Painting Analysis as a New Methodology in Basic Design Education

Abstract

Basic design education is given as a compulsory course in the first year of all design faculties. In this course, it is aimed to develop students' two- and three-dimensional abstract and concrete thinking skills. For this purpose, students are expected to create a strong representation of the formal expression of the design, based on abstract and concrete concepts. For beginner students, the relationship between abstract and concrete concepts may not be very clear. At the same time, the studio environment and jury evaluations are new and strange to students. In addition, Basic Design Education, that intuitive methods are applied, is seen as a complex and difficult process for students. The aim of this study is to improve students' design skills by making transitions between abstract concepts and concrete products and in line with the principles they learned in the lesson. In the Basic Design course covered in this study; a new method with a compositional and analytical method that progresses from two dimensions to three dimensions, aiming to transition from painting, which is a concrete product, to abstract concept and then to reach a concrete product again, has been tried. In an art fair they visited, the students discussed an art work of their own choosing over the light-shadow, part-whole relationship, composition and elements in the frame, and created a new composition. As a result, students were provided to understand the relationship between abstract and concrete concepts more easily and to use them in their designs.