I was struggling a lot to find a topic for my free inquiry project. My initial goal was to work towards painting some of my houseplants in watercolour paint. I found that this was a pretty clear goal and something that I would find engaging. I started to have difficulties when I began trying to plan out a way to pace this goal and what specific milestones I should try to move through to get there. Because of this difficulty and the nature of art, I decided to focus my inquiry project on my artistic practices and the often tangential way they can be tied together. Painting my plants in watercolour will be integrated into my approaches, but it will be treated less as an ultimate end goal.

I’ve done art for a while, but am still relatively new to it and inexperienced with a lot of mediums. I decided not to make learning how to work with watercolour paint and learning how to apply those techniques to painting plants my ultimate end goal for several reasons. My first reason has to do with my attitude regarding art. I see art as a constantly ongoing process and one where there often aren’t sufficient metrics to judge progress in a short term frame of time. If I made painting a plant in watercolour my ultimate goal, I could theoretically just do that tomorrow morning. It wouldn’t be the last piece of art I ever made and it likely wouldn’t even be my last time trying to paint a plant in watercolour. Because I can try multiple times I considered adding some sort of addition to my goal. Maybe I could try to paint one of my plants in watercolour and make a final piece that meets specific standards. I found that this idea also started to fall apart as I tried to plan it. What types of qualities would I be looking for? How would I evaluate myself to judge whether or not I reached my goal. An important issue that kept coming up for me was “where would I stop?” I have never made a piece of art that has completely satisfied me. That isn’t to say that I didn’t find a ton of meaning and enjoyment in art. I just always came away from an art project with a few things stuck in my mind. Maybe they were things that I wanted to add but didn’t know how to add. Maybe they were things that I didn’t do as well as I would have liked or thought that I’d enjoy practising more. Ultimately I’ve never had an art project that’s functioned as an end point. This is in no way a detriment to artistic practice. In fact, I believe that this dynamic is one of the things that makes artistic practice so engaging and such a satisfying life-long hobby.

I’ll try to structure this inquiry project as a balance between guided and free inquiry. I’ll begin with the initial goal of making a watercolour painting of a plant, but I’ll try to allow myself to shift focus as the process occurs. If I complete my goal, I’ll use it as a chance to find out what elements I want to work further on and adjust my inquiry to that. Goals like this can be pretty tricky to manage in art. I will still need to deal with the uncertainty that can come with self-reflection and attempting to judge when I’m ready to attempt my watercolour painting. This uncertainty is a pretty large downside compared to alternative approaches I could take. The main alternative approach to this would be to paint a plant right away. I could simply try to do my best at it and use it as a chance to get used to the material, techniques, and process of doing so. Once I have completed the painting I can use that as a starting point and identify the core concepts that I want to spend more time with. This approach is something that I’d genuinely recommend to people interested in trying new things in art. Often times the best way to learn how to do something is to sit down and do it, regardless of what your past experience is. The problem with this approach is that it can be really uncomfortable and scary to try something totally new in this way. It also can be really demotivating. It’s very easy to slip into a strict dualistic mindset where a learner can view themselves as just untalented and fixed at that level of ability. Art can amplify these feelings because there’s usually an overwhelming amount of elements that a learner can few as lacking. Making progress in art can take a long time too. If learners don’t get the chance to experience that progress in the short term then they might not be able to hang onto a growth mindset.

To find some balance in my inquiry, I’ll start by pacing myself with the watercolour painting and look into techniques and resources for it first. These techniques should help me to get comfortable with watercolour. I’ll try to focus on two key art fundamentals, paint techniques and line work. To give myself a deadline for the watercolour plant painting, I’ll try to just work on a few set techniques before working on the painting. Once the painting is completed I’ll use it as a reference point for what art fundamentals and techniques I’d look to work on next. Once I’ve determined that I’ll find resources to help me approach it and ways of testing myself with it. A critical aspect of this inquiry for me is going to be balancing creative work and technical work. I often slide into habits of focusing too much on fundamentals and avoiding creative work. This may manifest in this inquiry project with how I’m treating creative projects as goals that are supported by art fundamental practices leading up to them. This is especially a relevant issue for me with how I approach these two forms of work. I find working on art fundamentals to be a much more relaxing and easier experience than creative projects. Creative projects can tend to feel high-pressure for me due to the self-judgment that can come with the frustration of not fully being able to express what I want to express. I’m still quite new to art so this will definitely be something that I’ll need to pay attention to.

During my first week of the inquiry project I’ll focus on using line work to produce texture and making greens to work with. I’ll find educational resources concerning both and decide on a technical and creative exercise to help me practice them.