Purpose Promotes Progress

When artists enter the studio, they can choose to improvise and see what happens or they can pick a specific idea and go with it.  Sometimes, in the best of situations, an artist can go back and forth between a set idea and improvising, while teasing out what does and doesn't work.

This young artist was able to do just that when she came in to create last week.  She knew she wanted to create an animal out of clay, but did not know exactly what type of animal.  After forming the soft material into balls and observing the shape of a turtle unfold, she grasped the idea and set out to work more intentionally.

With more effort then came more progress, and a specific plan developed.  Using this creative framework and remaining focused, the artist made sure to build a solid structure and then used her fingers and clay tools to add detail, giving her turtle a personality.

This week, the artist returned with inspiration and continued mapping out her intentions.  By choosing pastels in preferred colors and then applying swatches of that color to paper, she was able to see a visual sample of how her clay creation might come together.  

Once she was sure of the color combination and where each corresponding color would go, the artist took the next step to paint glaze onto her fired piece.  She began to see that her plan was working out well, but then also had an idea that the turtle should be coming out of the water.

Changing her mind at this point seemed to be a challenge, but the artist decided that she would add blue glaze to the turtle shell in order to depict this important detail.  She had expressed her desire to keep her creations in line with each other, which all have water as a key element, and didn't want to stray from this idea.

Having a purpose for the artworks, to match each other and form a set, has resulted in the artist making more progress.  The artist is eager to see how her glazed pieces come out next week.  She can then determine at that time whether she will continue to make more matching pieces, or start a new plan to begin working on something else.