas?  How many artists and methods of generating ideas do you suppose our creative group of art teachers could generate? Could we have the Secrets of How Artists Get Ideas poster ready for next year's classroom?" (TeacherArtExchange, Friday, May 07, 2004)

__From Kathy Douglas (Choice Based Teacher):

...the idea, the meaning, comes from the artist. If we wish for our students to behave as artists we must offer them the opportunity to behave as artists. (TeacherArtExchange Fri, 7 May 2004)

__From Diane Newton (Choice Based Teacher):

In our choice-based art room, we discuss art ideas daily. Students ask each other how they got an idea for their artwork, students share ideas, students understand that ideas may come from something they've seen or experienced. An idea may come directly out of using art materials. Some students are known as "idea people" because they have a wealth of ideas and others will go to them for suggestions. Often the idea person pairs up with artists whose skills match their plan. Kind of like the real world of business!

A long time ago, we generated a bulletin board which reads "Where do Art Ideas Come From?" Students from various grades listed where their ideas come from, where they believed that ideas of adult artists may have come from, etc. The list collapsed into some very basic groupings: nature, beliefs, family, traditions, culture, art materials, history, knowledge, other artists, personal interests, etc. When a student can't come up with an art idea, I walk her/him to this board and we look at the categories. It usually helps to get them started. We also have a file of art postcards, to which students refer when they are stuck.

__From Patty Knott:

Where do artist's get ideas? Indeed this is the course missing from art education.

Sometimes I think it is much more important to be a student of history than it is to be a master of techniques. I have always believed the technique is easy it's the IDEA that prevents the growth to being and becoming artist.

Artists create a representation of the world they perceive and in a fashion that gives a better understanding than written or spoken language can do.  I have spent a lot of time this week on the images coming from Iraq. Anyone could spend hours "reading" about these images but it is the image itself that is so powerful.

Artists ideas have always dealt with birth, love, death, beliefs, rituals, heredity and what it means to be human. The themes don't change. What changes is the society, the technology, the issues, the controversies. The artist observes and offers a less literal view.

If you teach historical artists, then I believe it imperative to present the whole history of the time in which the artist was creating. The ideas followed the "time." It's only recently that the artist has the luxury of personal obsessions and of course, the benefits of all the history that proceeds. I think we are truly on the verge of a Renaissance-like era where science and art truly merge and inform each other. Are there secrets to ideas?   Gosh, everybody has ideas. The secret is to not inhibit the ideas -- the secret is to not stifle the ideas.

I have 2 ways for generating ideas. Sometimes I only present a theme and the solution can be any method. Sometimes I present a technique and the solution can have any idea. No matter if it's theme or method my procedure is:

1. Present the problem.
2. Class brainstorm the theme.
3. Is the theme relevant? How does the student react to the theme? (and if the theme generates no enthusiasm then find a better theme)
4. Make word associations to the theme.
5. Research the theme.
6. Collect visuals related to the theme.
7. Make selections.
8. Allow each child's choice and teach technique from the choice.
9. Have frequent "peer" evaluations throughout the process --- kids listen to each other and often see things the "artist" doesn't that may take an idea to another direction. Recognize that kids are very used to "group" work.
10. Allow for group collaborations. (I try to "recreate" the historical models all the "isms" in art history since Impressionism.
11. Grow the ideas - let the technique follow. Teach-- the idea is paramount and teach the best way to communicate the idea.

We have to be careful about expectations---- I always try to leave my expected outcome open to the variety of solutions I intentionally expect, and then not expect what I intended. That may sound convoluted  but it's the only way I know to allow their ideas supercede my ideas.

Ideas come from what has always been ideas and ideas come from play and experimentation allowing the place to fail and still giving joy to the experimenting. I somehow feel that we will never make artists if we don't make play.

Kids need help with ideas; they need to know how to collect and recognize why they make choices in their collections-- They need to know know what they collect is valid --- and we need to know how to turn those collections into ideas. When we force technique, they want to know how to use the technique for their thoughts and observations. They have lots to say. We have to help them say it.

• CREATE A SYMBOL = DRAW A SYMBOL OF SOMETHING THAT IS MEANINGFUL TO YOU
• TRANSFORM = TAKE AN ART MATERIAL AND MAKE IT (TRANSFORM IT) INTO SOMETHING
• VARY = TAKE AN OBJECT AND SEE HOW MANY WAYS YOU CAN CHANGE IT, ADD TO IT, DO IT DIFFERENTLY
• USE IMAGINATION = USE YOUR BRAIN TO IMAGINE A PERSON, AN ANIMAL, A PLACE, A THING
• INVENT = THINK UP SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE HAS EVER THOUGHT OF OR A BETTER WAY TO DO SOMETHING
• FRAGMENT = TAKE A PICTURE AND REDRAW ONLY A PART OF IT
• METAMORPH IT = TAKE AN IDEA OR A PERSON OR AN OBJECTS AND MAKE THEM ALIVE OR NOT ALIVE, OR IN A DIFFERENT SPACE OR IN A DIFFERENT TIME
• HYBRIDIZE IT = TAKE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS OR TWO DIFFERENT IDEAS  AND FUSE THEM TOGETHER
• REPEAT = TAKE AN OBJECT OR A DESIGN AND REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER
• DISTORT =  TAKE A PERSON OR AN OBJECT AND MAKE PART OF IT MUCH SMALLER OR MUCH LARGER OR MUCH FATTER OR MUCH SKINNIER OR MUCH ???
• FANTASIZE = USE IMAGINATION BUT ADD SOMETHING REALLY UNREALISTIC OR UNUSUAL
• ANALYZE = REDO SOMETHING YOU HAVE DONE BEFORE BUT MAKE IT BETTER BY RETHINKING IT

Art teachers get ideas from a number of sources. Some go for BIG IDEAS...some are inspired by an image or technique they have seen. Here are some "brainstorming" on where the ideas come from.

How to generate a lesson plan from thin air:

• Pick a favorite children's literature book and design a lesson around it (Eric Carle etc.)
• Plan a lesson around a famous artist (Van, Gogh, Monet...)
• Pick a culture and develop a lesson plan by studying their specific style of artwork  (Australian aboriginal.....)
• Brainstorm a list of themes that children enjoy  (swimming, circus, pets)
• Combine 2 seemingly unconnected objects (apple and a Frisbee)
• Teach a concept (abstraction etc.)
• Paint to music  (Mozart,  Raffi,  Blue-grass,  Jazz)
• Give each child a found object and have them design around it  (juice can lids are fun)
• Make a list of fun still-life objects for elementary and plan one (toy still life, fruit, flowers, sports equipment)
• Think of an idea that your students have trouble with and figure out a lesson plan to teach it (overlapping or drawing ellipses)
• Bring in a pile of interesting junk and just let kids draw (shells, necklaces, small baskets)
• Figure out a correlation idea with math, social studies or other subject
• Find a fun elementary "crafty" idea and stretch yourself to figure out how to make it broader and more creative - turn craft into fine art
• Start with the cheapest material you can think of and design a lesson around it (toilet paper rolls)
• Think of something you have never done and design a "trial" lesson(puppetry or ??)
• Seasonal (fall leaves or spring animals and babies or....)

Now think about what media to use:

• pencil, colored pencil, markers, oil or chalk pastels, tempera, watercolor, printmaking, collage, cut-paper, torn-paper, wood/wire/clay/soft sculpture, clay pottery or sculpture, crayon or crayon resist,

Now add in a technique you want them to master:

• learning to draw, learning to cut, learning to glue, neatness, perspective, overlapping, composition, shading, shadows, patterning
  

Now incorporate information or teaching about the elements of art and the principles of design:

• line, color, value, texture, shape, form, space, balance, rhythm and movement, proportion, variety and emphasis, harmony and unity
• Think about Character Education. What artists had character traits you want the students to emulate? What famous people? Think about lessons around Heroes.
• Think about world issues - some BIG IDEAS . What is it that you really want the students to care about? Peace - hunger - poverty. Even younger kids can deal with social comment.
• Keep on adding to the "Lesson Plan Brainstorming - How Teachers get Ideas" Keep in mind the students have good ideas of their own, too.