What is the Difference between the Scientific Method and the Creative Process?

Posted in blog, Homeschool students, how to be more creative

Taking an art class is about gaining an understanding of how to use the elements and principles of design to communicate. It’s also about learning new techniques, how to use different mediums, and how to decide what medium and technique to use.

When most people think of art class, they think of the latter, ie: learning how to put paint on a paper so that it represents a flower, this is important, and it’s only one part of learning to create art. It’s the foundation. Once students have an understanding of how to use materials and represent what they see or imagine, the next step is to use art as a method for communication and problem solving.

It’s likely that you’ve heard of the scientific method.

  1. Question: What are you trying to figure out?
  2. Research: What information do you need so that you can begin to answer your question?
  3. Hypothesis: Develop a hypothesis based on your research, what do you think is going to happen?
  4. Experiment: Test your hypothesis and see if what you think IS going to happen ACTUALLY happens.
  5. Observation: Observe what happens while you experiment.
  6. Conclusion: Based on your experiments + observation what is your conclusion? Do you want an answer to the question that you started with? Is the answer what you thought it was going to be (hypothesis)?
  7. If needed, ask additional question and work through the process again.

What you might not have heard of is the Creative thinking Process.

  1. Preparation : Ask a question and/or determine what problem you’re trying to solve. During this time you might also look for inspiration aka do some research.
  2.  Incubation: Go and do something else, while you allow your brain time to make connections between the question that you asked and the information that you already know.
  3. Illumination: AHAH moment, when you suddenly think that you have a solution
  4. Verification: Test your Ahah moment.

Note that the two processes aren’t drastically different. How scientist work and how artists work is not very different. They may use different tools and have different goals, however, how they think and work through problems is  similar. Learning to think like an artist can and will help you to a better artist, is also can and will help you to be a better problem solver in all areas of your life.