How I teach the Creative Process

1. Explore & Experiment - When the student artists get their hands immediately on and into art mediums and can try them out with little interference of direction from me other than, "I don't know. What do YOU think it does? Maybe you should try it?"
2. Figure Out & Focus - When the students are starting to have a better of what the medium does (or doesn't do) and they take that and align the project objective with it in order to make informed decisions about what they may (or may not) want to do in order to achieve the results they are striving for. This process involves peer review and critique of work that has been done in different stages, me doing demonstrations of possible best practices, and answering questions they may have formulated based on the Explore & Experience stage.
3. Stick or Scrap - This is basically the single defining stage that either forces them to go back to Explore & Experiment a little bit so they can go through the Figure Out & Focus at least one more time (that's usually all it takes) OR for them to know and believe with confidence that they want to go in one direction with their project or another. It is usually known (by them individually) subtleties as much as how they should be holding their paintbrush to achieve a certain effect on the support they are working on, what exact color palette they will use, etc.
4. Know & Go - This is the final stage of their creative process where they are confident to step up to using finally and high-quality/grade art materials in order to create something intentionally that will be complex in it's presentation and also show evidence of good technique that is obviously apparent, the subject matter will say something as much as show something (meaning they are being a visual communicator instead of making something because "it looked cool"), and, finally, they will be completely confident to stand by their work and defend it as a successful work even if someone challenges it and calls it unsuccessful.