Lesson 4 Spark Your Creativity
Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
Creativity. When you hear this ____ what instantly pops into your mind?
You ____ think it is a quality that only artists and writers possess— some special talent you are either born with or without.
Many people accept the idea that we can be divided into two ____ those who are creative and those who are not.
____ common belief, however, is far from the truth.
Everyone ____ the ability to be creative.
Finding creativity inside yourself just takes a ____ effort.
Some artists, ____ example, spark their creativity by looking closely at ordinary objects.
They try to discover the beauty ____ within these common objects and then turn them into works of art.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Look at these ____ paintings.
Believe it or not, they both depict the same person, Holy Roman ____ Rudolf II.
The one on the left might look familiar, as it is a standard ____ of portrait that you would see in a gallery or an art book.
However, the one ____ the right, called Vertumnus, is very unconventional.
Created by a 16th-century Italian ____ named Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the painting shows striking creativity and originality.
Fruits, flowers, and ____ are arranged like the pieces of a puzzle to create a human head.
A cherry and a mulberry become the dark eyes, while an apple and a peach act as the pink ____
This painting is representative of the artist’s signature style of “composite ____
He used plants, animals, and other objects to create ____ other portraits like this.
Another good example of Arcimboldo’s unique creativity ____ be found in The Gardener, one of his “reversible” paintings.
When viewed normally, it is just an ordinary still life of vegetables ____ a bowl.
However, when flipped ____ down, it is magically transformed into a smiling face!
Experts have studied this painting, ____ with Arcimboldo’s other reversible ones.
Their research ____ that he first painted them as still life paintings and then turned them upside down and made some adjustments to create faces.
X-ray examination revealed that he sometimes changed the positions of some of the fruits ____ vegetables.
Why did he make ____ paintings reversible?
It was probably because he wanted to add an interactive element to ____ work by doing so.
Viewers feel as if they are playing a visual ____ which brings them a sense of pleasure.
Each of Arcimboldo’s works is a ____ study of everyday objects.
When ____ looked at typical objects, such as a bowl of vegetables, he saw the artistic and imaginative potential in them.
____ innovative approach to art inspired many great artists who came after him, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and René Magritte.
Helga Stentzel
Take a look at this ____
Do you see a horse standing in ____ field?
Or is it simply a collection of clothes hanging on ____ clothesline?
This witty and amusing creation is actually a work of art created by the visual artist ____ Stentzel.
Using everyday items, she creates playful visual illusions that force you to look twice ____ order to confirm what you have just seen.
____ unique style has been called “household surrealism.”
Stentzel is perhaps best ____ for her Clothesline Animals series.
She got ____ for the series while she was hanging her laundry.
By ____ adding some colorful clothespins and a dish towel, she was able to transform her black sweatshirt and dark grey pants into a horse.
Other creations followed, including a brown cow ____ on some hills and a zebra crossing the desert.
All of these works were ____ from nothing more than laundry and household items.
Another ____ that highlights Stentzel’s astonishing creativity is Edible Creatures.
For this series, she arranges food items you can find in ____ kitchen to create cute animals.
The stars of the series are Brad ____ and Crunchie, a pair of puppies made of sliced bread and lettuce respectively.
Stentzel says she came ____ with the concept of Crunchie while putting together a salad for her family.
What do you ____ her secret is?
Stentzel says that it is her active observation skills that allow her to make ____ out of the ordinary.
As a child, she would spend time staring at the patterns in the wood of her bed, trying to find ____ animal shapes.
She admits that even today she stares at things longer ____ is acceptable in society.
This keen observation is what enables her to continuously produce ____ and imaginative works of art.
Creativity is not some kind of exceptional skill that belongs to exclusive groups ____ people.
It is actually a part of our daily lives, a power that we can display anytime we ____ to.
Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly using our creativity to adapt, adjust, and rearrange the ____ around us.
By doing so, we ____ turning the ordinary into something extraordinary—something that has never been seen before.
Take a look at the things around you, but don’t just give them ____ quick glance.
Look carefully, and you might discover something that sparks your own imagination and ____