THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE

THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 85

michelle Fava

directness in the resulting marks made (as we saw
in AR’s drawing process), which can be stifled by
continuous self-judgement. I feel that a widespread
overemphasis on assessment in UK schools and
colleges engenders this type of anxiety. Of course,
some assessment is necessary, and formative feed-
back can inform learning, but it is possible that a
continual sense that all one’s work will be assessed
and judged (against often ambiguous criteria) might
be unhelpful, perhaps giving rise to an excessively
self-judgmental attitude that is detrimental to spon-
t an e it y.
Assessment may be extrinsically motivating in
the short term, but it is important to also think of
the bigger picture. For a young person to have spent
the majority of their lives in institutions that give
quantitative feedback on every piece of work, must
have a substantial effect on the way they relate to
themselves and the world. McLuhan’s (1964/2001)
dictum that “the medium is the message” seems
particularly apt in this scenario. What kind of atti-
tudes are we conditioning young people to leave
school with, as a result of our teaching methods?
And how many of these are unintended?
While addressing this issue would be a very
complex task, both in terms of addressing the
research questions implied, and the possible rami-
fications, it is nevertheless possible to consider how
we might develop teaching resources which account
for the skills of spontaneity and postponement of
judgement. I would like to invite responses to this
proposition.

Footnotes

1 Please contact the author for an account of the
procedure.

2 There are a number of issues with the use of ver-
bal reports as data in studies of drawing, such as
the possibility of post-rationalisation, the incom-
pleteness of the reports, and the effect of the ver-
balisation on the drawing itself. The study pro-
poses also to explore the extent to which these
methods can be useful, although these matters lie
outside the scope of this paper.

3 Contact the author for details of definition of

codes and rules for parsing.

4 Different shades in the drawing categories rep-

resent different types of drawing behaviour not

discussed here.

References

Anderson, J. R. (1982). ‘Acquisition of cognitive

skill’. Psychological Review, vol. 89, pp. 369 –406.

Archer, L. B. (1997). ‘Drawing as a Tool for Design-

ers’, (Conference paper), in T. Moscovitch (ed),

‘The Future of Drawing in Design’ UK: University

of Huddersfield, pp.39-42.

Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory:

a practical guide through qualitative analysis.

London: Sage.

Cleeremans, A. (1997). ‘Principles for Implicit

Learning’. In D. Berry (Ed.), ‘How implicit is

implicit learning?’ pp. 196-234, Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Ericsson, K. A. & Simon, H. A. (1993). Protocol

Analysis: verbal reports as data, revised edition.

London: MIT Press.

Fava, M. (2011). ‘What is the role of observational

drawing in contemporary art & design curricula’,

in Graphicacy & Modelling Norman, E. & Seery,

N. (Eds.). Loughborough: IDATER.

Fitts, P.M. (1964). ‘Perceptual-motor skill learning’,

in A.W. Melton, (ed.) ‘Categories of human learn-

ing’. New York: Academic Press.

Kozbelt, A. (2001). ‘Artists as experts in visual cogni-

t i o n ’, Visual Cognition, vol. 8: 6, pp 705 –723.

Kozbelt, A., Seidel, A. ElBassiouny, A., Mark, Y. &

Owen, D. R. (2010). ‘Visual Selection Contrib-

utes to Artists’ Advantages in Realistic Drawing’.

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts,

vol. 4 (2), pp. 93-102.

Kahneman D. (2003). ‘A perspective on judgement

and choice’. American Psychologist. Vol. 58, pp.

697-720.

McLuhan, M. (2001). Understanding Media: The Ex-

tensions of Man. London: Routledge.

Sweller, J. (1994). ‘Cognitive Load Theory, learning

difficulty, and instructional design’. Learning and

Instruction. vol. 4 (4), pp. 295–312.