Creative Choice
Some teachers believe that we need to master skills before we can be creative. They say that creativity cannot be properly realised without the skill to express it. So, they might narrow the creative activity to focus on mastering a particular skill, (nearly always realistic drawing). This is usually effective; realistic drawing skills are raised. But there’s a trade off. Eventually, the student becomes so reliant on the skill of realism that they struggle to diversify their art into other forms. They come to believe that if art doesn’t have ‘skill’ then it doesn’t make sense. They usually reject conceptual, intuitive, gestural, or instinctive art forms as being trivial, or less than, ‘skilful’ art forms.
What they should have been taught, (if we stay with drawing) is that skill comes in many forms. Skill is great, it’s desirable, but there are many drawing skills; abstraction is a skill, layering textures and surfaces is a skill, pattern-making is a skill, gestural drawing is a skill, and cognitive drawing is a skill. These skills don’t come after we learn realism. Young children can make textured surfaces to draw onto. They draw patterns instinctively, they draw forms and shapes intuitively. It’s societal norms that favour one style of drawing over another.
We want pupils to develop their fine motor skills. We want them to be able to realise their cognitive intentions successfully in whatever form they desire. But, as art teachers, we have to expand their minds, to open them up to new possibilities of what they could produce. Art isn’t something that can only be accessed once you’ve acquired enough skill. Art is new possibilities; new horizons. This is why creativity must be taught. If all art in school is, is raising skill, then we aren’t opening minds, and opening minds, and possessing a greater repertoire of possibilities is a gateway to diverse thinking.
One way we can begin teaching creativity is through the creative choices we offer. By controlling creative choices, we can make art activities more, or less creative. Teachers design art & design creative activities around themes, topics or starting points that integrate appropriate aspects of their progression plan; knowledge of art and artists, or skills, techniques and processes. It’s through a creative activity that we exercise this knowledge.
If I restrict the learning opportunities to include only the ones I’ve pre-selected, then I restrict creative potential. This isn’t always a bad thing, often you’ll want to focus improving attainment in one particular area, and so narrowing options is sometimes best.
In the example, illustrated the topic the pupils are studying is leaves. In the first example, everyone draws a leaf using HB pencil on white paper. The teacher takes them through this process, modelling skills tightly to ensure greater number of pupils acquire the skill. This is great, but it can be improved. In order to hand over the skill from teacher to pupil, the pupil must be able to reproduce and reapply the skill to new conditions.
This is where creativity comes in. In example two, we now have a follow-up exercise where the pupil can creatively apply that skill. They might choose an object to draw where they can use this new skill appropriately, such as drawing a toy. In the third example, we expand the choice of drawing materials and subject matter. We let them select from a range of materials the teacher has controlled; pencil, coloured pencil or felt pens. We give them a range of coloured papers to choose from and we allow them to select their favourite from a range of leaves.
These choices are designed in such a way that the same skills can be developed, but where greater diversity is also enabled. The results from the class drawing exercise now will be more personal, more colourful and creative. However, the level of drawing skill (realism) will likely be lower. We haven’t narrowed the medium and taught it in such a tightly modelled way. Here then, we have another trade-off and it can only really be overcome if you have enough curriculum time to teach both approaches; repeating the exercise using both teacher-led, and creative approach.
What is certain though, is that if you only use a teacher-led realism approach, then pupils will struggle to be as creative, and if you only use a creative approach, they will likely not be as skilled in realism. Personally, I prefer to teach using both approaches, but it requires the teacher to know when to tighten up and when to let go.
To develop your ability to give creative choice to pupils, you need to know what types of creative choices you can offer. Typically, you can control creative choice in three areas; materials, stimuli or activity.
Stimuli – offer a selection of artists on the same theme across different styles and genres: traditional, modern, contemporary. For example, you might be studying clouds so you’d provide images of: a Constable cloud painting, René Magritte’s the Future of Statues 1937, Tony Cragg’s Cumulus sculpture. Instead of only one stimuli being offered, which some might like or dislike, we now have three different approaches which improves motivation.
Materials – Provide controlled choice over the range of materials offered. Groups of materials work well together as choices, or they might be deliberately juxtaposed to provide good counterpoint.
Group 1: 2B pencil, coloured pencil, felt pens
Group 2: Charcoal, chalk pastels
Group 3: Oil pastel, felt pens
Group 4: Indian ink, fineliner pens
Group 5: Poster paint, watercolour paint, acrylic
Activity – offering alternative stimuli results in pupils wanting to go in different directions when they work. In the cloud example above, some might simply paint a realistic picture of a cloud, some might make a sculpture of a cloud or some might paint a cloud onto a 3D surface.
This is how we can most easily teach creativity in art and design and facilitate diverse, personal outcomes. Usually, it requires us to teach traditional skills in harmony with facilitating creative choice. As pupils progress, they should be placed in greater control of the creative choices, until such a time as they are able to decide which materials, stimuli and direction they will use to tackle project starting points.
paulcarneyarts BLOG 