How to Capture Ideas

Buckminster Fuller[1] said that everyone has great ideas, but few people capture them, and even fewer act on them. This special book will serve as a resource for your creative endeavors. You know how thoughts flash in your mind and then 'poof', they're gone. Here are ways to capture fleeting ideas.

During this course you are required to keep a journal of your thoughts, observations, and experiences. You should date each entry and consider it as an ongoing scrapbook as well as a sketchbook and journal. Concert stubs, photos of friends, restaurant menus, newspaper clippings, comic strips, post cards and memorabilia from places you visit and things you do are appropriate. Choose a size[2] that fits your lifestyle so you are more apt to keep it with you. I carry mine in my backpack, it's 6"x9" and has acid free paper for longevity.

This book will be used throughout the course for reference material. In it record fresh impressions, ideas, dreams[3], and quotes.. Write down your thoughts, feelings, and questions. Make a "things to do" list. Observe from nature and still lifes. Drawings can be done in many styles including contour[4] and gesture[5]. Draw one subject from many viewpoints or in different styles. Use a viewer[6] to select your subject and to format small drawings on a page. Draw only on one side of each page and remember harder pencils[7] will smudge less. Date all journal entries (you may want to add time of day, location, weather conditions, etc.)

Use pen and ink, pencil, colored pencils, markers, etc. Test materials to see if colors leak through to the next page. If so, try a different pen or marker or use a blank piece to protect other pages. You choose what you use, whatever enhances your book and appeals to you. Some students emphasize drawing, others writing, others collage. Try writing in a circle, upside-down, or backwards.

Acid free sketchbooks are available through the art program for the cost of $5. Spiral bound notebooks have more room to grow with collage work, where hardbound stretches the binding to the limit.

This course focuses on your life experience. Some projects include: a family tree, a time capsule, a collage of your favorite music, and self portraiture. Grades will be based on the thought process you demonstrate through your work. Make short entries each day and longer entries three times per week. You are expected to submit a minimum of 5 pages of each medium: drawing, writing, collage. This book will count as ten percent of your semester grade.

A final note: There are those downtimes that many of us let slip away such as the arrival and end of classes, waiting for appointments, or meetings with friends, when we take breaks during walks or bike rides. Use those in between times, and you'll find this journal becomes a friend to capture thoughts and ideas that otherwise drift away.

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[1] Check out I Seem To Be A Verb by R. Buckminster Fuller

Great quotes, Bucky tests the limits of traditional approaches to writing and publishing.

[2] The Mini Idea Net for journal entries - Have a pen-pocket size CVS type (3"x 5") spiral memo book. Boldly write your name on the cover and the date. Decorate the outside with markers. Use this to keep with you all the time. Write down your thoughts and plans for the day. File in a shoe box as you build a group of these.

[3] Recording Dreams - Everyone dreams and there are patterns to your dreams. Have a large glass of water right before bedtime. Keep your journal and pencil by the toilet or bedside. When you get up, don't think, just write. Commit yourself to a two week experiment to see the effects of this. Try doing some drawings or paintings of some of these unconscious images that rise to the surface. Read Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.

[4] Contour - using pure line to represent subject matter. Keep your eye on the object you are drawing and concentrate on directions and curves without looking at your paper. Contour lines define the edges and surface ridges of an object.

Refer to Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards

[5] Gesture - line drawing done rapidly to capture and express the movement and energy of the subject. Refer to Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards

[6] Viewer - a piece of oak tag or mat board with an area cut from the middle(we use 3"x4"). By holding the frame at arm's length and looking through it at the subject, you can determine your subject matter and create stronger composition.

[7] Pencil ratings - Usually the softer the pencil, the darker the value and the more smudging takes place. The middle of the scale is HB(hard/black). 1B is soft/dark, 2B is softer/darker, 2H is hard, 3H is harder...... Test your pencils on practice paper first and try smudging to see what happens. The letter "F" is also used to indicate that the pencil sharpens to a fine pont.