IRW- Investigative Research Workbooks
As one place to capture your growth and creativity as an artist, you will be working regularly in your workbook. This journal will be handed in throughout the quarter and graded as your semester and final exam. For IB, it is a percentage of your HL exam. This workbook should be 8½" x 11" and hardbound. (Strathmore is a good brand; make sure the one you choose has nice paper.) Experiment freely in this book; record anything that crosses your mind. If you are new to the class, begin your book with a detailed autobiographical writing. Include things that actually DEFINE you (could be likes, dislikes, etc.). Take notice of how deep or shallow the things that you choose to reveal are . . . your artwork will follow that path also!
Since we do not exist in a vacuum, you need to research artists, movements, . . . ANYTHING that interests you. These ideas and research will be the inspiration for your work during this year. If the dates and places are not important, then do not include them. For example, if I am researching Henri Matisse's use of composition with cut paper, I might need to talk about his encroaching blindness (which is why he moved from painting to cutting paper in the first place). I might need to comment on his earlier style of painting before he began cutting paper. (This might consist of figuring out why I like or dislike certain pieces of his artwork and then critiquing them, or figuring out why and how an artist created.) So, do you get it yet?? This is NOT just a sketchbook, but you must have lots of sketches. (Words are not the only way to be literate or record information.) It should not be page after page of report-like information that you do not integrate in ANY way with your artistic expressions. Do not include printouts of information you find on the Internet. Write it in your own words. This book should work hand-in-hand with the artwork you create. One should complement and explain the other. (Sample pages are included in this blog).
