Introduction
‘A black and white mind map? What have you been drinking, whisky?’ you might be asking yourself. ‘What a beautiful, original and… utterly useless idea.’
Or maybe just the last one. It’s OK; my manliness can take it (see pic).
Be that as it may, this is my latest creation and I’ll now try to imagine some usefulness for it.
JPG Image 800 px ~ JPG Image 1920 px ~ JPG Image 3500px
PDF Doc ~ Sab on Biggerplate!
Feel free to use my ‘Black and White Mind Map’ as follows:
1) For any NON-commercial use
2) Leave it EXACTLY as it is
3) Don’t change ANYTHING
4) Make sure the © Copyright text is included and intact
5) See 2) and 3) (you get the idea!)
You CAN reproduce it online or embed it in your blog or website as long as you…
6) Respect 1-5 above
7) Include a credit to ‘Sab Will / Mind Map Mad’ AND a clickable link to http://www.mindmapmad.com on the web page next to or near the image – thanks!
Anyway, it’s a place absolutely crammed with cool mind maps, including mine – he he! You can download the actual original iMindMap file (the mind mapping software I use) and play around with it yourself. Nice!
As an English teacher, sometimes even with kids when I’m feeling brave, I love showing them stimulating visuals to fire their imaginations. I don’t need to tell any of you teachers reading this that kids love pictures and colours.
It was with this in mind that I first thought this black and white mind map might be interesting.
The theme is pretty straightforward: a lot of typical items which are totally or predominantly black and white. There is more flexibility in the words I used though.
Sometimes I give the literal name of an animal or object, like ‘horse’ or ‘wedding cake’. And other times I offer an interesting adjective like ‘stripy’ or ‘crooked’ to add some variety.
This isn’t a lesson on how to use this Black and White Mind Map in class so I’ll leave it to teachers’ able imaginations to do that, or maybe I’ll think of a few ideas later.
What, like, you can look at it? Yep, that’s right. Seeing as we’re always going on about how important images are in learning and remembering and just enjoying the process, you might as well admit: this is quite interesting to look at! At least, I hope it it.
Our brains love contrasts, unusual pictures and comparing what they know with new information they encounter. The Black and White Mind Map offers all three.
Not only that, our imagination may well start coming up with some of its own suggestions for things which are black or white or both, even without explicit prompting.
That’s what’s cool about the brain: it doesn’t always do what it’s told, but even more often it does what it isn’t told!
As an artist (and we’re all artists, you know), this was a fun exercise.
Black and white are fundamentals of imagery. Some consider them ‘colours’ in their own right. Others take a more prosaic point of view: white as all colours mixed together, black as none.
That works with light. It’s the other way round with paint on a pristine white canvas of course, where combining numerous hues will quickly result in a glorious murky miserable mess. Which my son Léo wouldn’t be able to resist sticking his fingers into.
Shadows and highlights are also determined by the variations between light and dark. I almost divided the ‘canvas’ of this mind map into three parts: black, white and grey. In the end I kept things simple and it’s probably a stronger piece as a result.
It’s curious to contemplate. In total darkness – a 100% absence of light – we see nothing. Logically, then, we might think that in the presence of 100% light, we would see everything. In fact, total lightness is white and the result would be like staring directly into the sun or skiing without goggles on a sunny day: 100% blindness.
So as artists we are always playing with these ideas and the range of possibilities which lies between, and includes, absolute brightness and utter darkness. (Do you remember when political correctness got out of control and we joked that we would have to refer to the B-word as ‘totally dark grey’? ;-D )
And I haven’t even started on ‘colour’ yet! Don’t get me going..!
A Symbol For Peace & Equality
Black and white has a huge legacy. Not least in the realm of language and equality. ‘White as snow’ and ‘black as night’ seem pretty innocuous and literal as expressions go.
But what about comparing the angelic-sounding ‘white knight’ (my saviour!), ‘white dove’ (for peace) or even ‘white lie’ (not such a bad one) to the downright nasty ‘black look’ (I hate you!), ‘blacklist’ (Bad news: you’re on my…), ‘Black Friday’ (mega-market crash) and ‘blackball’ (you decide).
Then again, black cats are supposed to be lucky in my country, and little dresses in this colour don’t often leave people indifferent.
Over and above all that, the idea of contrasting black and white helps us think about differences which are maybe not such big differences after all, like skin colour. Looking at my Black and White Mind Map, you will also see many examples of black and white cohabiting quite comfortably, in nature and elsewhere.
But if anyone starts humming ‘Ebony and Ivory’ I’ll probably lose my carefully calculated cool. We Sisters of Mercy and Black Sabbath fans have our limits, you know…
© 2015 Sab Will / Mind Map Mad
Mind Map Mad Facebook Group
If you’d like to join our friendly mind map discussion group on Facebook to learn more about mind mapping and submit your own creations, then you’re welcome!
Just click the button below and join up straight away – I look forward to meeting you there 😀
Here are those download links again, and don’t forget to let me know what you think (or leave a comment below). Did you like my Black and White Mind Map and how would you use it, even if just to make you smile. Or maybe you thought of other typically black and white things I didn’t include which you would have? What did I forget?!
JPG Image 800 px ~ JPG Image 1920 px ~ JPG Image 3500px
PDF Doc ~ Sab on Biggerplate!
Feel free to use my ‘Black and White Mind Map’ as follows:
1) For any NON-commercial use
2) Leave it EXACTLY as it is
3) Don’t change ANYTHING
4) Make sure the © Copyright… text is included and intact
5) See 2) and 3) (you get the idea!)
You CAN reproduce it online or embed it in your blog or website as long as you…
6) Respect 1-5 above
7) Include a credit to ‘Sab Will / Mind Map Mad’ AND a clickable link to http://www.mindmapmad.com on the web page next to or near the image – thanks!
Anyway, it’s a place absolutely crammed with cool mind maps, including mine – he he! You can download the actual original iMindMap file (the mind mapping software I use) and play around with it yourself. Nice!
I started collecting web site links for the images I was pulling off Google searches, but in the end I was going nuts! But I respect original artists rights and if any of the authors of any of these images see them and want a credit and link back to their work I’m only too happy to oblige. This Black and White Mind Map is not a commercial item and is available for free download on this web site and elsewhere. Please enjoy and share if you want to, thank you.
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