Concept Development Course

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Course Program


Week 1: Creating Your Artistic Workbook & Personal Symbols

Begin your creative journey by developing an artist’s workbook—a personal space for reflection, experimentation, and inspiration.

You’ll explore:

· Art research techniques to gather visual inspiration

· Setting visual intentions and defining your artistic purpose

· Brainstorming and mind-mapping methods

· The foundations of symbolism in art—how images and motifs communicate deeper meaning

· Colour symbolism and creating your own symbolic language

· Describing your symbols through writing and sketching

Week 2: Making the Familiar Strange — Juxtaposition & Visual Similes

Challenge your habitual ways of seeing and thinking. This week is about experimentation and play.

You’ll explore:

· Free association and surrealist exercises

· Strategies for seeing ordinary things in extraordinary ways

· Collage, decontextualization, and the power of contrast

· Juxtaposition and visual similes to create poetic relationships between images

· Mapping and grids to organize your visual thoughts

· Conceptual tension: balancing outer perception and inner meaning

Week 3: Crafting Your Artistic Narrative — Documenting Life

Turn observation into storytelling. This week connects personal experience with universal themes.

You’ll explore:

· Basic story structures and archetypes in art

· Mythological and symbolic storytelling

· Personal anthropology: using your own life, habits, and memories as artistic material

· “Me and My Objects” exercises—exploring identity through the things we keep

· Techniques for documenting life through drawing, photography, and writing

· Finding resonance between your story and the stories of others

Week 4: Consolidating Ideas & Image Creation

Move from exploration to definition. Here, you’ll start refining your concept and visual approach.

You’ll explore:

· Narrowing down your creative focus or conceptual genre

· Creating visual maquettes (small models or mock-ups)

· Experimenting with mediums, materials, and visual language

· Evaluating what best communicates your concept

Week 5: Let It Take Form

Bring your concept to life. This is the stage of creation, adaptation, and refinement.

You’ll explore:

· Beginning your final artwork based on your concept

· Adapting and refining as the work evolves

· Developing your artist statement to articulate your process and ideas

Week 6: Finalizing Your Artist Project

Complete and present your work with clarity and confidence.

You’ll explore:

· Final adjustments and finishing touches to your artwork

· Refining your artist statement and preparing for presentation

· Group reflection and discussion: sharing insights from your creative journey