The importance of process.

Talking with students about the different aspects of process is what I spend most of my classroom time with.  Many students have to be encouraged to not take shortcuts, to not expect the answers given to them, and to not focus on having the answers before going through the process of developing an image or object from the very beginning.  You will notice in the images in the previous post, that the students are expected to be fully independent with even the most mundane aspects of art-making: building frames for stretching canvas, grinding their own stones for working in lithography, mixing their own paint, maintaining the studios, developing fully resolved preliminary drawings, etc.

This emphasis on process and nuts-and-bolts work has several results.  It encourages the student to become acutely aware that ALL aspects of art-making (formal, technical and conceptual decisions) have an effect on how the image or object is read by the viewer.  It also forces the student to become aware of the subtle aspects or inherent qualities of each media.  Using the progressive grains of carborundum when grinding the stone, and following the process exactly in order to end up with a surface that affects the drawing that is to be completed - this is a perfect example of the student becoming aware of the inherent quality of stone lithography.

Having the students become proficient in all aspects of the process also has a more practical result - each student can act on their ideas more independently.  They won't need to ask for permission or to ask for guidance in all aspects of ... building frames, cutting wood for woodblock prints, sharpening their tools, stretching canvas, etc. - and so then they will be able to work towards where their ideas take them.  In other words, much fewer limitations.

I have each student completed well resolved drawings from life for each painting for several reasons:
- Extending the process this way causes the student to realize that resolving the image as a painting can be a long process in general.  The painting looks the way it does because of this gradual development.  The richness, range and sensitivity that occur are a result of this preliminary step.
- This also makes the development of the finished "product", so to speak, much less frustrating.  Problems and challenges have been worked out in the preliminary drawing, so the student has a much more positive direction to the work at hand.  Basically, it helps build a "library" of experiences to draw from.  Having resolved related drawings in the preliminary drawing format informs what the solutions might be in a related situation in a slightly different format/media.