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未知 Michi — Curriculum

30 lessons · 74 assignments · 5 levels of mastery

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Course 1 Archive — Michi's original training path. View active courses →
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Elements — Visual Vocabulary
Learning to see and control individual visual parameters
8/8
✓ L1.1 Line 3 attempts
Line is the most fundamental element — it defines edges, creates contours, guides the eye. Lines have character: thick/thin, straight/curved, aggressive/gentle. Line weight creates hierarchy; direction creates mood (horizontal=calm, vertical=strength, diagonal=tension).
✓ Create an image dominated by STRAIGHT geometric lines — architectural, precise, rigid. No curves. 10.0
✓ Create an image dominated by FLOWING organic curves — natural, rhythmic, alive. 9.0
✓ Create an image where LINE WEIGHT creates clear hierarchy — thick dominant lines, medium supporting, thin detail. 10.0
✓ L1.2 Shape & Form 3 attempts
Shape is 2D (circle, square, triangle); form is 3D (sphere, cube, pyramid). Geometric shapes feel ordered and human-made; organic shapes feel natural and alive. Each basic shape has psychological weight: circles=harmony, squares=stability, triangles=tension/energy. Form emerges when light hits a shape, creating highlight, midtone, core shadow, reflected light, and cast shadow.
✓ Create an image composed ENTIRELY of geometric shapes — circles, squares, triangles. Pure geometry. 10.0
✓ Create an image composed of ORGANIC biomorphic shapes — flowing, amoeba-like, natural. 10.0
✓ Create an image showing clear 3D FORM — a sphere or similar object with visible highlight, midtone, core shadow, reflected light, cast shadow. 10.0
✓ L1.3 Value & Tone 4 attempts
Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. It's the foundation of visual structure — without value, form disappears. High-key images (mostly light values) feel airy and optimistic; low-key (mostly dark) feel dramatic and mysterious. Notan is the Japanese concept of light-dark harmony as the skeleton of a composition.
✓ Create a THREE-VALUE image: only light, medium, and dark. No gradients, no in-between tones. Like a notan study. 10.0
✓ Create a HIGH-KEY image — 80%+ light values, bright and airy. Minimal darks. 10.0
✓ Create a LOW-KEY image — 80%+ dark values, dramatic and mysterious. Minimal lights. 10.0
✓ Create a FULL TONAL RANGE image — smooth gradient from pure black to pure white with every value in between. 10.0
✓ L1.4 Color — Hue & Harmony 4 attempts
Color has three properties: hue (name — red, blue), saturation (intensity — vivid or muted), and value (light or dark). The color wheel organizes hues and reveals harmonies: monochromatic (one hue, varying saturation/value), analogous (adjacent hues — harmonious), complementary (opposite hues — vibrant contrast), triadic (three equidistant hues — balanced energy), split-complementary (one hue + two adjacent to its complement).
✓ Create a MONOCHROMATIC image — single hue only. Vary saturation and value freely, but only ONE hue. 10.0
✓ Create a COMPLEMENTARY color image — use two opposite hues from the color wheel (e.g., blue-orange, red-green). 10.0
✓ Create an ANALOGOUS color image — use 3 adjacent hues from the color wheel. 10.0
✓ Create a TRIADIC color image — use 3 equidistant hues from the color wheel. 10.0
✓ L1.5 Color — Temperature & Atmosphere 3 attempts
Colors have temperature: warm (red, orange, yellow) advance toward viewer, feel energetic; cool (blue, green, violet) recede, feel calm. Temperature creates depth: warm foreground + cool background = atmospheric perspective. Simultaneous contrast: a color appears warmer next to a cool color and vice versa.
✓ Create a WARM-DOMINANT image — reds, oranges, yellows. No cool colors. 10.0
✓ Create a COOL-DOMINANT image — blues, greens, violets. No warm colors. 10.0
✓ Create an image showing TEMPERATURE SHIFT: warm foreground transitioning to cool background. 10.0
✓ L1.6 Space & Depth 3 attempts
Space in art is both positive (filled) and negative (empty). Depth is created through: overlapping (near objects block far), size diminution (far objects smaller), atmospheric perspective (far objects lighter, bluer, less detailed), linear perspective (parallel lines converge at vanishing point), vertical placement (higher = further).
✓ Create an image with STRONG NEGATIVE SPACE — at least 60% of the image is empty/minimal, the subject occupies 40% or less. 10.0
✓ Create an image with CLEAR ATMOSPHERIC PERSPECTIVE — foreground sharp+saturated, middle ground softer, background hazy+desaturated. 10.0
✓ Create an image with LINEAR PERSPECTIVE — visible converging lines toward one vanishing point. 10.0
✓ L1.7 Texture & Surface 3 attempts
Texture is the visual quality of a surface — smooth, rough, glossy, matte, woven, crystalline. Texture adds tactile dimension to flat images. Contrast between textures creates visual interest: smooth against rough, organic against geometric. Texture carries emotional weight: polished = refined, rough = raw/honest.
✓ Create an image dominated by SMOOTH, POLISHED surfaces — glass, metal, water, silk. 10.0
✓ Create an image dominated by ROUGH, ORGANIC textures — bark, stone, rust, weathered wood. 10.0
✓ Create an image with CONTRASTING TEXTURES — smooth vs rough in the same frame. 10.0
✓ L1.8 Perspective & Viewpoint 3 attempts
Perspective is how 3D space maps to 2D surface. Beyond linear perspective (1-point, 2-point, 3-point), viewpoint selection dramatically changes meaning: eye-level = neutral/relatable, bird's eye = power/overview, worm's eye = awe/monumentality, Dutch angle = unease/tension. Foreshortening compresses forms along the viewing axis.
✓ Create a BIRD'S EYE VIEW image — looking straight down from above at a scene. 10.0
✓ Create a WORM'S EYE VIEW image — looking up from below, making objects feel monumental. 10.0
✓ Create a 2-POINT PERSPECTIVE image with two clear vanishing points on the horizon. 10.0
○ EXAM LEVEL 1 EXAM: Create a single image that demonstrates mastery of ALL elements — clear line work, defined shapes/forms, full tonal range, intentional color harmony, atmospheric depth, contrasting textu...
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Composition — Visual Grammar
Learning to organize elements into coherent visual statements
6/6
✓ L2.1 Focal Point & Emphasis 3 attempts
Every strong composition has a clear focal point — the first place the eye lands. Emphasis is created through: contrast (bright against dark), isolation (one element separated from group), detail (more detail draws attention), size (larger attracts first), color (saturated against muted). A composition without a focal point feels directionless.
✓ Create an image with ONE clear focal point achieved through VALUE CONTRAST — the brightest area in a dark composition. 10.0
✓ Create an image with ONE clear focal point achieved through ISOLATION — one element separated from a group. 10.0
✓ Create an image with a THREE-LEVEL HIERARCHY: primary focal point, secondary element, and tertiary background. 10.0
✓ L2.2 Balance 3 attempts
Balance is visual weight distribution. Symmetrical (formal) balance mirrors elements across a central axis — feels stable, dignified, static. Asymmetrical (informal) balance uses unequal elements that still feel balanced (large dark shape balanced by small bright one) — feels dynamic, interesting. Radial balance radiates from a central point — feels focused, explosive.
✓ Create a SYMMETRICAL composition — mirror the left and right halves across a vertical axis. 10.0
✓ Create an ASYMMETRICAL composition where a large muted element is balanced by a small vibrant element. 10.0
✓ Create a RADIAL composition — all elements radiate from or spiral around a central point. 10.0
✓ L2.3 Movement & Rhythm 2 attempts
Movement is how the eye travels through a composition. Leading lines direct the gaze. Rhythm is created through repetition with variation — like a visual beat. Progressive rhythm changes an element gradually (small to large, light to dark). Alternating rhythm switches between two elements. Movement keeps the viewer engaged.
✓ Create an image where LEADING LINES guide the eye from bottom-left to top-right. 10.0
✓ Create an image with PROGRESSIVE RHYTHM — an element that gradually changes across the composition (small→large, or light→dark). 10.0
✓ L2.4 Proportion & Scale 2 attempts
Proportion is the size relationship between elements. The Rule of Thirds divides the frame into a 3×3 grid — placing elements at intersections creates dynamic tension. The Golden Ratio (1:1.618) produces naturally pleasing proportions. Scale contrast (tiny figure + huge environment) creates drama, narrative, and emotional impact.
✓ Create an image using RULE OF THIRDS — place the main subject at one of the four intersection points. 10.0
✓ Create an image with EXTREME SCALE CONTRAST — a tiny element against a massive environment. 10.0
✓ L2.5 Unity & Variety 2 attempts
Unity means all parts feel like they belong together — achieved through consistent palette, repeated shapes, shared texture. Variety means enough difference to be interesting — achieved through contrast, surprise elements, breaking patterns. The best compositions have BOTH: unified enough to be coherent, varied enough to be alive.
✓ Create a UNIFIED composition — everything shares the same color family, similar shapes, consistent texture. Cohesion above all. 10.0
✓ Create a composition with CONTROLLED VARIETY — unified overall but with ONE element that deliberately breaks the pattern. 10.0
✓ L2.6 Framing & Cropping 2 attempts
How you frame a scene changes its meaning. Tight framing (close crop) = intimacy, detail, claustrophobia. Wide framing = context, isolation, epic. Open composition (elements extend beyond frame) = dynamism, continuation. Closed composition (everything contained) = completeness, finality. Edge tension — elements near the frame edge create energy.
✓ Create a TIGHT CLOSE-UP — fill the entire frame with a detail, leaving no context visible. 10.0
✓ Create an OPEN COMPOSITION where key elements are cut by the frame edges, implying continuation beyond the visible. 10.0
○ EXAM LEVEL 2 EXAM: Create a single image with intentional composition — specify in advance: where the focal point is and why, what balance type, how the eye moves, what scale relationships exist, and how f...
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Art Styles & Movements
Understanding the visual language of art history
8/8
✓ L3.1 Realism & Hyperrealism 2 attempts
Realism depicts the world as it appears — accurate proportions, natural colors, photographic detail. Hyperrealism goes beyond photography with impossible clarity and resolution. The skill: convincing representation of reality, mastery of light, material, and detail.
✓ Create a PHOTOREALISTIC still life — objects should look like a photograph. Focus on accurate light, material, reflection. 10.0
✓ Create a HYPERREALISTIC image — more detail than a photo. Every surface, every reflection, every texture rendered with impossible precision. 8.0
✓ L3.2 Impressionism 2 attempts
Impressionism captures the IMPRESSION of a moment — light, atmosphere, movement. Loose brushwork, visible strokes, emphasis on color over line. Monet, Renoir, Degas. Color mixing happens in the viewer's eye. Scenes are bathed in natural light, often outdoors (en plein air).
✓ Create an image in the IMPRESSIONIST style — loose, visible brushstrokes, emphasis on light and atmosphere, outdoor scene bathed in natural light. 10.0
✓ Create an image showing IMPRESSIONIST COLOR — no black shadows, shadows made of blue/violet, warm light on surfaces. 10.0
✓ L3.3 Expressionism 2 attempts
Expressionism distorts reality to express INNER emotional experience. Bold, non-naturalistic colors. Exaggerated forms. Psychological tension. Munch, Kirchner, Schiele. The world is seen through the lens of intense emotion — anxiety, ecstasy, despair. Form follows feeling.
✓ Create an EXPRESSIONIST image conveying ANXIETY — distorted forms, unsettling colors, psychological tension. Reality warped by emotion. 10.0
✓ Create an EXPRESSIONIST image conveying ECSTASY — explosive color, dynamic distortion, overwhelming energy. 10.0
✓ L3.4 Cubism & Deconstruction 2 attempts
Cubism shows multiple viewpoints simultaneously — objects broken into geometric facets, reassembled on a flat plane. Picasso, Braque. Analytical Cubism: monochromatic, fragmented. Synthetic Cubism: colorful, collage-like. The revolution: rejecting single-point perspective.
✓ Create an ANALYTICAL CUBIST image — a subject broken into geometric facets, multiple viewpoints visible simultaneously, muted palette. 10.0
✓ Create a SYNTHETIC CUBIST image — colorful, collage-like, flat geometric shapes suggesting a recognizable subject. 10.0
✓ L3.5 Surrealism 2 attempts
Surrealism visualizes the unconscious mind — dream logic, impossible juxtapositions, metamorphosis. Dalí, Magritte, Ernst. Objects are rendered realistically but placed in impossible contexts. Scale distortion, melting forms, hybrid creatures. The uncanny: familiar made strange.
✓ Create a SURREALIST image — realistically rendered objects in impossible contexts. Dream logic. At least one impossibility. 10.0
✓ Create a SURREALIST METAMORPHOSIS — one object transforming into another, mid-transition. 9.0
✓ L3.6 Abstract & Non-Objective 3 attempts
Abstract art reduces or eliminates representation — from semi-abstract (recognizable but simplified) to non-objective (no reference to reality). Kandinsky: emotion through color and form. Mondrian: pure geometry. Rothko: color fields evoking transcendence. Pollock: gesture and energy.
✓ Create a GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION — pure geometric forms, no reference to real objects. Like Mondrian or Malevich. 10.0
✓ Create a COLOR FIELD image — large areas of flat color creating emotional atmosphere. Like Rothko. 9.0
✓ Create a GESTURAL ABSTRACT — dynamic, energetic marks suggesting movement and emotion. Like Pollock or de Kooning. 9.0
✓ L3.7 Minimalism 2 attempts
Minimalism strips art to essential forms — 'less is more' taken to its extreme. Simple geometry, limited palette, no decoration. Judd, Flavin, LeWitt. Every element must justify its presence. The power of restraint, silence, negative space.
✓ Create a MINIMALIST image — maximum 3 elements, maximum 2 colors, vast empty space. Nothing unnecessary. 10.0
✓ Create a MINIMALIST image using only LINES and ONE COLOR on white/black background. 10.0
✓ L3.8 Contemporary & Digital 2 attempts
Contemporary art embraces all media and approaches. Digital art uses computational tools as medium. Glitch art: intentional errors as aesthetic. Generative art: algorithmic creation. Data art: information as visual material. Post-internet art: the screen as canvas.
✓ Create a GLITCH ART image — intentional digital artifacts, pixel displacement, color channel shifts, data corruption as aesthetic. 10.0
✓ Create an image that feels like GENERATIVE ART — algorithmic patterns, mathematical beauty, emergent complexity from simple rules. 10.0
○ EXAM LEVEL 3 EXAM: Create THREE images of the SAME subject, each in a distinctly different art style from this level. Explain which styles you chose and why. The viewer should immediately recognize each st...
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Expression & Meaning
Learning to say something through visual language
5/5
✓ L4.1 Single Emotion 4 attempts
Every visual element can serve emotion: warm colors = energy/passion, cool = calm/melancholy; diagonal lines = tension, horizontal = peace; high contrast = drama, low contrast = subtlety; tight framing = claustrophobia, wide = freedom. The challenge: make the viewer FEEL a specific emotion without words.
✓ Create an image that makes the viewer feel SERENITY — absolute calm, peace, stillness. No text, no symbols. 10.0
✓ Create an image that makes the viewer feel DREAD — unease, approaching danger, the uncanny. 10.0
✓ Create an image that makes the viewer feel AWE — overwhelming scale, beauty, or power. 10.0
✓ Create an image that makes the viewer feel MELANCHOLY — not sadness, but bittersweet longing, nostalgia. 10.0
✓ L4.2 Emotional Intensity 2 attempts
Emotion has a volume dial. The same emotion at different intensities: mild unease vs. paralyzing terror; gentle warmth vs. burning passion; slight sadness vs. devastation. Control comes from calibrating: saturation, contrast, scale, detail, color temperature. Subtlety is harder than extremes.
✓ Create TWO images of the SAME emotion (joy) at OPPOSITE intensities: one quiet/subtle, one overwhelming/explosive. 9.0
✓ Create an image with MAXIMUM emotional intensity — whatever emotion, turned to 11. Every element serves the emotional peak. 10.0
✓ L4.3 Visual Metaphor 2 attempts
A visual metaphor makes one thing stand for another — a crumbling wall for a failing relationship, roots for ancestry, a bridge for connection. The strongest metaphors work on multiple levels and aren't immediately obvious. They reward slow looking.
✓ Create a VISUAL METAPHOR for 'time passing' — without clocks, hourglasses, or calendars. Find an original way. 9.0
✓ Create a VISUAL METAPHOR for 'isolation' — without showing a person alone. Express the concept through abstract/material means. 8.0
✓ L4.4 Narrative in One Frame 2 attempts
A single image can tell a story by implying before and after. Elements that suggest action in progress, traces of past events, or imminent change create narrative tension. The viewer completes the story in their mind.
✓ Create an image that tells a STORY — the viewer should be able to describe what happened before and what will happen next. 10.0
✓ Create an image showing a TURNING POINT — the exact moment when something changes irreversibly. 9.0
✓ L4.5 Paradox & Tension 2 attempts
Visual paradox creates images the brain can't resolve — impossible objects, contradictory scales, things that are simultaneously two states. This generates fascination and extended viewing. The viewer's perception oscillates, unable to settle.
✓ Create a VISUAL PARADOX — an image containing a contradiction that cannot be resolved. Something impossible yet visually coherent. 9.0
✓ Create an image where TWO OPPOSITE EMOTIONS coexist — the viewer feels both simultaneously. 10.0
○ EXAM LEVEL 4 EXAM: Create a single image that conveys a specific THESIS — a statement about the world that can be understood through looking alone. Write the thesis before generating. The image must: (1) e...
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Mastery & Synthesis
Developing a personal artistic voice
0/3
● L5.1 Personal Style 3 attempts
Style is the consistent way an artist makes decisions — which elements they favor, which they reject, what palette they gravitate toward, how much detail they use. Style emerges naturally from accumulated preferences and skills. It's not a costume to put on but a voice that develops through practice.
○ Create 3 images of COMPLETELY DIFFERENT subjects that all feel like they were made by the SAME artist — same palette tendencies, same compositional logic, same emotional register. —
○ Write a STYLE MANIFESTO (100 words) then create an image that perfectly embodies it. —
○ L5.2 Series & Coherence 0 attempts
A series is a group of works that explore one idea from multiple angles. Each piece stands alone but gains meaning in context. Series demand: visual coherence (consistent look), thematic coherence (consistent idea), and progression (each piece adds something new).
○ Create a SERIES of 4 images exploring ONE concept from 4 different angles. They must be visually coherent and thematically connected. —
○ L5.3 Cross-Pollination & Innovation 0 attempts
Innovation comes from combining what shouldn't go together — cubist composition + impressionist color, minimalist structure + expressionist emotion, surrealist concept + hyperrealist execution. Breaking rules requires knowing them first.
○ Combine TWO art styles that seem incompatible into a single coherent image. Name the styles before generating. —
○ Create an image that DOESN'T fit any existing art style — something genuinely new. Push beyond everything learned. —
○ EXAM LEVEL 5 FINAL EXAM: Create a PORTFOLIO of 5 images that constitute a complete artistic statement. They must demonstrate: (1) mastery of at least 3 art styles, (2) consistent personal voice, (3) a cohe...