Exploring Decision Making Through Painting (or the other way round?)

This week I did a little experiment.

I did a painting workshop with beginners and connected painting to decision making theories. I compared a blank canvas to other challenges in life and asked them how they would approach it. I made available oil painting materials and the beautiful venue at Hatfield House and let participants tackle painting like a difficult problem.

The idea behind my workshop was to relate painting to everyday decision making in order to throw beginner painters into the painting process and let their own minds explore how to get to the final outcome they want to achieve. What I realised is that as much as painting can teach us about decision making, equally decision making theories can teach us a lot about painting too.