Date of Completion

5-31-2004

Document Type

Open Access Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

First Advisor

Nina Greenwald

Second Advisor

Peter Taylor

Abstract

Doodles to Drawings: The Creative Process of Drawing & Thinking for Cartooning invites the reader into the cartoonist’s mind at work. The author guides the audience through his cartooning process by presenting work from his sketchbook which includes illustrations, sketches, various notes, and final drawings. Diagrams graphically organize the key thinking strategies of the drawings as they progresses. From these illustrations the author extrapolates seven recurring patterns which characterize his own process include: Mental Work, Take-in Information, Free Flowing, Sudden, & Rapid Appearance of Ideas, Sketching as Many Ideas as Possible, Creating Multiple Versions, A Messy Process, and the Need to Think Critically. These seven characteristics are paralleled by writer Graham Wallas’s (1926) four stage model of creativity. The four stages, preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification, become the lens through which the authors creative process is described in terms of fluency, flexibility, elaboration, originality, and risk taking. The author also reflects on critical thinking dispositions such as Costa’s sixteen Habits of Mind. These habits of mind include Persisting, Managing Impulsivity, Understanding & Empathy, Thinking Flexibility, Metacognition, Striving for Accuracy & Precision, Questioning & Posing Problems, Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations, Thinking and Communicating with Clarity, Gathering Data through All Senses, Creating Imagining & Innovating, Respond with Wonderment & Awe, Taking Responsible Risks, Finding Humor, Thinking Interdependently, and Learning Continuously. Coupled with Betty Edwards’s view of drawing as a combination of seeing as an artist and visualizing the author constructs a model of cartooning as a combined process of critical and creative thinking and drawing.

Comments

Contact cct@umb.edu for access to full text

Download

Share

COinS