PhotoShop and the Visual Pun
Teaching digital art that includes the use of visual metaphor
Feb 24, 2007
Art is a visual language that can communicate words and ideas. The importance of learning the visual pun lies in learning to use visual metaphors and going beyond a one-sided or literal representation of an idea or object.
Last year, a student presented an exhibition of nicely drawn alphabet letters combined with images cut out from magazines that represented two words that sound alike, but mean other things. She had created a visual homophone. So for example, in one drawing with a hand-drawn letter H in the center, she then had one-inch squares that had images of Hair as well as a Hare. The idea that visual art can play with words can be liberating in that it opens up more variations and flexibility.
So, using PhotoShop, students start by creating a 10” x 13” blank white page. Have students pull out guidelines from the rulers to set up the grid upon which they'll create their composition. After choosing their homophone, students create a 4" x 4" square placed slightly above the center of the page. If the letter is sized and placed properly, there should be 4 inches above and 5 inches below the square.
After choosing the homophone and/or letter, the students should look for images of their objects on the internet and place them into a grid of one-inch squares surrounding the center letter. Examples of acceptable homophones are flower/flour, wrung/rung, mail/male, break/brake, ewe/you, fair/fare, meat/meet, carrot/carat, bare/bear, red/read, scent/cent. It is up to students to find images that can represent such abstract ideas as scent, bare, wrung or meet.
Encourage your students to create one-inch border around the whole piece. The border should also contain some element that relates to the letter or meaning of one of the words they have chosen. Every element of this piece should contribute to the main idea, and there should be no extraneous fluff.
This PhotoShop project is meant to give students better control over isolation, cropping and placement of images. Encourage your students to organize their elements on separate layers so that they can better manipulate their design into a pleasing composition. This project is also designed to challenge the imagination and resourcefulness of your students. This homophone project is also meant to be fun and playful.
Visual artists that use the written word include Duane Michals, William Wiley, Marcel Duchamp, Bruce Nauman, Barbara Kruger, Howard Finster, Edward Hicks, Robert Indiana and Rene Magritte.
