THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 55
In this paper, I examine creative thought in
the context of drawing. The subject of creativ-
ity has been of longstanding interest to laypersons
and scholars across domains. However, despite an
upsurge in empirical research and theorizing about
the nature of creativity over the last few decades,
our understanding of the creative process remains
impoverished. Here, I briefly identify several rea-
sons for this impasse and attempt to redress some
limitations of current models of the creative pro-
cess. Building on several previous papers (Kozbelt,
2009a, 2009b), I here develop an analogy between
the emergence of a work of visual art and well-
established principles of embryological develop-
ment in biology. I argue that drawing and painting
represent an ideal domain for the development of
this theoretical perspective. In this paper, I outline
how the model can be developed and note its pros-
pects as a framework for understanding creativity.
Inadequacies of current models of creativity
and an embryological alternative
The creative process is complex; this is axiom-
atic. To make sense of this complexity, researchers
have adopted several strategies. One is to divide the
process of creation into several discrete stages or
regimes of creative thought (e.g., Getzels & Csik-
szentmihalyi, 1976; Mace & Ward, 2002; Martin-
dale, 1990; Wallas, 1926). In the most theoretically
sophisticated models (e.g., Simonton, 1984; Ward,
Smith, & Finke, 1999), one stage typically entails
generating ideas; the other, elaborating them into
finished creative products. Notably, each stage is
often treated as essentially a random variable, with
little inherent structure. An alternative strategy is
to emphasize component mechanisms (e.g., Mum-
ford, Mobley, Uhlman, Reiter-Palmon, & Doares,
1991; Neçka, 2003) that interact in a thoroughly
inter-connected manner. Both perspectives, stage
and componential models, thus deprive the cre-
ative process of any systematic structure and fail
to characterize the rich dynamics of the creative
process in any detail. This impasse is compounded
by the domain generality of virtually all models of
creativity. Such models thus fail to incorporate any
domain-specific particulars, which likely dominate
creators’ thinking as they work and which could
also provide some natural structure to the creative
process. Importantly, many existing models of the
creative process are also biased toward regarding
the generation of ideas as the essential engine of
creativity; the elaboration of ideas is underempha-
sized and undervalued. In other words, even the
best-developed current psychological models of the
creative process perpetuate the cliché of creativity as
a light bulb turning on.
I believe this point of view is misguided. Instead,
I propose a perspective rooted in an analogy
between art and embryological development. In
both cases, the process starts with raw material—
DNA in biology or basic ideas in art—that serves
as the basis of later development or elaboration. If
ideation is de-emphasized as the prime mover of
creativity, some plausible mechanism must be artic-
ulated that would allow for novelty, and thus poten-
tial creativity, to arise in lieu of original initial ideas.All in the Timing:
Using Embryological Principles to
Understand Creative Thinking in Art
Aaron Kozbelt
Brooklyn College and
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York