How to have better ideas

When you ask the wrong questions, or not enough questions, you get the wrong answer. 

Lowe’s was having a .99 paint sample sale, which to an artist, is pretty darn exciting. Sorry, the sale is over as I”m writing this to you. It was perfect timing as I’d recently decided that I want to paint our front porch in the style of Piet Mondrian ( you’re either thinking that I’m cool or crazy at this point) .

So I jumped in the car and bought why too many colors, Mondrian only uses white, black, red, blue, and yellow, but once I started, I just had to keep adding more paint to my cart. While the paint guy, we’ll call him Chris, was mixing my paint, he asked what project I was working on . I explained, knowing that it was unlikely that he would know who Mondrian is, he didn’t, but seemed interested in the project.

He recommended that I seal the porch with polyurethane, I said ok, asked what kind, and what aisle and went on my way.

I didn’t ask enough questions. And the sealer ended up turning the white sections, a little bit yellow, like they look dirty yellow. 

FRUSTRATING!

Now it is a porch, and it does get walked on, so we’re just going with it. But had I kept asking him why I should use the sealer, and made sure that he understood what I was doing, I probably would have ended with a better result.

So let’s learn from my mistake, and understand the process of asking questions, to get better ideas/solutions to your problems. 

The first step to having better ideas is asking more questions.

Here’s what I mean, so often you want to draw something, or you have to come up with a new idea for your upcoming robot competition, but you’re mind is blank, and the more you think about it, the more blank your mind becomes. Instead of just thinking I need to draw something, or I have to get this poster done by the end of the week, change it into a question. Here’s what I mean.

Change I want to draw something, into , What do I want to draw? Now you still need to go further, so the next step is asking why at least 5 times. 

1. Why do I want to draw something?
   1. because I want to go to art school and I need more work for my portfolio.
2. Why do I want to go to art school?
   1. because I want to be a video game designer.
3. Why do I want to be a video game designer?
   1. Because I LOVE, playing video games, and it would be so much fun to go work everyday.
4. Why do I love playing video games?
   1. Because there’s so much going on , the colors, the characters, and movement and the challenge.
5. How can I create a drawing of my own video game character?

See what happened, we went from a general question about drawing, and ended with a very specific question. After you have a specific question, ( unless you have an idea right away), go and do something else, take a walk, read a book, clean your room 😉 , and see what happens.

 

 

Make it easy with a worksheet. Below you can get a PDF, that will be easy for you and your students to fill in the blanks as they go through the process.