Monday, March 19, 2007

Read It 'n' Sketch It,


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I have mentioned quite often on my art blog that an artist friend got me started in drawing. One of the methods he used was a creativity exercise where he would write four words at random on my sketch pad. The object of this was that I would merge three of the words into a drawing, and the fourth word would represent an action of the drawing, or the setting. The words did not have to be drawn literally, but should at least be recognizable in part as that item.

Here's an example
The key words were
bull dozer, pear, chessboard, and the action key word was eat
This was my result

Another example
The key words were
Rabbit ears, VCR, Cheese whiz, calculator

Well, as you can see the pictures do end up very quirky, but they are fun to do. They do force you to think 'outside the box'.
I'm really not expecting works of art by any means (did you see the above pictures?), but I would like to share what I got from doing these exercises, and that is simply 'FUN', with a capitol eph, ewe, ehn. Pulling in from creative juices that you just didn't know was there before is almost euphoric, and gives you the drive and energy to try more. If it wasn't for my artist friend, and the laughs we had over many coffees while doing these exercises that he'd throw at me, I don't think I would have driven myself to keep practicing, and drawing.


Some of you know my See It 'n' Write It meme challenge I have going on at my Honk'n'Holl'r blog. I based See It 'n' Write It on these creativity exercises by throwing four pictures at you and you are to write a short-short story, or peom, or anystyle of writing based on those pictures.
I have a round of See It 'n' Write It up, so I figured that why don't I use the keywords I used in that round to start a Read It 'n' Sketch It
challenge meme thingy sort of, based on those early creativity exercises.
These are the keywords I used to generate the pictures for See It 'n' Write It

Megaphone, pills, chord, and the setting or action word was sunset

Your mission, if you choose to accept it,
is to not think hard, or long,
but rather, let your mind 'find' the keywords. Let your mind wander while only focusing on these things. Grab a pen, pencil, marker, crayon, and a piece of paper and let those wandering moments of clarity flow from your mind's eye to your paper.
Do not be critical of what you are drawing, just let it happen. These do not have to be literal representations of the items. They can be animated, distorted, even given arms and feet. Just let it happen.
You will be surprised where your mind will take you and what you will eventually draw, even if you don't think you have any art skills at all. I was one of those people that thought he could not draw at all, but with fun creativity exercises like this, I learned that if I just did it, it would happen.
If you do accept this mission, please scan and post the result. I will link to it, and with your permisson post the drawing on my art site.
I tag anybody, and anyone that wants to have a little fun doing something out of their ordinary routine. I'm going to play too.

And please, don't forget Mimi Lenox's Blogblast for peace. Get your peace globe here, and have it spinning for June 6th 2007

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