The Beatles Creative Influences

Posted on 27/04/2024 Updated on 27/04/2024

The Beatles were some of the most creative people who have graced popular culture. So, what inspired the Beatles songwriting and how might we use this to inform our own creativity? Here are some examples I recorded from Paul and John’s biographies, TV documentaries and articles.

Dreams: Paul had an anxious dream then in it, he hears his deceased mother telling him to Let It Be.

Paul also dreamed the tune of Yesterday. At first he believed it was someone else’s song because he literally woke up with the whole tune in his head.

Play: ‘The Beatles were just playing all the time. George Martin kept telling us we shouldn’t do this it do that but we just did it anyway. We’d take stuff we liked and mix it up in new ways.’ Paul

‘We all knew we had the freedom to goof around.’ Paul

They would leave recording accidents in the mix if they liked them.

McCartney played with the opposites of words Lennon called out. ‘Hello-goodbye-yes-no-stop-go’ became the resulting lyric.

They were constantly playing around, being daring, being brave, taking risks, having fun, doing the unexpected, discovering and exploring.

Memory: Paul has an incredible memory! He says that was never able to tape record his tunes back then and didn’t always write them down though he did have a songwriting book. Memory was key to his ability.

‘We had to be able to remember our songs when we wrote them because we didn’t have recording facilities.’ Paul McCartney

Imagination: Paul credits his listening to radio plays as a boy as one of the ways his imagination developed. He said he would imagine what the characters looked like.

Real events & experiences: ‘She came in through the bathroom window’ was a song about a fan who’d tried to break into Paul’s flat.

Paul’s Dad was a vaudeville musician and much of the his songwriting incorporates old music hall melodies.

‘Golden Slumbers’ is derived from a setting of ‘Cradle Song’, by the Elizabethan pamphleteer Thomas Dekker, which Paul’s nine-year-old stepsister, Ruth, happened to have been learning on the piano.

John Lennon’s son gave him a picture he’d done at school of his friend Lucy. It had a background of diamonds as stars.

External Sources: Paul’s song ‘She’s Leaving Home’, was inspired by the TV drama Cathy Come Home.

Get Back was an anti-racist song inspired by Enoch Powell and the upsurge of racism.

Back in the USSR was written in the Cold War and was an inversion of Beach Boy songs of the times that were about the USA.

McCartney was dating Jane Asher who introduced him to high-culture, including classical music. Lots of what he saw, heard and read found its way into Beatles music.

Lennon was inspired by nonsense poetry and Beat poetry, psychedelia, Surrealism, Fluxus art and Dada.

The Sgt Pepper albums artwork was devised by Paul and was based around the 1960s fashion for all things Victorian.

Something in the way she moves was a line George Harrison liked from a James Taylor song.

Amalgamation: I got a feeling was a combination of separate Lennon and McCartney songs.

Conflict: Lennon and McCartney had written together in the early days of the Beatles, but then wrote separately later. They were very competitive, always trying to write better songs than each other. John had written Strawberry Fields, so Paul went away and wrote Penny Lane. Paul was the optimist, John was the pessimist. Paul provided an optimistic middle eight on John’s song A Day in the Life.

Memories/Nostalgia: Penny Lane was written by Paul about a childhood street he knew.

Strawberry Fields is about Lennon’s childhood playing in the field in Liverpool.

Improvisation: The Beatles were always jamming together in the studio, playing old rock ‘n roll songs and riffing. Many songs came out of that or were developed during it.

Knowledgeable Mentor: They had an expert classically trained teacher (George Martin) producing their work. He guided them, played complex parts for them, taught them, introduced them to new ways of working and steered their music.

Other’s music: The Beatles favourite composer was Bach and they regularly played with his cord patterns.

Paul heard a piccolo solo he liked on a Brandenberg concerto and so he hired the best player to record a solo on Penny Lane.

The song Michelle was inspired by Edith Piaf songs. Paul had been shown a jazz chord as a teenager and wrote a short guitar phrase using it that he played to impress girls. Years later, John encouraged him to turn it into a song.

Boredom: Paul came up with the idea for Sgt. Peppers Lovely Hearts Club Band on a long flight from Africa. A technician had asked him to pass the salt and pepper and Paul thought he’d said pass the Sgt. Pepper.

Single minded, focus, tenacity, determination, resilience: Paul was the one who drive the band forward. John was laid back, George lacked confidence, Ringo didn’t have the drive. Paul made many management and leadership decisions. So much so that other Beatles became resentful at his bossiness. He didn’t see it. He thought John led the band but this clearly wasn’t so.

Conceptual Blending: On Dear Prudence John Lennon mixed folk music with pop rock.

George watched a BBC drama about a man whose brain is uploaded into another body. This drama was followed by a Come Dancing style tv show featuring a Vienese Waltz. He wrote his song I Me Mine in Waltz time about self-identity.

Negative influences:

Drugs

Laziness (Lennon was very laid back, McCartney very driven.)

Lack of motivation or need, due to huge success

Poor management, logistical struggles

Jealousy – internal struggles, not feeling listened to artistically

Lack of confidence due to new stars competing

Wives, girlfriends

Other projects and interests pulling them away from the band.

A Potted History of Art Pedagogy

Posted on 27/05/2023 Updated on 28/05/2023

‘Pedagogy, most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as an academic discipline, is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted’.

Education has been something of a battleground over the last decade, with two opposing approaches to teaching arguing over which is most beneficial. In the Trads v Prog war I sit firmly on the fence. I am a Trog. As I hope to show in this blog, both approaches have existed side by side in art for over a hundred years. Both are equally valid, in different ways at different times.

Why do I need to think about art Pedagogy?

Up until recently, most teachers could do their job without getting overly involved in Pedagogy. You just turned up and did your job, working from text books or teaching prescribed content handed down from subject leaders. But things have changed considerably and Ofsted and the DfE are the ones forcing us to think harder about how we teach. This distinction is important because, as far as Ofsted are concerned, curriculum is what we teach and Pedagogy is how we teach. Now, I think these distinctions are simplistic but I’ll play along for arguments sake.

Where do traditional approaches to teaching art come from?

The traditional, explicit, direct instruction approach has a long history in art and is a highly effective way of teaching certain knowledge and skills. The Mastery model of novice, journeyman and master was how Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo learned, among others. This model was then superseded by the Academies, who thought of art as being somewhat above the ‘lowly’ crafts guilds of the seventeenth century. In this model, artists learned their craft through practice, repetition, guided instruction and gradual relinquishing of control and autonomy over subject matter. This model prevailed, and even teaching in the Bauhaus was predominantly rooted in the mastery model. You put your time in, learned your craft, and once you were able, you could express yourself skilfully.

How are traditional, direct instruction based teaching approaches used in art?

Traditional teaching approaches involve learning hard, substantive, theoretical knowledge and procedural skills, in a sequential manner. This is a really good thing in my opinion. I’ve read the so-called neuroscience behind it, and putting aside the fact that most neuroscience outlining creative networks in the brain is being ignored, it makes common sense.

At least it does when learning factual knowledge anyway. I learn my times tables, then I can do more complex mathematics more easily. I learn basic algebra, then I can do equations etc. There will always be an element of this logic based, sequential progression across educational key stages. In key stage one art, I need exercises to develop my fine motor skills if I’m to be able to access the more complex learning in key stage two. In key stage three, I need to understand how to independently respond to lengthier externally set assignment questions in key stage four.

In each of these phases, there will be elementary substantive knowledge I’ll need to learn and master. When I’m learning facts and information about art and artists through history, colour mixing, brush control, pencil shading, knowing and applying the formal elements all stand out as being areas where direct instruction is the most efficient way to learn it.

The difficulty with making skills more explicit is that there are so many disciplines in art and design, and so many different approaches to making it. The most common approach is to aim for photo-realistic precision; accuracy of medium and skilful tonal rendering, but this is pigeon-holing art into one artistic style. Not all pupils can, or want to work in this way. Some pupils might be weak at photo-realism in drawing and painting, but great at clay, or textiles. Skills therefore, are subject to limitations of cognitive and physical growth, coupled with personal interest and natural ability.

Constructivism

Mastery learning fell out of favour in art schools after the Second World War, as more liberal, progressive approaches to learning (constructivism) were seen as being more in keeping with post-war optimism. Constructivism originated around the start of the twentieth century via John Dewey’s and Piaget’s theories of education, which argued that knowledge wasn’t a static, fixed body of information to be taught by rote. He insisted students should be active in their learning, and that motivation played a crucial role in how they learn.

At the same time, Maria Montessori began developing her own type of education based around similar ideals. Her approaches had an emphasis on involving the child’s natural interests, hands-on learning, real-world skills, forest learning, freedom within limits, and independence. Montessori believed that children who are free to choose and act freely within an environment prepared according to her model would act spontaneously for optimal development.

After the Second World War, the art college model took off in Europe. Although progressive art colleges had existed prior to the war, such as Josef and Anni Albers’ Black Mountain Art College of North Carolina, it wasn’t until after the second world war that they took hold. Tutor’s of the college were drawn from the recently closed Bauhaus and included Josef and Anni Albers, Walter Gropius, and Willem de Kooning. Luminaries included Robert Rauschenberg, Ruth Asawa, John Cage and Cy Twombly. The curriculum was less hierarchical and more freeform, and placed the student, rather than the curriculum, at the centre of the education.

In the 1940’s, Herbert Read’s book Education in Art argued that conventional education destroyed children’s natural creative abilities. In his book Education through Art he said that everyone is an artist of some kind whose special abilities, even if almost insignificant, must be encouraged to contribute to the richness of collective life.

In England, in the 1950s, Victor Pasmore and Harry Thubron’s Basic Course in Leeds and Newcastle put its emphasis was on process and ideas, rather than technique and end result. Pasmore felt art schools were out of date and that life drawing and perspective had no relevance to the needs of modern art, which was grounded in the formal elements of abstraction. Education was not a recipe, but a beginning. They wanted a structured, analytical approach whilst still preserving freedom, spontaneity, intuition and vitality. There was no common pedagogy; teaching was left to the individual teacher. Teaching formal, instructional techniques was shunned in favour of the development of each person’s creativity.

These approaches developed even further through art colleges such as CalArts in Los Angeles in the 1960s and Jospeh Beuys’ Düsseldorf school that taught Gerhard Richter.

What is constructivist art teaching?

Constructivist teaching techniques attempt to preserve the early ability to create art without fear or hesitation. They try to overcome logical cognitive growth in children’s brains that occur around the age of seven, by steering pupils away from focussing too much on quality of outcome, on judging themselves and being overly self-critical.

Logic circuits tell us things are right and wrong, they make us anxious and make us afraid of getting this wrong. Constructivist teachers try to avoid defining creative outcomes or making expectations clear and explicit. They create learning opportunities that are starting points for the pupils’ own exploration. There is little in the way of explicit instruction; modelling is restricted and leans towards encouraging pupils to find out for themselves what happens.

Well designed constructivist art projects are ones that facilitate self-discovery and personal growth, as well as fostering and engendering stimulation. In short, you feel good after you’ve done a progressive project, because you’ve created something and it doesn’t matter how technically proficient it is. That may, or may not, come in time. What matters is that you value the process. These approaches have been heavily criticised by teachers of other subject areas, but I would argue, they can and do work very well in creative subjects.

Constructivist pedagogies are at the heart of art

Art teachers understand that there are few moments in an artists practice where they are completely satisfied with what they produce, so there are no end points of accomplishment. Secondly, there is no ‘best’ or ‘worst’ art; only the art we produce, and thirdly that motivation – the desire to want to keep making art, is crucial.

When we focus on too much on technique and mastery, when we value quality of outcome over the impulse to create, we place some students at the top, but the majority underneath. This works in competitive sport, where winning is an ultimate ambition, but not in school-based art, where we would very much like everyone to participate.

Surely, progressives would argue, school is a place to foster children’s creativity, to nurture their aspirations? Just as PE teachers now try to promote health for all by getting pupils to focus on their own general fitness, progressive teachers teach pupils that art is a subject of personal growth, not a competition.

A word about Curriculum Narrowing

You can raise pupils’ level of technical skill by selecting a narrower range of experiences in which pupils can specialise and so attain a higher level of competence. I’ve seen it done and it works. Some of the levels of technical skill in drawing and painting that pupils achieve are quite incredible. But as I’ve said, while skill is an important aspect of making good art, it’s just quite difficult to define what we mean when we say something is skilful and in any case, which skills are important?

In an ideal world, we would have the time to build priority skills to a high level and also have time for other art areas, but this isn’t possible. From age five to fourteen in the UK, pupils are lucky to get one hour art and design teaching time per week. Many don’t. Most pupils therefore, don’t achieve levels of accomplishment in art purely because they aren’t given sufficient time. It seems to make sense therefore, to do less to a higher standard.

Through curriculum narrowing you can make superficial learning gains. Pupils appear to be much more highly able and the argument is that, once a pupil has higher levels of technical skill, then they will be able to be more creative, because they have the knowledge and skills to express themselves.

Creativity

As a creative expert, I disagree with that notion. We don’t automatically become creative as more knowledge is added. Knowledge is essential of course, but the teaching of creative processes – how to utilise that knowledge, is also essential. The most knowledgeable people aren’t always the most creative. Often it is the novice that has that all important idea, which should teach us something.

Creativity, as I’ve said in many occasions, is knowledge in action. It’s doing stuff with the things we know. It’s playing with knowledge, inventing things with it, building on it, prodding, testing and poking it to see ‘what happens if…’

There aren’t many subjects in the school where pupils can be given the freedom to decide on their own learning, but art and design is one of them. Art is a subject geared predominantly to Project Based Learning; each term or half term is a lengthy project with a complex series of learning experiences built into them. The projects you design for your curriculum must motivate pupils, and so many of them don’t. That’s because, in too many instances, the outcome of the project can be predicted before it has even begun. Cubist portraits, Banksy Street Art, Still Life Flowers, Frida Khalo, Hokusai wave paintings, I could go on. Now there’s some great learning going on here. Nearly always, it’s knowledge and skills that are being taught. I’m learning about an artist and developing my making skills. But if it’s creativity you’re looking for, if it’s independent, motivated learners who make truly exciting art, then you’re missing some vital ingredients. What your projects are missing is pupil autonomy, personal choice, challenge and freedom.

It’s not either or. It’s both

Direct instruction sounds easiest, so why do we need any other teaching approach? We use two quite opposing methods of teaching art and design at different times and for different reasons;

1. Traditional: teacher-led, direct instruction approaches are used most often to transmit knowledge and skills from teacher to pupil.

2. Progressive: teacher as facilitator approaches develop the pupils’ unique creative voice. Creativity is nurtured from experiences the teacher designs.

Each of these approaches has strengths and weaknesses in the art room. Progressive teaching approaches nurture the creative predisposition we are born with. Traditional approaches foster the development of skill and knowledge more effectively.

Some art disciplines are still quite rooted in the mastery model. Ones that lean towards crafts such as ceramics, photography, printmaking or textiles, are still largely learned by absorbing a large amount of foundation knowledge and by following an expert tutor, before going off and doing your own thing. But Fine Art, and more general creativity, are areas of art where mastery of skills has less of a role.

Summary

I think I’ve illustrated that the pedagogy of art and design has a long history and is quite complex. Traditional, direct instruction methods were the standard way of teaching art for centuries until constructivism originated around the 19th century. It dominated art education for most of the 20th century, but in recent years, traditional forms of teaching have resurfaced.

As Ofsted say, there is no single correct way to teach the subject and teaching art is not easy. However, I think if you try to remember that when you’re imparting artist knowledge or a particular skill or technique, you’d more likely use a direct instruction, follow-me approach. When you want pupils to be creative and to employ that knowledge, then opt for a constructivist, all inclusive approach. That way I think you’ll do well.

Creative Choice

Posted on 10/01/2023 Updated on 10/01/2023

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.

You CAN teach creativity

Posted on 08/01/2023 Updated on 08/01/2023

By Paul Carney

http://www.paulcarneyarts.com

Some very educated people say ‘you can’t teach creativity’. You can. As a creative teacher, I teach people how to be creative all the time.

I can teach you the historical processes by which inventions and discoveries came into being, so that you might use them yourself one day. I can teach you how to use different types of play such as conceptual blending, mimesis or reduce and rebuild. I can teach you about the different types of imagination and give you exercises to develop them. I can teach you how to create things using a systems approach if you’re more analytical, or critical thinking skills to solve problems. I can show you how to be more divergent, then become convergent when the time is right. By learning about different creative approaches you can become more confident at using them yourself.

We are all creative. Creativity is an important part of all our lives. When we decorate our homes, when we redesign our garden, when we put together a new outfit for a wedding, when we design a new cycle route or workout, design a new spreadsheet at work, or even a new playlist for the car. We’re all consumers of creativity too; TV, film, music, books, fashion, furniture and commercial goods. Creativity is inherent in us. We are constantly seeking out creative forms; we are constantly being creative ourselves. Few of us will ever make or invent something profound or important, but we can enrich our lives further by learning how to be more original and purposeful when we create.

We use knowledge when we are creating, but knowledge alone doesn’t make us creative. If it did, then the most knowledgeable people would always be the most creative and this isn’t so. Creativity, as I’ve said on many occasions, is knowledge in action. It’s doing stuff with the things we know. It’s playing with knowledge, inventing things with it, building on it, prodding, testing and poking it to see ‘what happens if…’ This doesn’t come about from simply learning facts and information.

The idea that we can’t create something until we have a certain body of knowledge is mistaken. Very young children show us that and they keep reminding us of their creative capacity as they grow, constantly coming up with new and fascinating creations in Minecraft, drawing pictures or inventing things, writing stories, songs or making stuff. Children have the capacity to create things from the tiniest pieces of knowledge and this shows us that knowledge and creativity work in symbiosis with each other. Which comes first, humming a tune in my head, knowing the scales or playing it on a piano? The answer is that one is not more important than the other, or prior to it, they are entwined with each other and interdependent. We teach something, we creatively apply it. In short cycles, again and again, learning and playing, playing and learning. They aren’t exclusive or hierarchical.

Creativity is inventing, it’s innovating, it’s making the right choices, making original choices, solving problems, it’s dreaming and imagining, playing and being absurd. If we don’t teach this, if we eliminate it from education then we diminish our capacity to create, and when we do that we become less human, because everything in our world has been created. If you believe we can’t teach creativity then I think that’s very sad indeed.

Paul

Developing imagination in learners

Posted on 15/12/2022 Updated on 16/12/2022

Imagination is the foundation of all inventiveness and innovation. It is uniquely human, and with it, we have been able to think, design, conceive, construct and develop our whole human society. Imagination is a powerful tool for learning and with it, we can remember more, do more, feel more, engage more and achieve more. 

But, how imaginative is your curriculum? How often are pupils challenged to imagine things? Will your pupils learn to be imaginative, and if so, how? How is imagination sequenced and developed? These are hard questions to answer, and to do it we need to be sure of what imagination is in the first place.

So, what is imagination? Most of us, when asked this question, would be tempted to say it’s when we think of new, novel things, usually of a highly fantastical nature. This is true, but it’s only one aspect of imagination which is a much broader capacity to rationalise things we can’t see directly. 

Imagination is a manifestation of our memory. It enables us to interpret past and present events in new ways or to reconstruct them into hypothetical scenarios. Imagination also helps us create mental models and is an important part of memory management. It fills in gaps or ambiguities in knowledge  – ‘What is this? What might it mean?’ 

Another role of imagination is that it enables us to create new meanings from cognitive cues or stimuli within the environment. It helps us connect disparate elements, helps us see things from new perspectives, and empathise with others viewpoints. Imagination is not always a conscious process. The brain periodically switches between hemispheres during a person’s consciousness. 

Our brains exist in isolation, within an external environment that we are constantly trying to make sense of, to interact with and interpret. Imagination is our means of doing that. It helps us to substantiate things that might not be in front us; make tangible what is intangible; conceptualise and strategise; empathise and memorise. 

Imagination is so important to us. Without it, we would not be the highly efficient, evolved creatures we are. Yet, most of us are unaware of how it works or even what it does. We use it like someone driving a car who hasn’t the faintest idea of how it works. We just put the key in and drive. And, for the most part that’s fine. We’ve got this far without knowing what’s under the hood after all. 

But, what if we were able to identify when and where different aspects of our imagination were useful? What if we understood which imaginative traits we excelled at, and which ones we didn’t? What if we could practice and develop our imaginative capacities to make us better thinkers? Imagine that! 

To do this, we need to better understand what imagination is and how it works. Dr Murray Hunter of the University of Malaysia Perlis, proposed eight main forms of imagination: 

1. Effectuative Imagination – synthesising information together to form new concepts and ideas. 

2. Intellectual (or Constructive) – a deliberate process of working from plans towards a distinct purpose.

3. Dreams – unconscious images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur during certain stages of sleep 

4. Emotional Imagination – projecting emotional dispositions into external scenarios.

5. Strategic Imagination – the wisdom to understand the potential & limitations of possible scenarios

6. Empathy Imagination – know emotionally what others are experiencing

7. Fantasy Imagination – generating new ideas for art, literature, music etc.

8. Memory Reconstruction – retrieving our memory of people, objects, and events.

1. Effectuative Imagination

Synthesising information together to form new concepts and ideas

Effectuative imagination is about connecting disparate areas of memory together such as when problem solving. It involves not only being able to recall appropriate elements from memory, but also having a secure mental model of relevant subject matter; for example being able to visualise something, know it’s properties and behaviours. Knowing this, effectuative imagination requires us to recall, identify, then isolate component parts of relevant mental models, take them apart and reform them into new forms. Design is an obvious area where we do this, as is mathematics and science. While we do indeed need strong foundation knowledge to be able to use effectuative imagination to high levels, we develop it by applying the knowledge we learn to unique situations. For example; we learn the formula for calculating areas in mathematics, then solve area problems, the more advanced of which ask us to apply the formula to a real or imaginary problem. Geographers might learn about the issues facing a people and their environment, then use their effectuative imagination to suggest solutions, which will probably entail connecting remote knowledge from other areas. In science they use effectuative imagination to construct experiments, then ponder on the significance of their outcomes. In music they use scales, chords and patterns to create songs and melodies.

We teach this whenever we provide problem solving tasks that require pupils to synergise knowledge of things they are familiar with into new concepts and ideas.

2. Intellectual (or Constructive) Imagination 

A deliberate process of working from plans towards a distinct purpose.

We develop our intellectual imagination by examining and analysing information to extract not only meaning, but their implications and potential uses. An obvious way we do this is when we analyse works of art. We should of course read the artists’ own intentions where possible, but ultimately, we create our own meanings as we absorb this new information into our existing schemas to create personal ones.

Religious Education lessons aren’t about indoctrinating anyone into a faith, but rather, they are about examining faith and pondering the self and the implications of our place on the Earth and in society. Philosophy does this too of course and the study of how great thinkers have influenced and shaped society can be enormously beneficial to developing imagination. This is integral to History lessons also. They teach students how to properly analyse and authenticate historical sources then make reasoned arguments about their implications, all of which improve our imaginative capacity in key ways. Less obviously, writing music is another important aspect of intellectual, constructive imagination. Writing music requires us to merge analytical, intellectual thought processes with intuitive, imaginative ones. I think writing music also incorporates strategic, memory, emotional and even empathy imagination types too, so it is a process that really exercises a broad range of imaginary skills.

3. Dreams

Unconscious images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur during certain stages of sleep 

It’s difficult to quantify how we might use our dreams for any constructive purpose in education. After all, we cannot really control what we dream about.

We could learn how dreaming has affected innovation and invention over time. Many notable people have claimed dreaming has influenced their thinking. From Mendeleev’s periodic table, to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it seems creative breakthrough’s can come about through a combination of intense application of thoughts in waking stages, and restful dream states. 

Dreams is a popular topic in creative art projects and fiction writing. We could analyse the dreams we have had to think about how our brains constructs them. How are we able to juxtapose seemly disparate elements into frameworks we would never imagine possible in reality? How might we apply this to our own creative thinking? 

4. Emotional Imagination 

Manifesting emotional dispositions and extending them into emotional scenarios.

Human beings are typically highly emotional creatures. We often think with our emotions in the form of biases. Biases (rightly or wrongly), tell us which things to favour over others and so, being able to rationalise and understand our various emotional states would be highly beneficial to our capacity to think clearly, make informed decisions and our well-being. We might study bias and how it affects our decision making. We could also study emotion and how emotion drives our thoughts and impulses. We might visualise ourselves making decisions under different emotional circumstances and see how that affects the outcome. Greater knowledge of how emotional tastes, preferences, fears and aversions affects us is surely of great significance.

5. Strategic Imagination

Projecting emotional dispositions into external scenarios.

Strategic imagination is similar to effectuative imagination, but more idealistic. Think of world play, or creating imaginary scenarios utilising existing or known parameters. It doesn’t always have to be fanciful of course. Business studies teaches people how to transform an imaginary business concept into a workable, strategic plan. In geography, pupils might create their own civilisation, perhaps combining artistic and computing skills to create a dynamic model where social and geographic conditions alter, as in the real world. Pupils might also write a musical score for a play or a film. In art, they construct in-depth responses to starting points that express their thoughts and feelings about global and personal issues. In Science, they speculate on more fanciful possibilities, then hypothesise how these might be realised.

6. Empathy Imagination

Know emotionally what others are experiencing

Obviously, this kind of imaginative behaviour is most suitable for constructing and maintaining successful relationships. When pupils work collaboratively or in groups they are developing their empathy. The more empathetic we are, the more likely it is that we have strong social relationships. We can also learn skills of empathy through role-play and so drama and English are great subjects to develop this skill. Also, taking part in discussions, where we practice listening without interrupting and learning body language, can all help with the development of empathy. In lessons, group work, collaboration, and team work are useful. Also relevant is Design, where students are expected to empathise with the needs of others in order to design solutions. Geography also springs to mind as a subject where being able to empathise with the needs of cultures and environments is paramount.

7. Imaginative Fantasy Imagination

Generating new ideas for art, literature, music etc.

The subjects that immediately spring to mind that utilises fantasy imagination is English and the creative arts. Clearly, reading books, writing stories, plays, music or poetry, and making pictures in art all great ways to develop fantasy imagination.

My concern, from the curriculum designs I see on my travels, is that too often art and design activities and projects have very prescribed, teacher-led outcomes with little in the way of imaginative thinking. I see projects with one artist influence, a narrow skill-set and pre-designed outcomes, none of which foster imagination. The rationale is that pupils need to learn skills first, so they can become imaginative later – as though imagination magically happens when skills are acquired, or that it is innate and so doesn’t need to be taught. None of this is true. Pupils need to learn how to generate ideas, how to juxtapose, how to conceptualise and think creatively. There are some great ways to do this; Zwicky’s morphological analysis, conceptual blending, reduce and rebuild, world play, challenging assumptions worst scenarios, or exquisite corpse. Instead, I see teachers setting pupils a task to ‘come up with some ideas,’ as though they magically appear out of their heads.

But there are other ways of developing our imaginations too. Being exposed to new, unconventional stimuli develops our imagination, as does looking at familiar things from new angles. Science lessons are great for this. They regularly interact with subjects in thought-provoking ways, stimulating questions and providing unique information and perspectives on the world. Computing may not at first seem a likely place to develop our imagination, but it is exactly what computer developers need in order to create new software, games and innovations that the genre requires. Playing computer games is a superb way of developing fantasy imagination. We learn this when we play with knowledge – what would have happened if…? What would it have looked like if…? What happens if we change a small component? Essentially, it’s when we apply knowledge to existing, future or novel scenarios.

8. Memory Reconstruction

Retrieving our memory of people, objects, and events

Retrieval practice has become so innate in education recently that it needs little justification about its importance. If we don’t recall it, can it be said that we even know it at all? Except, memory is fallible. My ability to recall information varies from day to day, even moment to moment when the pressure is applied. 

Rather than simply relying on quizzes or knowledge organisers, we could teach pupils a whole toolkit of mnemonic devices during PSHCE lessons or even in form time. They could learn how to remember, why forgetting is so important to us; we use something called intelligent-forgetting to help us prioritise only that information which is useful to the current situation. 

Drawing is also something that has a proven track record in helping us remember. Making non-skilled sketches and diagrams alongside our notes improves our recall better than any other mnemonic device. 

Summary

It’s clear then, that our imaginations grow and develop over time by the very nature of being exposed to, and interacting with, so much information. However, Dr Andrey Vyshedskiy, a neuroscientist from Boston University proposed that a genetic mutation in humans that occurred 70,000 years ago, led to recursive language and modern imagination. And he found that modern children who have not been exposed to full language in early childhood, never acquire the type of active constructive imagination essential for juxtaposition of mental objects, known as Prefrontal Synthesis (PFS). 

What I think we can glean from this is that well-developed imagination isn’t a foregone conclusion in us all. Some people seem to be more imaginative than others, which implies that imagination may be susceptible to environment, genetics and learning. As educators, we can’t affect home environment, upbringing or genetics, but we can affect learning. Much of what we do already in education develops and shapes imaginative capacity in learners to an extent. But, to coin an educational phrase: ‘we must try harder’. 

Sources:

Dr Murray Hunter University of Malaysia Perlis. https://murrayhunter.substack.com/p/imagination-may-be-more-important-c37 

Teach Thought https://www.teachthought.com/learning/types-of-imagination/  

Recursive language and modern imagination in humans, Dr Andrey Vyshedskiy  https://phys.org/news/2019-08-recursive-language-modern-simultaneously-years.html 

Schemas

Posted on 26/11/2021

The term schema refers to the cognitive structures we have to describe various categories of knowledge about the world.

Theorist Jean Piaget introduced the term schema, and they are linked to his theory of cognitive development, which said that children go through a series of stages of intellectual growth.

In Piaget’s theory, a schema is both the category of knowledge as well as the process of acquiring that knowledge. He believed that people are constantly adapting to the environment as they take in new information and learn new things based on their experiences.

Schemas are really important in learning because they affect what we pay attention to, make things easier to learn, affect how we interpret incoming information and allow us to think and act more quickly.

Schemas can be a positive force and a negative one, making us reject information our existing schemas have negative experiences of.

Their are 4 types of schemas;

Person schemas relate to information about other people,

Social schemas include knowledge about social situations and models of the world,

Self-schemas that relate to how we view ourselves.

Event schemas based on patterns of behaviour.

Schemas are constantly adjusted or changed by assimilation; where we absorb knowledge into an existing framework, or accommodation where we make big changes to existing schemas or create new ones.

Schemas tend to be easier to change during childhood but can become increasingly rigid and difficult to modify as people grow older. Schemas will often persist even when people are presented with evidence that contradicts their beliefs.

Schemas therefore, grow and develop from birth and are formed from how we interpret the sum of all the knowledge and information we process. They can be partly complete, biased, misinformed, and misguided, but also correct and beneficial, helping us to learn more efficiently. They are strongly linked to cognitive development and there are several leading theories about how they form:

Freud believed that it was early experiences that played the greatest role in shaping development, and that they were set in stone by the age of 5.

Erikson believed that social interaction and experience played decisive roles. His eight-stage theory of human development described this process from infancy through death. During each stage, people are faced with a developmental conflict that impacts later functioning and further growth.

Behaviorism, focuses purely on how experience shapes who we are and gives no consideration to internal thoughts or feelings. See classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believed that children learn actively and through hands-on experiences. His sociocultural theory also suggested that parents, caregivers, peers and the culture at large were responsible for developing higher-order functions. In Vygotsky’s view, learning is an inherently social process. Through interacting with others, learning becomes integrated into an individual’s understanding of the world. His concept of proximal development is the gap between what a person can do with help and what they can do on their own. It is with the help of more knowledgeable others that people are able to progressively learn and increase their skills and scope of understanding.

According to Bandura’s social learning theory, behaviors can also be learned through observation and modeling. Whilst observation plays a critical role in learning, this does not necessarily need to take the form of watching a live model. Instead, can also learn by listening to verbal instructions about how to perform a behavior as well as through observing either real or fictional characters displaying behaviors in books or films.

Schemas are critical to learning. They are formed from the sum of all our experiences of the world and how we interact with it. Schemas are strongly linked to cognitive development and are constantly changing.

What is also affecting our schemas is latent learning. This is learning that occurs in the absence of any obvious reinforcement or noticeable behavioural changes. See Tolman and also Soderstrom and Bjork. So we can’t assume that things haven’t been learned, just because demonstration of that learning is incomplete. Everything goes into our mental compost heap!!

Most research in this field, over more than a hundred years, shows that children primarily learn through active learning and hands-on experiences in social situations, from a variety of sources – parents, peers, carers, teachers, environment and social situations.

Even semantic, declarative knowledge is not the sole property of the school, since people also learn this from the media, books, the internet and from the same external source listed above. In addition, children will pursue their own interests outside of school and might have very robust, existing schemas about topics that might affect or hinder the learning the teacher wishes to embed.

Sequencing learning in art and design? Don’t ask the DfE!

Posted on 09/05/2021 Updated on 29/09/2021

Schools all over England are being judged by Ofsted on their ability to sequence learning and progression in the subject, despite the fact that the national curriculum for art and design in England isn’t properly sequenced and it’s progression of knowledge is shambolic.

As a subject expert, I find this to be an appalling pressure to place on schools, especially when you consider that most primary schools in England do not have specialist teachers of art. In fact, it is very common for schools at this level to employ art subject coordinators who are either very inexperienced or are not teachers at all, but HLTA’s.

I’ve been doing and teaching art and design for forty years and I find it extremely difficult to sequence the subject. Even experts cannot completely agree on how to do it.

Teachers would need the support of a very robust national curriculum to help guide them, when in fact what they have to rely on is not fit for purpose.

As you can see from my diagram, skills (in yellow) and factual knowledge (in red) feature heavily, although there is limited attempt to state what these are. Art and design comprises of a wide range of skills, drawing, painting, ceramics, textiles, printmaking, the huge field of design, architecture, digital art, photography, collage and another huge area, 3D making. Yet, all that is stated to be taught is drawing, painting, sculpture and ‘other media’. I don’t know many schools that teach much sculpture which alludes to carving and shaping materials such as wood, stone, metal or plaster. There is no support for schools to define what skills should be taught in each year group as there is in core subjects.

Similarly with knowledge, this is an enormous specialist field covering all of human history and no support is given to non-specialist teachers on what artists, craftspeople, designers and architects they should teach in any year. The aims descriptors state that pupils should learn to discuss art using the language of art and design, yet nowhere does it state what that is. Are teachers supposed to guess?

It gets worse.

Design and make, is only ever mentioned in key stage 1, then barely mentioned again. Design is a hugely important area of the subject since we are called art AND design, not art OR design.

Formal elements, the bedrock of art and design from inception to professional artists are only mentioned in key stage 1 then never again.

Sketchbooks are not required in key stage 1. Why?

Evaluation, another critical area of our subject, is mandatory in key stage 1 and 3 but isn’t featured in key stage 2.

This is before I even get to ideas, imagination and creativity which are just stated as things pupils must develop, but no indication at all as to what this means in practice. Imagine if the curriculum just stated: ‘teach algebra’ without any further support!

Despite all of this completely shoddy sequencing and progression produced by the Department for Education, they fully expect schools to be able to do it, and Ofsted will judge your school on it. It really is unbelievable.

www.Paulcarneyarts.com

Art and Design Process

Posted on 28/04/2021

Making art is a complex, diverse process that can take many forms and be shaped by a wide range of factors. I’ve attempted to outline the main ones in a series of graphic organisers that could help teachers plan activities and support students in their studies. 

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This graphic organiser places Ideas at the centre of a five point shape that includes Sources of Knowledge, Skills & Techniques, Experimenting and Evaluating. No one area is more important than another. It may be that you are only focussing on one or more areas at any one time, but in a full project such as an Externally Set Assignment for examination, you’d want to cover all areas. 

Domains & Approaches precede all five learning areas. These should help identify which area you are working in and I’ve listed some common ones: 

Domains: Sculpture 3D, Craft, Design (Graphic, Fashion, Interior/Product), Fine Art, Photography, Digital, Ceramics, Textiles, Printmaking, Architecture. 

Approaches: Observation, Abstraction, 3D, Formal Elements, Contemporary, Performance, Conceptual, Traditional, Other

Connecting each learning area are a series of prompts to highlight key pathways:

Sources/Knowledge is connected to Ideas by Approaches, Inspiration and Understanding/Investigation. These three areas should help focus the use of sources into meaningful ways. Connecting Ideas to Sources in the other direction is Themes/issues/opinions and beliefs as well as Motivation. By connecting them in this way we can see that artists and sources can inspire and motivate us, as well as that looking for deeper meanings behind work can provide us with the common themes and issues that shape both art and our society. 

Skills & Techniques also link to domains and approaches because they are influenced heavily by the domain we are working in. Skills link to Ideas via products, which are less final outcomes that could lead on to more conceptual pieces. Skills also lead to Evaluation through increased Awareness which comes from greater application of skill. 

Ideas in art can come from focussed play and by exploring the potential of media. Ideas also link to Evaluation through briefs and problem solving activities that demand we consider, analyse and reflect on the problems in hand. These problems require us to apply metacognitive strategies to answer them. 

The final area of the process organiser is the link between Experimentation and Evaluation. The act of experimentation leads us to discoveries that should then inform our future choices for our art. 

We can however follow the graphic organiser in numerous ways and I’ve outlined some of these below.

Knowledge led method

In this model you begin by investigating the source of inspiration which may be a work of art, or a news article, a photograph, film or piece of text. You would have an idea of the medium you want to work in and a style of approach you want to take.

From there you should evaluate and analyse your research to consider directions you want to take the work in. Ideally, you should develop your ideas into more sophisticated forms, before taking your work into trials, explorations, modifying your outcomes and trying to develop your skill and technique, before attempting a final outcome. 

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Ideas led method

In this model you begin with an idea, which may be a response to a question or starting given to you by a teacher, an examination question, or a brief from a client. You’d want to develop this idea in rough form before investigating sources that could influence and shape your thinking. After this you should reflect on what you’ve done so far, forming thoughts and opinions on the direction you want to take. You may even alter the medium you want to work in, and you’d do this through experimentation to find which works best. This would operate in a cyclical process with development of your skill and technique before you execute your final intentions. 

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Skills led method

With a skills led approach you would usually begin through observation of sources, but sometimes it may be by modifying previous work. You’d be practising and developing skills through practical activities such as printmaking, photography, ceramics or drawing for example. You would then look to sources of artist practice to inform your own work and to learn from them. This should then inspire new ways of thinking about your original work and could lead into further, more experimental work. This could be part of a cyclical process where you are moving through each of the individual areas as and when you need to. 

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Experimental led method

Sometimes in art and design we begin by curious investigations that are shaped by our existing knowledge and motivations. These lead to ideas for future pathways, but it is still important to look to other artists’ work in order to validate our intentions. It may be that this has been done before. If so, how? Can what has gone before help us modify our responses and shape our ideas? This would take us into developing the skills, techniques or processes behind our idea, in order to ensure the final execution of our work is as good as it could be. 

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Digital drawing

Posted on 01/01/2021 Updated on 01/01/2021

I am a lifelong artist, especially in the field of drawing, aged 57 years. I feel comfortable working in a variety of styles; literal or abstract, I work across a wide range of mediums and on a variety of scales, and I believe myself to be a good draughtsman. I possess the technical skill so often defined solely as drawing, by those who know little about what good drawing is.

Recently I’ve extended my practice into drawing on tablets so I thought I’d share my experiences. I’ve been using a variety of apps on an IPad, using an Apple Pencil version 1 and later, version 2. Mostly, I’ve drawn in Procreate, but I find it weak for painting, so I use Art Set 4 for painting and Procreate for drawing.

Procreate’s pencils are good, but they aren’t quite the real thing. They either draw precise lines, or they create wide tonal areas with little in between. You can play with the settings of course, but I’ve never been able to get it quite right. What this means in practice is that my pencil produces splurges of tone on occasion when I don’t want it. This is very frustrating. The pencils are also very pixelly, especially the 6B, which is trying to recreate the soft tones of a 6B pencil, but doesn’t quite work. The HB pencil is smoother, but has an annoying semi-opaqueness to it by default. Procreate doesn’t offer you a range of drawing paper surfaces, whereas Art Set 4 does and they are comprehensive and beautiful.

You are able to copy and paste layers between each app, which makes it very versatile for applying different effects and utilising the strengths of each app. I use Procreate for applying typography for example, but Art Set for making prepared grounds for drawing on to.

The significant danger of drawing with these apps is in tracing from photographs. It is so easy to do it and it produces amazingly realistic effects. I’ve been doing lots of anatomy drawing, so being able to trace sections in situ really aids the process of accuracy. What this reliance on copying does of course is promote the notion of precision above expression and, whilst some schools of drawing aim for this, in my experience it limits the artists ability to invent, imagine and express through drawing. Drawing ‘skill’ is so much more than being able to draw forms accurately. That said, if using a tablet to trace images helps some students grow in confidence when drawing then great, but there should not be a reliance on it. Students can just as easily draw from direct observation on a tablet without having to rely on photographic tracing.

So what are the strengths of drawing on a tablet? There are so many!

Firstly, this method is very forgiving. You can make hundreds of mistakes and the drawing surface never becomes damaged or worn. You can go backwards in time, undoing whole areas of drawing, then move it forward again, so that the drawing can be manipulated as a process in a whole new way, something that is impossible to do on paper.

Also fabulous is working on layers. Layers gives a whole new dimension to drawing. I can apply different areas of my work to different layers then alter their dominance, make them more transparent, change their hue or move them in front or behind other layers. I can hide layers momentarily or switch them off completely, all of which give me extra creative dimensions as an artist. That said, you do need to constantly remind yourself of which layer you are working on.

Masks are great too and I find myself using them more and more, both to preserve areas I don’t want to spoil and to cut out parts of my drawing to move to a new layer.

I also love being able to zoom in and out really quickly and rotate my canvas effortlessly. This added dexterity is really helpful, especially since I have worse eyesight than I used to. The fact that the iPad is lit enables me to work in poor light conditions too. I also bought a bean bag style lap stand so I can hold it comfortably whilst I’m working. I also purchased a surface film for the screen that replicates the texture of paper. This is really great and adds an extra dimension to the drawing feel.

Having such a massive array of tools, brushes and colour palettes at your disposal can be overwhelming at first. For me, as a pencil artist primarily, I don’t really use or need them. Many of them are gimmicks, like some novelty pencil sharpener I bought years ago that is stuck in my bottom drawer. However, it is so refreshing to be able to switch pencil or brush size, strength and colour so quickly. It becomes so intuitive that you forget how much time you used to spend hunting for your graphite sticks or the 4B pencils you bought last week. And I just love painting in Art Set. The paints and inks are just astonishing. I only wish I could tilt the iPad to make the paints run or pour clean water into areas. In art set there is even a hair dryer tool to dry the canvas. Again, it isn’t quite as good as really painting, but it is astonishing none-the-less. The convenience of being able to draw and paint whilst watching TV, without any mess is fabulous and has definitely made me draw more often.

So to summarise, I don’t think any digital art app captures the real thing perfectly, but then it has so many advantages and so many unique features that bring a whole new dimension to art that I love. I will always draw traditionally, and I’m pleased I learned the old-fashioned way, but I think digital art will form a huge part of my future practice.