I am a visual learner. And I have a desire to be a better visual communicator both professionally and personally. So I was delighted to find this rather exhaustive periodic table of visual communication methods.
I am increasingly interested in information art lately. It’s like a “seam topic” that brings together my interest in art, mathematics, lean six sigma, futures studies, and even my faith.
This Lenten Season my project is a visual survey — a “map” if you will — of the four parallel Gospels. I have learned a lot so far, being able to see the four accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings in parallel like that.
One thing I have learned is that the weight of the Gospels is about what Jesus taught. I think modern Christianity tends to focus more on who Jesus is and what he did at the very end when he died. We tend to dismiss him as a teacher more or less. I don’t think the two should be separated from the same context, but they often are. We take him out of context way more than we should. But you kinda hafta see the context to get that impression. Hence the need for visual communication.
Another thing I have learned from this Lent is that, as much as I love information art, I lack many of the skills needed to execute it. I want to take some graphic design classes.
Walla!
Petunia loves to play what we call “The Pencil Game.” This is a random art game where we each take turns picking a color from dad’s humongous box of colored pencils and drawing a shape on a common piece of drawing paper. There are (usually) no rules other than take turns and take care of the art supplies.
I’ve been using some form of collaborative art process as a kids activity for many years now. It teaches taking turns, colors, shapes, and general creativity. When Girlzilla was just a wee monster, we’d pass back and forth a drawing book and take turns adding critters, faces, doodles and the like to a drawing. The drawing gets crazier and crazier as you go which is the whole idea. With Fresh and Petunia, we just scribble. Some days’ results look like Cy Twombly on crack.
What I’d like to do is think up some random art games that get incrementally more complicated as our kids developmentally progress. Maybe teach some math skills along with art play and colors. Does anyone out there do that kind of thing? Does anyone know of any resources that might help?
I guess I could make up a bunch of silly art games, but it’d be nice to see what other people do.
Speaking of silly art games, here’s a scribbly art toy that is pretty fun. Maybe I’ll try to make a “pencil game” out of it.
This is a really cool idea – share the concept mapping tools that scientists use to communicate with educators and the general public. That and provide peer to peer collaborative space for sharing knowledge maps. Cmap is a knowledge mapping utility and web client that will connecct to Cmap servers around the world
I’ve downloaded my copy of Cmap already. If you download yours, check out the large number of NASA concept maps out there.
Being a visual learner, I am using concept mapping in my current Lean Six Sigma training as a reading comprehension technique and study resource. I think of it as drawing with the Left side of the brain.