Visual Inquiry - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2013

The article addresses subjectivity in relation to assessment of drawing as fine art practice within higher education contexts. How can we measure the quality of a drawing in contemporary fine art? What standards can one take recourse to, or use, to define boundaries and definitions for excellence? The role of outsider art, and of art not produced or valorized within institutional norms, is an area of tension within academic contexts. Do we overly valorize rejection of norms and traditions, or to the contrary, do we create neo-conformism in the way we teach drawing within fine art? This article asks to reconsider aesthetics as a potential way of redressing the need to build overarching standards and measuring codes, independent from agents and institutions that have become interested parties and stake holders: the curatorial function of museum and gallery, market forces, Research Council and Arts Council. A more meaningful dialogue with different types of public needs to be sought, to redress criticism that contemporary arts practices are elitist and removed from the realities of everyday life.

This article introduces a creativity test, an authentic and flexible assessment instrument that invites participants to create a meaningful image out of a set of visual signs. The elements offered for completion, repetition, modification, inclusion and composition are not culturally biased and invite the use of a variety of drawing styles. This test has been successfully used by art educators to identify talented students for enrolment in special courses and also by teachers who want to know more about the creative potentials of students who are verbally less fluent and therefore are not successful at school. In this article, we discuss the general findings of the Test for Creative Thinking/Drawing Production (TCT/DP) that was administered between 2000 and 2010 to 1050 children and young people aged 7-18 years during the course of the national standardization of this instrument. We compare two generally known and often discussed models of visual skills development created by Victor Lowenfeld, Howard Gardner, Ellen Winner and Jessica Davis in relation to the test results obtained from a comparison of Hungarian and German children. We focus on important issues of art education: cognitive growth manifest in visual language use, the issue of the 'drawing gap' in adolescence and the use or uselessness of developmental stages in relation to artistic performance.

This article explores the drawing practice within the educational philosophies of Frederick Froebel. Froebel offers art education and studio practice a great deal of influential approaches, unique media inspirations and enduring philosophical contexts for drawing. Froebel introduced exercises in linear drawing with horizontal and vertical lines, outline drawing of contours, free-hand and nature drawing, circular drawing and drawing from memory. Froebel also suggested more exploratory drawing activities in the service of observing, connecting and evoking form. His approaches towards drawing as varied explorations of nature, contour and shape with unique art media can open up pedagogical possibilities for the rich understanding of form and playful, sensory experiences in contemporary art education.

Drawing is a highly subjective means of self-expression in which personal content is revealed. In art education and art therapy, reflection on drawings influences the motivations of students and clients. I have collected evaluative and non-evaluative forms of reflection from the fields of both art pedagogy and art therapy. Most kinds of formative and summative evaluations are reflections, but there are non-evaluative means of assessment, and therefore, I prefer the term 'reflection' over 'evaluation'. As an art teacher working on the border of two fields, I have found it best to respond to students' drawings mainly in non-evaluative ways, or by giving positive feedback, in order to get them involved in art activities. As a researcher with insight into both the educational and therapeutic realms, I have collected a variety of reflections and systematized them. My intention is to share my collection and to offer methodological alternatives for reflecting on the drawings of students/clients.

This report is a self-reflective analysis on my art education and its influences on the drawing skills of a graduate. It relates the influence of teaching on my present drawing practice, which is essentially driven by a mark-making process and not focused on the end result. I aim to show that shifting the focus of drawing practice towards process as a primary action may highlight possible teaching and learning problems in art education, as there is an ever-present emphasis on the end product that is needed in order to be assessed.

In the class 'A history of graphic design' I use drawing as a tool to help students retain what they learn in the lectures and readings. I show examples of how this visual component aids my lessons regarding 'Egyptian books of the dead', 'Industrial Revolution broadsides', 'Modern symbol systems' and a final capstone museum project. My method is applied to more than one cohort of students in different art specialties and design areas. I conclude the article with a summary of my experience using drawing as a tool for retention of historical material and share students' reactions to this method of teaching history.

In our modern world filled with exacting information and result-oriented activities, drawing is both a process and product that feeds the imagination, rescues the mind from literal explanation and builds a connection between emotion and rational thought. The drawn mark can transform into a plethora of optical possibilities, creating visual poetry and free association of ideas. This article is based on my own thoughts about the mark marking process and the wide-ranging, inventive and unexpected ways students' create complex, personally relevant contemporary drawing.

MANTEGNA TO MATISSE: MASTER DRAWINGS FROM THE COURTAULD GALLERY The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14 June to 9 September 2012 and The Frick Collection, New York, 2 October 2012 to 27 January 2013

HYPERDRAWING: BEYOND THE LINES OF CONTEMPORARY ART, TRACEY (2012) (EDITED BY PHIL SAWDON AND RUSSELL MARSHALL) London & New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. Paperback, ISBN: 978 1 78076 254 8