This journal assignment should demonstrate your ability to:
· Identify various non-art sources you can use to get ideas and images for your art.
· Identify various art sources you can use to get ideas and images for your art.
· Identify questions or problems to guide your art making.

Getting Started
Lesson One explains how Luis Jiménez works with images and ideas. The continuing Treasure Box project gives you the opportunity to apply what you've learned in your own art. The Treasure Box project uses the theme of Treasure that runs throughout this program. First you need to identify something you treasure and then you will make a special container to keep your treasure safe.

Think of several possibilities for treasures. Your treasure can be any small object, such as a pebble, photo, old toy, dried flower, vacation souvenir, baseball card, candle, concert ticket stub, keepsake, poem, or even an idea (like love, loyalty, patriotism, work, future, past, etc.).

Once you have selected a Treasure, your next challenge is to get an idea for a suitable container for it. Plan to make a container that can be closed rather than an open container. Start by looking for box ideas in your home, in stores, and at school.

• Boxes can be cylindrical, like a lipstick tube or an oatmeal box.
  
• Boxes can be thin and flat, like a briefcase, a CD, VHS, or DVD case.
  
• Boxes can be tall, like a PEZ box or like cereal, crayon, or playing card boxes.
  
• Boxes can be heart-shaped, like a Valentine's candy box.
  
• Boxes can be oval, like many compacts.
  
• Boxes can be conical, like the nose cone of a missile.
  
• Boxes can be domed like traditional treasure chests.

You can also look for ideas in art made by others. Click below to see remarkable lidded containers made in different cultures and eras.

Tlingit woven container
19th Century Potlatch Box
15th Century B.C.E. Egyptian sarcophagus
12th Century French Reliquary
Contemporary Shoshone beaded container
13th Century French bird-shaped container
Ancient Chinese bronze containers
18th Century French egg-shaped containers
17th Century German Ivory container
Mayan burial urn and more Mayan burial urns
13th Century Islamic metal container

Checklist
I included:

1. An idea for a treasure to keep in my treasure box
   
2. Sketches of at least two types of everyday boxes I'm considering as ideas
   
3. Sketch (photocopy, printout, or tracing) of a special artistic box or container that gives me an idea for my treasure box
   
4. Preliminary sketch for my treasure box
   
5. Question or problem I'm still thinking about or working on.
   

Student Home