Investigate: Inquiry and the Artistic Process

Inquiry 探究 is the intentional process of questioning that guides exploration and discovery over time — the engine of CED Big Idea 1.

Investigation is a loop: each drawing answers a little and asks a little more

• A workable inquiry is open, personal, and visual — answerable through drawing, not through a paragraph.
• "How can line weight express my grandmother's hands aging?" beats "I will draw hands."
• Strong questions generate the next drawing: each work answers a little and asks a little more.
• Test a question by listing ten works it could produce. Fewer than five means it is too narrow.
• Questions may evolve mid-investigation — document the turn in your journal and written evidence.
• The Sustained Investigation 持续探究 is scored on how clearly the works relate to and develop the stated inquiry.

Artists' experiences 经验 — surroundings, memory, culture, research — inform why, how, and what they draw. (CED 1.A)

• Ideas come from direct observation 观察, personal history, other school subjects, and other artists' work.
• Document experiences as they happen: photos, thumbnail sketches, notes, collected objects.
• Ordinary subjects carry authority: the kitchen table you know beats a fantasy castle you don't.
• Research feeds drawing — anatomy pages, historical costume, botanical structure all sharpen observation.
• Cultural sources (calligraphy, textiles, architecture) bring personal context into mark and composition choices.
• Keep a source wall or folder; when momentum dips, the collected material restarts it.

The CED names three working components: materials 材料 (physical substances), processes 过程 (actions), and ideas 想法 (concepts). Drawings happen where they meet.

• Every work is a decision triangle: what it is made of, how it is made, why it is made.
• Let one corner lead. An idea can demand a material (rust drawings about decay), or a material can spark an idea.
• Change one component at a time to see its effect — the fair-test habit works in the studio too.
• Name all three in your written evidence: scorers look for the connection explicitly.
• Charcoal on torn paper and fineliner on smooth film are different statements, not just different looks.
• This vocabulary comes straight from the CED glossary — use the exact words in your writing.

Drawings mean more when you know when, where, and why they were made. Context 语境 is an investigation tool. (CED 1.C)

• Study master drawings 大师素描 as working documents: Leonardo's studies, Dürer's engravings, Rembrandt's ink landscapes.
• Every tradition has a drawing language — Chinese ink line, Persian miniature, Renaissance chiaroscuro, manga screentone.
• Ask of any drawing: what was it for — a study, a record, a plan, or a finished statement?
• Historical technique is free training: copying a hatching system teaches decisions no video can.
• Place your own work in context: which artists share your question, and how is your answer different?
• Contextual notes in the journal strengthen written evidence and show intellectual depth.

Critique 评图 — of your own and others' work — is how an investigation steers. (CED 1.D/1.E)

• Use the four-step ladder: describe, analyse, interpret, judge. It keeps opinions grounded in what is visible.
• Speak the AP language: point to visual evidence 视觉证据 of skills, materials, processes, and ideas.
• Create distance for self-critique: turn the drawing upside down, view it in a mirror, or photograph it small.
• Ask one focused question per critique ("does the focal point read?") instead of "is it good?"
• Written reflections after critiques become drafts of your Sustained Investigation writing.
• Revision 修改 decisions born from critique are exactly the development the rubric wants to see.

Investigation must be visible. Documentation 记录 captures questions, tests, failures, and turns as they happen. (CED 1.B)

Six reliable sources feed a drawing practice — collect from all of them in one journal

• Document with anything quick: phone photos, taped-in tests, dated notes, thumbnail storyboards.
• Record the why at decision points — two lines today saves reconstructing your thinking in April.
• Photograph work-in-progress stages; a before/after revision pair is gold for the portfolio.
• Keep material tests (paper swatches, media trials) physically in the process journal 创作过程日志 with outcomes noted.
• Process images may be submitted among the 15 Sustained Investigation images — label them clearly.
• A true journal (not a decorated diary) is the difference between claiming inquiry and showing it.

• Write the inquiry as one clear sentence and pin it above your desk — every scoring row of the Sustained Investigation asks how the work relates to it.
• Scorers must SEE the investigation: tests, failed starts, and revision pairs are evidence; a folder of unrelated finished drawings is not.
• Date everything. "Over time" is a scored idea — dated journal pages prove development without a word of explanation.
• Use CED vocabulary in written evidence (materials, processes, ideas, experimentation, revision) — it connects your claims to the rubric instantly.
• Photograph journal spreads as you go, not in April: process documentation shot in a rush looks like what it is.