EXPLORE SOMETHING FUNKY • CREATIVITY IS EVERYWHERE
Creativity Is Everywhere
Creativity is not only drawing. People create with color, sound, photographs, buildings, movement, words, tools, and ideas. Here are 10 discoveries that show how much thinking can hide inside something creative.
Discovery 1 • Screens and Paint Make Color Differently
Paint and light do not mix color in exactly the same way. A computer screen uses red, green, and blue light. Artists working with pigments mix colors differently because paint reflects light instead of producing it.
TRY IT: Zoom way in on a bright screen. Can you notice tiny colored parts?
Source: National Gallery of Art — The Elements of Art: Color. Explore the source →
Discovery 2 • Color Can Change How Something Feels
Color can help create mood and atmosphere. Artists make choices about warm, cool, bright, dull, light, and dark colors to affect what viewers notice and feel.
THINK ABOUT IT: If you drew the same playground twice—once as exciting and once as lonely—what colors might you change?
Source: National Gallery of Art — The Elements of Art: Color. Explore the source →
Discovery 3 • Art Has Building Blocks
Artists often work with elements such as line, shape, form, color, and texture. The same basic ingredients can produce completely different creations depending on the choices an artist makes.
TRY IT: Pick an object near you and describe its lines, shapes, colors, and textures.
Source: National Gallery of Art — The Elements of Art. Explore the source →
Discovery 4 • Early Photographs Could Take Minutes to Capture
Some of the earliest daguerreotype photographs needed exposures lasting about three to fifteen minutes. Imagine trying to stay still for a portrait that long! Improvements eventually shortened the time.
THINK ABOUT IT: How would photography be different today if every selfie required you to stay still for several minutes?
Source: Library of Congress — The Daguerreotype Medium. Explore the source →
Discovery 5 • Early Photographs Could Be Made on Silver-Coated Copper
A daguerreotype did not work like the photo files on your phone. It created a highly detailed image on a copper plate covered with a thin layer of silver.
THINK ABOUT IT: A photograph can be an image, but it can also be a physical object. How does that change the way people preserve it?
Source: Library of Congress — Daguerreotypes. Explore the source →
Discovery 6 • One Early American Portrait Was a Self-Portrait
In 1839, Robert Cornelius made a self-portrait outdoors in Philadelphia. The Library of Congress describes it as the earliest surviving American portrait photograph.
TRY IT: Think about what a self-portrait can tell future people about the person who made it.
Source: Library of Congress — Robert Cornelius self-portrait. Explore the source →
Discovery 7 • Creativity Often Mixes Subjects Together
Art can involve science, history, technology, math, and storytelling at the same time. Museums even study color through both artistic choices and the science of light and vision.
THINK ABOUT IT: What school subjects would you need to design a video game, movie, building, or concert?
Source: National Gallery of Art — Seeing Color: Object, Light, Observer. Explore the source →
Discovery 8 • Panoramic Photos Existed Long Before Smartphones
Photographers wanted wide views almost as soon as photography appeared. Early panoramas could be made by placing multiple daguerreotype plates side by side to create a much wider scene.
TRY IT: Without using panorama mode, take or imagine three pictures that could be placed together to show one wide scene.
Source: Library of Congress — A Brief History of Panoramic Photography. Explore the source →
Discovery 9 • Creating Is a Series of Choices
Artists decide what to include, what to leave out, what materials to use, where things go, and what they want people to notice. Two people can begin with the same subject and create completely different results.
TRY IT: Give two people the prompt “draw a place you would like to explore.” Compare the choices—not which drawing is “better.”
Source: National Gallery of Art — Educational Resources and Elements of Art. Explore the source →
Discovery 10 • Creativity Grows Through Creating, Noticing, and Improving
Creativity is not always one brilliant idea appearing instantly. Make something small. Look closely at it. Decide what works. Change one thing. Then try again. That cycle is part of creative work in art, design, writing, music, photography, and many other fields.
TRY IT: Create something in five minutes. Then give yourself another five minutes to make one purposeful improvement.
Source: National Gallery of Art — Making Art. Explore the source →