EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF THE ARTS, Vol. 29(1) 17-38, 2011 A DYNAMIC AND ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE ARTISTIC CREATIVE PROCESS OF ARTS STUDENTS: AN EMPIRICAL CONTRIBUTION MARION BOTELLA FRANCK ZENASNI TODD LUBART Université Paris-Descartes, France ABSTRACT The creative process in artistic work is examined. The creative process has often been considered in terms of a sequence of stages that leads to a creative product. A dynamic approach to the artistic creative process, including an affective component is proposed. Two studies with art students were conducted. Results support our hypothesis that the creative artistic process is not exclusively sequential and linear. Moreover, students’ affects tended to vary at each phase of the creative process. Creativity has often been examined in terms of four components (MacKinnon, 1978; Rhodes, 1961/1987): the person, the product, the environment or press, and the process. Empirical studies have focused on the personality of artists (Feist, 1998), the creative product (Amabile, 1979) or the environment facili- tating or inhibiting creative performances (Niu & Sternberg, 2001). However, the artistic creative process has rarely been examined empirically. In the first part of this article, we review models of the creative process presented in the literature. We propose that the creative artistic process is complex and not sequential or linear. Then in a second part, we present two studies 17 Ó 2011, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: 10.2190/EM.29.1.b http://baywood.com