Why deadlines in Art Matter and How to Plan

I’ve been teaching AP art courses online for 6 years and a common question that students ask, is how to break a project down into small parts so that they can make sure to complete it on time. I’ve learned that being about to create a plan and a schedule is an important life skill, it works well for art projects, and it works well for getting things  done in general.

While there are many ways to break down a project and create a plan, I wanted to share what I’ve found works best for me and for students.

And while we’re talking about hitting deadlines, I wanted to address another common misconception, and that is that creativity can’t have deadlines.

It’s a myth that most artists don’t follow a schedule or rules and just do whatever they want. Many follow extremely strict schedules and routines to keep them on track and get the most out of their creativity.

Creativity thrives on constraints, in fact, it’s hard to be creative without them. Constraints force the brain to start asking different questions and making new connections to produce creative results. Time aka deadlines is simply a constraint, and it can be a very important one, to help us to be productive.

Challenge yourself as you make art this week, to come up with 3 constraints to explore, here are some to get you started.

• Think about the size of what you’re creating, do the opposite of what you usually do. For example , if you usually work really large, make something tiny.
• Limit the amount of colors that you can use
• Limit the materials that you can use
• create half the piece using your non-dominant hand