It would be nice if your teacher gave you a bit more guidelines on what she wanted. However, this doesn't have to be that hard. The meaning doesn't have to be deep and complicated, especially if you're not used to working this way. Break it down!

I can't speak for what your teacher wants, but if I was you I would pick a "concept" of some kind, then brain storm different ways to visually convey your concept. For example, "isolation" could be a princess leaning out the window of a tower. Or it could be a tiny blue square on a white piece of canvas, or a crowded room with one person somehow disengaged via body language/coloring/style. Color? Well our princess could be staring out at sunset- the sun going down is another day without rescue, while the sun coming up would be more hopeful! Keep colors cooler for feelings of sadness, and warmer for, well, a warmer feeling.

Also, ask your teacher for advice as you go. That best way to avoid the "What does this yellow mean?" "Yellow.. ness.." is if you ask her for color suggestions before you start. She can't find meaning for you in a work with none, but she can help you create a piece of work based on an actual meaning.

Ha, I'm sorry, I don't know how helpful that is, but I hope it gives you a way to move forward.

@SleepingPoppy gave some really good advice for giving real meaning to your art, so I'm going to present you with another option: lie. Make stuff up. I don't recommend doing this often (lying isn't a great thing to do), but sometimes you have to tell teachers what they want to hear. Why did you choose yellow? "Because the warm hues remind me of butter, sunshine, dandelions. It makes me think of summer and warmth, and I wanted to convey those feelings in this piece." Doesn't matter if that has nothing to do with why you chose yellow. You just have to justify it for the teacher. Maybe you'll find a genuine answer along the way, but when in doubt: fake it til you make it.

You could also pull the old "I don't want to tell you how this should make you feel. What does it mean to YOU, sensei?". This probably won't fly for an IB art class, though, unless you are really close with your teacher. I recommend you read up on what some other artists have said about their work, or perhaps what other art specialists/critics have said about art. That will help you learn the language and how people talk about meaning and art. A great place to start IMO is with Picasso's blue period. It's very abstract, but it's also not that hard to understand what he was trying to convey. Perhaps looking at other pieces of art and reflecting on what you think the meaning is will help you think about a)how to put meaning into your own art or b)how to tell your teacher what she wants to hear about the meaning of your art.

And it could be that those choices work, but you just need to know how to describe them better. I don't know your teacher, but I suspect that if she asks "why are these lights here?" the answer "they looked pretty" will never really fly, but the answer "they make the scene feel more warm and homey" or "they work with the other bright colours to make the piece feel energetic" might go over better. Even a piece that just looks cool has some reason it makes you feel good. It might be partially an issue of being able to put your finger on WHY your choices work, and partially an issue of pondering a little before you make a choice rather than just going with your gut.

And that is something that's useful in comics, because your gut isn't always right. Knowing why you would make a choice is extremely useful for troubleshooting -- "why isn't this angle working? well, hm, what does this choice do for the piece emotionally? it's shot from above, and that tends to be a less emotional angle. If I want the character to really feel powerless I could make the angle from down low, looking up, and make his opponent seem to loom over him." This sort of thinking comes up in comics for me very often.

So maybe some part of it will be using yellow because it looks rad, and then figuring out -- well, why does the yellow look rad? Is it because it makes bright, contrasting colours that give your drawing a lot of energy? Is it because it feels warmer and cozier? -- and some part of it will be reaching outside your comfort zone to actually think over your choices before you implement them. How do you want this piece to feel, and what kind of colour scheme, composition, etc. leads to that feeling?

That said, I think finding your balance between @SleepingPoppy's advice and @Cielle's advice is gonna be up to you. Sometimes you do your best and still discover that a teacher is just not interested in working with the kind of artist that you are.... and you have to either try to create the kinds of things they want to see, or create what you want and learn how to describe it convincingly. Both skills can come in handy!

@Cielle making shit up is honestly how I did it with some of the really spacy art teachers I would get from time to time.

I don't know if you're teacher is one of them, but there seems to be a sub category of art teachers where the concept "art is a form of expressing your emotions" is taken to EXTREME levels. To the point where technique, composition, layout and details actually get you bad marks because "You're technique is good but I don't SEE any EMOTION in it" That's when you start making shit up on the spot and do the "Well this line here represents the feeling of sadness, and this blue colour here is reflecting the thoughts of the character reacting to that sadness" or some made up shit like that and their opinion suddenly changes to "OMG!!!! I can see it now!!!!"

I took ap art for 2 years and I bullshitted every single artist comment. You can nitpick useless details like "I used a lot of yellow here to reflect (emotion that kind of fits the piece) (something about the human experience)" like this one piece
3
won first place in a local competition for ap students and i drew it because i thought it looked rad in my head but i put in the artist comments something about how the character tried to find the key to immortality but when he did he lost all his memories and emotions and the piece shows the event happening (and then some obligatory technical stuff about the design because this ALMOST won a show before it but didnt because i didnt explain how i used the ~~~~~elements and principles of design~~~~~ in the piece)

i got a 5 on the ap exam doing this

pftftftft oh please. Asking to find meaning is ludicrous. It's art let it be what it is.

I took a drawing class for freshman year of art college with some modern art teacher and put no effort into the projects because I never got to draw from life, just boring arts and crafts. She loved the messy unclean look and found it "deep" and "passionate" and I lied and acted like it was super deep. Then we were forced to do gluing paper together so I drew rabbits on it and that was one of the few times I had fun. She was enraged and said I wasn't taking the piece seriously, it has no meaning and gave me a B-.

Art teachers, you gotta love them.

I've seen some really good and insightful thoughts here. I thought I'd weigh in with a few of my own.

Art, I believe, is at its best when it is an expression; whether it's one's personal perspective that one is attempting to convey to someone outside that perspective and perception, or whether it's a more emotive -- or even perfunctory -- gesture, it should express something.

That said, though, expression doesn't have to be something profound or sound "deep" to serve its purpose. Sometimes the purpose behind a piece, and its meaning, are simply because one found motivation to create along certain lines. Sometimes a piece of art is to express strong emotion or profound feeling, and other times it is something that the artist just felt like doing. However, it's essential that any artist, or teacher for that matter, remember that the real meaning of art is going to be different for each individual. The person experiencing the art is connecting in some way with the artist, but they also bring their own distinct perspective to it, and that will color their interpretation of it. It doesn't matter if it's pop art, impressionism, or a comic book.

If your teacher is a good one, she'll probably understand that sometimes you just use a color because it suits the piece. The Dadaists, for example, made a whole movement out of lack of meaning, which is noteworthy. I would suggest engaging your teacher and talking to her more when these questions come up -- it's not a one-way dialogue, this should be a conversation. I find a lot of artists who are that enthusiastic about meaning will usually enjoy being engaged in a conversation about it. You shouldn't be afraid to ask her about meaning herself, and what art means to her. Speaking to her about perspective, meaning, and purpose behind art can be very illuminating, especially since every artist is a little different in their approach to expression.

She might not be great. She might turn out to be one of those art teachers we all find intolerable because of a singular, narrow-minded idea of what makes art. But she might just as likely turn out to be a friend, a guide, and someone who can really give you a lot to think about in terms of creating art and giving it meaning when otherwise you may not have thought about it at all. It's worth a try!

I've been in similar art classes, and I agree with the others in this thread. Basically, there are two things for you to do: 1. Learn to make a piece around a concept. 2. Learn to spew artistic BS. You're probably going to need both.

Number 1 is a skill that will be useful to you in any piece of art you make, especially comics. Knowing why something works is very important for reaching that next level in your art and really make the art connect with the audience. Basically, you need to think about how every aspect (perspective, color, values) can be used to convey a certain concept, like fear for example. If you keep this in mind during the whole process you won't be at loss for an answer when your teacher wants an explanation, and your pieces will probably pack a stronger punch once you get the hang of it! Ideally, this "thinking through" is what your teacher wants to teach you.

Now, number 2. Some teachers just need to hear certain things. Some art teachers force this on their students in order to justify their art classes as something more than doodling, in other words, they have an inferiority complex. Others have a superiority complex and you need to feed their idea of how great art is. You might be lucky and have a teacher who is willing to genuinely teach you how to give meaning to a piece, but sometimes it just helps to make some shit up. Really, our grades were heavily influenced by our ability to BS some deep meaning into stuff, and not just in art class... (One word. Goethe.) Basically, give up the idea of needing to be honest about what you really thought. xD

ugh. i hate this part of art courses.

she means, like, symbolism. and purpose. typically political or psychological. like, you draw some fairies - youre exploring the childhood psyche, maybe write some shit about growing up or innocence. you paint a sunset - youre using natural form to consider the beauty in endings and how people understand death. its really just writing some bullshit you can link back to whatever you want to create.

you can also start with a concept - 'i want to make an art piece about homophobia, so im going to research art abt homophobia etc and then im going to paint footballs pink. or something' in some ways, ~meaning makes it easier to get good marks. some of my highest marks in GCSE were drawing in a bible. eugh.

if you really dont want to give everything a ~meaning~ (fair enough) you have one Get Out Free Card that i can think of: aestheticism. Oscar Wilde coined the concept, that things could be beautiful for the sake of being beautiful. if you do a page spread on that, then look at some designers you like the look of, then bada bing bada boom - fuck meaning, do what you like.

good luck, IB art sounds like a death sentence to me

Well, personally, I think it's kind of important for art to be cohesive. If you look at great works of music and literature, every note and every word is selected to evoque a certain emotion. Maybe try thinking about it on those lines. So if you are painting a tree, for example. Think about why you are painting the tree and how you feel about the tree, so that when you paint you have that emotion in mind. If you see an old tree and you make yellow a strong color, then when you are asked, you can say "Well, because yellow light means it's around midday, when you are most tired, just like the tree because it's so old and still, it makes you feel sleepy". It does get better with practice, but it's a good way to start, maybe you don't do a lot of philosophy or a deep analysis, but emotions are something we all have, so that's what we can all do. Also remember that just because you didn't think about somehting, doesn't mean there isn't a reason for you doing it without thinking, let's say you didn't deliberately thinking about the time of day, subconsciously you still felt that yellow was the right color to use.