Notes · Art and DesignUK · A-Levels

Generating and exploring lines of enquiry

Every project begins with turning a starting point into a personal line of enquiry and generating possibilities to pursue. This topic teaches how to move from a theme or brief to a genuine personal investigation, how to think divergently to generate many possibilities before converging on the strongest, and how to explore those possibilities practically through media - the opening, idea-generating phase of the creative process that feeds Assessment Objectives 1 and 2.

5 sections~21 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 4

T·0999 / 18

Exam profile

AO1 · Develop ideas through investigations informed by sources, generating and exploring lines of enquiryAO2 · Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processesAO3 · Record the exploration as it happens

Operators:generateexplorebrainstorminvestigateselectdevelop

basic level

AS-Level expects the ability to develop a starting point into ideas and explore them in appropriate media.

higher level

The full A-Level requires generating and exploring genuine, personal lines of enquiry with breadth and independence, selecting the strongest to develop.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Generating and exploring lines of enquiry

From starting point to a personal enquiry#

FoundationAQA 7201-7206 (generating ideas, AO1)DfE GCE Art and Design subject content

From starting point to line of enquiry

Fig. 1The opening move: interrogate the starting point, mind-map possibilities, and personalise it into a rich, individual line of enquiry.

Every project starts from a starting point - a theme, a word, a brief, an object, a place, an experience or a question - and the first creative act is to turn that starting point into a personal line of enquiry: a specific, individual direction of investigation that is genuinely yours. A starting point is open and shared (everyone in the class might begin from the theme 'growth' or from an externally set title); a line of enquiry is the particular, personal path you carve through it. The quality of a whole project often depends on finding a rich, personal line of enquiry at the outset, so this opening move deserves real thought.

The move from starting point to enquiry is one of interpretation and personalisation. Faced with a broad theme, you interrogate it - what does it mean to you, what personal connections, memories, interests or concerns does it touch, what aspects intrigue you, what could you investigate that others might not? A theme like 'fragments' could become an enquiry into memory and loss, into urban decay, into the broken forms of nature, into digital glitch, or into collage as a process - each a personal reading. Making the theme your own, rather than taking the most obvious reading, is what gives a project individuality and drive.

Mind-mapping (spider diagrams) is the standard tool for this opening phase, and it is worth doing generously. From the central starting point you branch out associations, ideas, related themes, possible subjects, relevant artists, and questions, letting one thought lead to another without censoring. The aim at this stage is fertility - to open up the theme in many directions and surface possibilities you would not have reached by leaping straight to a single idea. A rich mind-map is a map of the territory from which you can then choose your route.

A good line of enquiry has certain qualities. It is personal (it connects to you, so you can sustain genuine engagement with it over months); it is rich enough to sustain extended investigation (it has depth and many facets to explore, not a single note); it is open enough to develop in unforeseen directions (not so tightly defined that it dead-ends); and it can be pursued through primary sources you can actually access (so the work can be first-hand). Testing a possible enquiry against these criteria helps you choose one that will carry a whole project.

This opening phase serves Assessment Objective 1 - developing ideas through investigation - and it sets the trajectory for everything that follows. A strong, personal, fertile line of enquiry gives the project purpose and direction; a weak, generic or over-narrow one starves it from the start. So invest in generating and choosing your enquiry: interrogate the starting point, mind-map generously, personalise it, and choose a direction with the depth, openness and accessibility to sustain a sustained, personal investigation.

Worked example

Personalising a theme

The externally set starting point is 'boundaries'. Show how to develop it into a personal line of enquiry.

Interrogate the word
Mind-map 'boundaries': physical borders and walls, personal space, social divisions, the edge of land and sea, the frame of a picture, skin, thresholds, the limits of the self.
Find personal connections
The student connects most strongly to the idea of thresholds and edges in their own coastal town - where land meets sea, and where the town's faded boundaries between prosperity and decline lie.
Shape the enquiry
This becomes a personal line of enquiry: exploring physical and social 'edges' in their own environment through first-hand recording of the shoreline and the town's margins.
Test it
Check it is personal (their own place), rich (physical and social facets), open (many directions), and accessible (first-hand primary sources on their doorstep) - it passes.

Result: The generic theme 'boundaries' becomes a personal, rich, accessible line of enquiry into the edges of the student's own environment - the individual reading that gives a project drive and originality.

Typical mistakes

Taking the most obvious, generic reading of a theme instead of finding a personal, individual line of enquiry.
Choosing an enquiry too narrow to sustain a project, or too vague to give it direction.

Active revision

Take a one-word theme and mind-map it generously; then identify three possible personal lines of enquiry within it and evaluate each against the criteria of personal, rich, open and accessible.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for art and design (Department for Education)

Generating possibilities: divergent thinking#

StandardAQA 7201-7206 (generating ideas)DfE GCE Art and Design subject content

Branching lines of enquiry

Fig. 2Divergent thinking branches a single enquiry into many possibilities across several dimensions before any are selected.

Creative idea-generation depends on divergent thinking - the deliberate production of many and varied possibilities before you commit to any one. It is the opposite of convergent thinking (narrowing to a single answer), and creativity needs both, in sequence: first open up widely, then narrow down. The common student error is to converge too soon, seizing the first idea and running with it, which starves the project of the richer possibilities that only emerge when you keep generating. Learning to hold off on choosing, and to generate abundantly first, is one of the most valuable creative habits.

The principle behind divergent thinking is that quantity breeds quality: the more possibilities you generate, the more likely you are to reach genuinely original and fertile ones, because the obvious ideas come first and the interesting ones come after you have pushed past them. So the aim in this phase is deliberately to produce a lot - many readings of the theme, many possible subjects, many approaches, many what-ifs - without judging or filtering yet. Suspending judgement is essential, because premature criticism kills the tentative, half-formed ideas that often turn out to be the best.

Several techniques support divergent generation. Mind-mapping branches associations outward. Word association and using the theme as a springboard generate unexpected connections. Asking 'what if?' questions pushes ideas further ('what if I worked only at night? only in one colour? at giant scale? destroying as I make?'). Combining unrelated ideas sparks novelty. Deliberately reversing or exaggerating an idea opens new angles. And gathering a wide range of source material and stimuli feeds the process. The point of all of them is the same: to multiply and diversify the possibilities on the table.

Divergent thinking should branch in multiple dimensions, not just multiply subjects. From a single line of enquiry you can diverge in what you investigate (which aspects of the theme), how you approach it (which media, processes, styles), whose work you draw on (which artists and influences), and what you want to say (which meanings and moods). A rich exploration opens up all these dimensions, so that when you converge you are choosing not just a subject but a whole personal approach. Mapping these branches - as a tree of possibilities growing from the enquiry - makes the range visible and the choices deliberate.

This generative phase directly serves the assessment, because breadth of exploration is exactly what Assessment Objectives 1 and 2 reward at the top bands - the development of ideas through wide-ranging investigation, and the exploration of a range of possibilities before selection. A project that shows only one idea, pursued from the start, evidences little exploration; one that shows many possibilities generated and genuinely considered evidences the divergent creativity the specification prizes. So generate abundantly, record the possibilities, and only then begin to narrow - which is the subject of selecting the strongest direction.

Worked example

Diverging before converging

A student's enquiry is 'the edges of my coastal town'. Show divergent generation before any choice.

Diverge on subject
Generate many subjects: the tideline, the promenade railings, boarded-up shops, the harbour wall, rock pools, the pier, weathered signage, gulls, groynes - without choosing yet.
Diverge on approach
Generate approaches: observational drawing, photography, printmaking of textures, collage of found beach material, mixed-media decay, painting at large scale.
Diverge on influence and meaning
List artists who address place and decay, and possible meanings: nostalgia, resilience, transience, social change - keeping several live.
Hold off converging
Resist choosing yet; the abundance of possibilities generated now will make the eventual selection richer and more personal than seizing the first idea would.

Result: By generating abundant possibilities across subject, approach, influence and meaning before choosing, the student builds the wide exploration the top bands reward and sets up a richer, more considered selection.

Typical mistakes

Converging too soon - seizing the first idea - so the project never explores its richer possibilities.
Judging and filtering ideas while still generating them, killing tentative ideas that could be the best.

Active revision

Set a timer and generate at least twenty different possibilities for your line of enquiry without judging any of them; then map them as branches and mark the three most fertile.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for art and design (Department for Education)

Exploring through media experiments#

StandardAQA 7201-7206 (exploring media, AO2)DfE GCE Art and Design subject content

Exploring one enquiry through media

Fig. 3A line of enquiry is tested materially through several media experiments; the making itself generates possibilities and gathers evidence for the coming choice.

Lines of enquiry are explored not only in the head and on the mind-map but in the hand and the material - through practical experimentation with media, techniques and processes. This is where generating ideas (AO1) meets exploring media (AO2): you test your possibilities by actually making, trying different media and approaches to see which best serve the enquiry and which open unexpected directions. Ideas that seem promising on paper may not work in practice, and materials often suggest possibilities that thinking alone would never reach, so practical exploration is indispensable to a rich investigation.

The method is to take your possibilities and test them materially: try the subject in several media, try several processes, try different scales and approaches, and see what each produces. A theme of decay might be explored through layered and sanded-back paint, through rust and bleach effects, through collaged decayed materials, through print textures, through photography of real weathered surfaces - each a practical experiment testing a way into the enquiry. This is the same purposeful experimentation met in the materials topic, now applied to opening up a line of enquiry rather than refining a known outcome.

Practical exploration is genuinely generative, not merely illustrative, because materials have their own suggestions. When you work with a medium you discover effects, accidents and possibilities you did not plan - a bleed, a texture, a chance mark - and these discoveries can redirect the enquiry in fertile new ways. Staying alert to what the materials offer, and following the interesting accidents rather than only executing preconceived ideas, is part of how experienced artists let a project grow. The dialogue between intention and material is where much creativity actually happens.

This phase should stay exploratory and open, keeping several possibilities alive rather than settling too early. The aim is to find out - to test which media, subjects and approaches are most fertile and most personal - so the experiments should be varied and the judgements provisional. Recording what each experiment produces, and how it relates to the enquiry, turns the exploration into evidence and thinking rather than a set of unconnected samples. As always, the experiments should be purposeful (testing something about the enquiry), not decorative.

Practical exploration also begins to reveal which direction the project should take, feeding the convergent selection that follows. As you experiment, some approaches will prove more fertile, more personal and more promising than others - richer in possibility, better suited to your intentions, more genuinely yours. The exploration thus does double duty: it opens the enquiry up through varied making, and it gathers the evidence on which you will base your choice of the strongest direction to develop. Exploring widely and materially before committing is the mark of a project with room to grow.

Worked example

Letting materials open the enquiry

A student exploring 'decay' works with bleach on ink and discovers an unexpected effect. How should they respond?

Notice the discovery
Applying bleach to a dark ink drawing eats away the ink in pale, corroded blooms - an effect the student did not plan but that vividly suggests decay and erosion.
Follow it, do not discard it
Rather than returning to the preconceived plan, the student pursues the bleach effect, testing it on different inks, papers and images to learn its range.
Connect it to the enquiry
They recognise that the process itself enacts the theme - decay made by literally corroding the image - so the accident has enriched the enquiry with a process-as-meaning idea.
Record and carry forward
They annotate the discovery and its relevance, keeping it as a fertile direction to develop, so a chance material event redirects the project productively.

Result: By staying alert to what the material offered and following the fertile accident, the student's practical exploration generated a new, personal, process-based direction - showing how material exploration genuinely opens up an enquiry.

Typical mistakes

Exploring ideas only in writing and mind-maps without testing them practically in media.
Settling on one medium or approach too early, before exploring which is most fertile for the enquiry.

Active revision

Take your line of enquiry and explore it through four different media or processes on a set of experiment sheets; annotate which felt most fertile and personal, and why.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for art and design (Department for Education)

Selecting the strongest direction#

StandardAQA 7201-7206 (selecting and developing)DfE GCE Art and Design subject content

Diverge, then converge

Fig. 4The creative rhythm: diverge to generate many possibilities, then converge through evaluation onto the strongest direction to develop in depth.

After generating and exploring widely, you must converge - select the strongest direction to develop - because a project cannot pursue every possibility, and depth eventually matters more than breadth. Convergent thinking is the disciplined narrowing that follows divergent generation: evaluating the possibilities you have opened up and choosing those most worth developing. The creative process is often pictured as a repeated expansion and contraction - diverge to generate, converge to select, then diverge again within the chosen direction, and so on - and knowing when to open up and when to narrow down is a key creative judgement.

Selection should be based on genuine criteria, not whim. Ask which possibilities are most personal (most genuinely yours, most engaging to you), most fertile (richest in further potential, offering the most to develop), most feasible (pursuable through accessible primary sources and manageable media), and most aligned with your intentions and the meaning you want to make. The evidence gathered in the exploratory phase - which experiments were most successful, which directions felt most alive - directly informs this judgement. Choosing well is choosing the direction with the most depth and personal charge, not merely the easiest or the prettiest experiment.

Converging does not mean discarding everything else, and it need not be a single narrow choice. You may carry forward a combination of the strongest elements - a subject from here, a process from there, a meaning discovered along the way - synthesising your best possibilities into a developed direction. And the possibilities not chosen are not wasted: they remain in the sketchbook as evidence of exploration, and some may return later if the chosen direction stalls. The point is to commit enough to go deep, while keeping the flexibility that a creative process needs.

A well-made selection gives the project focus and momentum for the developmental phase that follows. Once you have chosen a strong, personal, fertile direction, you can pour your energy into developing it in depth - refining the subject, the media and the ideas - rather than continuing to spread thinly across many possibilities. This is the transition from the opening, generative phase of this topic to the developmental, refining phase of the next: exploration has opened the ground and gathered the evidence; selection commits to the most promising path; development then takes it deep.

Record and justify the selection, because the reasoning is itself assessable evidence. Annotation explaining why you chose this direction - what made it the strongest, how the exploration led you to it, how it serves your intentions - demonstrates the critical, reflective decision-making the assessment rewards, and shows that your development grows from genuine exploration rather than an arbitrary jump. Making the diverge-then-converge journey visible, and reasoning your choice, turns the generative phase into clear evidence of Assessment Objectives 1 and 2 and sets a strong foundation for everything that follows.

Worked example

Making a reasoned selection

After wide exploration of 'decay', a student must choose a direction to develop. Show a reasoned convergence.

Review the evidence
Look back over the experiments: the bleach-on-ink corrosion, the layered-and-sanded paint, the collaged decayed papers, the weathered-surface photographs - noting which were most successful and alive.
Apply the criteria
Judge each for personal charge, fertility, feasibility and fit: the bleach corrosion and layered decay are the most personal, richest in potential and doable from local primary sources.
Select and synthesise
Choose to develop the corroded-surface direction, combining the bleach process with layered painting, informed by the student's photographs of a specific derelict local site.
Justify it
Annotate why: this direction best enacts the theme through its very process, is most personal to the student's place, and has the most room to develop - a reasoned convergence.

Result: The student converges on a strong, personal, fertile direction using explicit criteria and the evidence of exploration, and justifies the choice - the disciplined selection that gives a project focus while evidencing AO1 and AO2 decision-making.

Typical mistakes

Never converging - spreading thinly across many possibilities and never developing any in depth.
Converging arbitrarily, without criteria or reference to the evidence gathered in exploration.

Active revision

Review your exploration and select the strongest direction to develop, writing a short justification against the criteria of personal, fertile, feasible and aligned to your intentions.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Art and Design (7201-7206) specification (AQA)

Recording the exploration#

StandardAQA 7201-7206 (recording exploration, AO3)DfE GCE Art and Design subject content

The generative and exploratory phase must be recorded as it happens, because the assessment rewards the evidence of exploration, not just the outcome it leads to. The mind-maps, the generated possibilities, the media experiments, the discoveries and even the dead ends should all be captured in the sketchbook, so that the breadth and openness of your investigation is visible. A project whose sketchbook shows a rich, well-recorded exploration reads very differently from one that presents only a chosen direction with no evidence of how it was reached.

Recording the exploration means capturing both the range and the thinking. Show the many possibilities you generated (so the breadth is evident), the experiments you made (so the practical exploration is evident), and - through annotation - your reasoning about them: what you were testing, what you found, which directions felt fertile and why. This turns a set of pages into a documented enquiry, evidencing the divergent generation (AO1), the media exploration (AO2), and the recording itself (AO3) all at once. The exploration phase is unusually rich in assessment evidence when it is properly recorded.

Crucially, record the dead ends and the things that did not work, not just the successes. It is tempting to hide the experiments that failed and present only a tidy path to the chosen direction, but the failures are genuine evidence of exploration and of reflective judgement - they show you generated widely and evaluated honestly. An exploration that shows only successes looks suspiciously narrow, as if the direction were chosen from the start; one that shows the full range, including what was tried and rejected, evidences the real breadth of investigation the top bands reward.

The recording should also make the journey legible - showing how the exploration led to the selection. Sequence and annotate the work so a viewer can follow the movement from starting point, through mind-mapping and generation, through material experiment, to the reasoned choice of direction. This visible thread demonstrates that your development grows from genuine exploration and reasoned decision-making, rather than an unexplained jump to an outcome, and it is one of the clearest signs of a well-managed, thoughtfully developed project.

In short, treat the exploratory phase as prime evidence and record it richly and honestly. Capture the breadth of possibilities generated, the range of media explored, the discoveries and the dead ends, and the reasoning that led to your selection, all sequenced so the enquiry reads clearly. Combined with the generative and exploratory habits of this topic, well-kept records of the exploration give a project a strong, well-evidenced foundation and demonstrate the opening movement of the creative process that the next topics carry forward into development and resolution.

Worked example

Evidencing breadth honestly

A student wants their exploration section to evidence wide investigation. What should it show, including failures?

Show the generation
Include the mind-maps and the list of many possibilities generated, so the divergent breadth of ideas is visible.
Show the experiments
Include the varied media experiments testing those possibilities, annotated with what each was testing and what it revealed.
Show the dead ends honestly
Include the approaches that did not work - the medium that fought the theme, the subject that proved thin - noting why they were rejected, as genuine evidence of evaluation.
Show the path to selection
Sequence it so the reader sees how the exploration led to the reasoned choice of direction, with annotation making the journey legible.

Result: By recording the generation, the experiments, the honest dead ends and the reasoned path to selection, the student evidences genuine breadth of exploration and reflective judgement - far stronger than a tidy path that hides the process.

Typical mistakes

Hiding the dead ends and presenting only a tidy path, which makes the exploration look narrow.
Recording experiments without annotation, so the thinking behind the exploration is invisible.

Active revision

Lay out your exploration as a sequenced sketchbook section that a stranger could follow - from starting point through generation and experiment to your reasoned selection - including at least one honest dead end.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for art and design (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for art and design

AQA

AQA AS and A-level Art and Design (7201-7206) specification

Generating and exploring lines of enquiry

5 sections~21 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 4

Generating and exploring lines of enquiry

Key points

Personalising a theme

Key points

Diverging before converging

Key points

Letting materials open the enquiry

Key points

Making a reasoned selection

Key points

Evidencing breadth honestly

Sources

Generating and exploring lines of enquiry

Key points

Personalising a theme

Key points

Diverging before converging

Key points

Letting materials open the enquiry

Key points

Making a reasoned selection

Key points

Evidencing breadth honestly

Sources