[-warm-up, drawing-]

Here’s a creative warm-up exercise that uses categories.

Choose a category each day to draw in your journal. Divide your paper into 8 - 12 small sections. Decide on the length of time you want to devote to this. My suggestion is to start with no more than ten minutes. Quicker sketches will loosen you up. Later on, you may want to devote more time to the sketches.

Draw a version of your chosen category in each of the sections.

The idea is to warm-up your creative brain by doing quick, non-threatening, simple drawings. Doing a lot of drawings of one thing helps you explore your visual knowledge of that category. You will find that you’re going to learn a lot about yourself, your visual memory, your ability to express a simple thing quickly and you’ll find yourself being more observant of that category once you’ve done the exercise.

Here’s my “Fruit” category page:
As you see, this isn’t great art. They are quick simple, even iconic sketches. And yet, I found out a lot from doing them.

I found out quickly that to distinguish between a drawing of an apple, a peach, a plum and even a lemon is tricky, but can be done. I found out that though I have removed plenty of them, I couldn’t, when I started, remember what the stem of a pineapple looks like. I found out that in order to make a peach look like a peach, you have to turn your pencil on its side to get a softer edge. I remembered that the skin of a lemon is pitted and that’s a bit of a different pencil mark that the tiny seeds of a strawberry. I found out that in order to sketch a bunch of grapes, it’s easier (and more fun) to sketch the dark, negative spaces that just draw the overlapping grapes. I found that sometimes a fruit is best depicted by the drippy, wetness that ends up on the surface below it. I found out that it was hard for me to come up with twelve fruits and that I didn’t seem to have a clue what shape a fig is.

Try it. It’s fun and you’ll be amazed how much it will stretch you.

Here’s a list to get you going:

I threw in the last three to remind you that these don’t have to be solid objects. But stick with the simpler ones at first. See what happens. After doing these for a while, revisit a category so you can see how the first sketches compare with ones you do after sensitizing yourself to this process and to thinking visually.

And, let us know what you learned by doing this exercise!

[-exercise, un-blocker-]

by Nancy Waldman

Do you feel creative but still have difficulty creating?
Is something holding you back but you’re not quite sure what or why?
Are you feeling blocked?
Do you feel that your output is a trickle instead of a flood?

Here is a exercise designed to explore these kinds of problems in a new way.

In Marks Have Meaning, I made the point that small, quick, abstract marks can and do communicate emotions and concepts. This same concept can be used as an effective tool for problem solving.

The idea for and way of using marks as problem solving devices came to me from Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Artist Within, which I highly recommend.

Get several pieces of paper and a pencil with an eraser.

Sit down for a moment and think about your life. Choose an issue that is a challenge or an on-going problem, something that you don’t really have a handle on. It does not have to be a creative problem but if one of those questions at the top of this article is bothering you, it might be a good place to start.

Once you’ve decided on a problem, don’t think about it. Begin to draw.

Ms. Edwards suggest that you first draw a boundary on your paper. She calls this a format for the problem. It does not have to be a rectangle or square. Make it any size or shape that seems right.

Then begin to draw the problem. This drawing should take focus as a photograph developing before your eyes. Be in the mind of the issue you’ve chosen but don’t control this drawing with words. Let it come. The main thing to remember is that it should not include any representational or symbolic icons or figures. No hearts, or words, or lightning bolts or pictures of any kind. Just lines and abstract imagery.

Draw for as long as it takes. Remember, you are letting another part of your brain work for you. You are letting the r-mind communicate in the way it can. Enjoy the feeling of being wordless.

If one drawing doesn’t seem enough, do another. Don’t forget to ‘format’ it first, even if you choose to let the edges of the page be the boundary line.

Once the drawing or drawings are done, take a moment to assess how you feel. Are you refreshed? Frustrated? Feeling lighter? Or do you feel silly? Whatever it is, jot the word(s) on the back of the drawing.

Then think about what the drawing is telling you about your problem. Now is the time to try and put it into words. Say out loud what you see, how it makes you feel, what you observe about what you’ve drawn. It’s a similar process to recounting a dream. Often in retelling a dream, there is a process of identifying, of focussing. We might say, “There was a cat in the corner and that cat was—spooky…no, not really spooky, that’s too strong a word. More eerie. That cat gave me an eerie feeling that was like…well, surprisingly it reminds me of Great-grannie Gertrude!” And so on.

Turn your drawing over and on the back write the words that your r-mind has communicated to you. Ms. Edwards suggests that you “memorize” the drawing and the words. The idea is to hold both in your mind at once. Don’t let the words take over because the drawing may have more information in it than you can see right away. Before leaving this exercise, close your eyes and try to picture the drawing you did. Is it memorized? Then think about the words and hold them both in your mind at one time. It isn’t that hard, since you created both. They came from you and therefore are not foreign. The process has simply put them into your awareness in a new way.

Here’s a drawing I did years ago. I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t sustain creative efforts to completion.

In the same way that my dream would have significance to me, but would not to you, this drawing will mean nothing to you. Even if I point out the barriers and the difference between one side of the drawing and the other, it’s not your mind, your problem or your experience and therefore, not significant. However, what you should know is that I gained multiple insights from this and similar drawings. Doing these drawings over the years helped me deal with situations in my life with a broader understanding and awareness of them. In the same way, if you go through the process with openness, your drawings will have deeper significance because they came out of you.

Give it a try and see what happens in your life. For those of you who try it, share your experience with our readers by making a comment below.

[-r-mindfulness, exercise-]

by Nancy Waldman

Before beginning your creative work for the day, try this as a warm-up. It is an excellent way to access your R-mind and to lift your awareness from everyday mode into a heightened realm.

This warm-up is a drawing exercise but it’s not just for visual artists. It will help no matter what kind of creative endeavor follows.

Pick an object to draw. It can be anything, simple or complicated but, especially if you are new to this, choose a small object that can be brought to your drawing table so that you can focus on it easily.

Try to set aside ten to twenty minutes of uninterrupted time. Set a timer if you have one. Because you know there’s a set limit, this will help you to ‘forget’ the passage of time as you work. This will enhance the experience.

Using paper and pencil (it doesn’t have to be a pencil, but I enjoy the resistance that graphite on paper gives) you are going to draw the object. But this is no ordinary drawing. A contour drawing is one where your eyes never leave the object you are drawing and your pencil never leaves the paper once you’ve begun.

The end result will not look like the object you’ve chosen. This is okay because the purpose of this contour drawing is not to have a representation of that object; it is instead to focus on the edges, the lines, the boundaries, the negative space, the contours of the object in a new way. Here is a contour drawing I did of my hand.

The first thing you probably notice is that it doesn’t look like a hand. Good. It’s not supposed to. Now, notice the very specific quality of the line. In contour drawings, you are focused only on *seeing* and moving the pencil as you move the eye. Usually, there is another step between putting what we see on paper. Normally, you would look at the object, then look at the paper, decide on the placement of the line and begin to draw. By that time, though, the specific quality of what you’ve seen has already become somewhat diluted.

In a contour drawing, because the usual connection between what is being seen and what is going down on the paper is removed, the lines show the specificity. They are usually quite beautiful and sensitive, but even that is not the purpose of doing the drawing.

The purpose is to get your brain away from its usual mind-set. After you do your drawing, ask yourself how it felt. Did you notice that you were a little irritated at first? Perhaps you felt frustrated or silly. All of these less than positive responses are quite normal ones, especially if you’ve never done a contour drawing before.

That’s your everyday mind rebelling against an exercise that is completely different. The goal here is to persist with the drawing long enough to pass through these objections and into another mode, a different way of thinking.

Once you’ve done the drawing, then start your day of novel writing or oil painting or composing or whatever your creative work happens to be. You’ll find yourself in a less mundane, more relaxed, focussed and flexibly creative state of mind.

[-art, process, tutorial-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

Time:
• 10 minutes or less

Materials:
two standard sheets of printing paper torn in fourths
marker, crayon, pen or pencil

Before reading this article, do one drawing each for 8 of the following words. I’ve given you more than 8 in case you prefer not to deal with some of them but, of course, do them all if you like. The drawings must not be representational. No pictures or symbols that represent anything. Stick to abstract lines and shapes of any thickness or type. Think about the word for only a moment and then begin to draw. Make them small, make them quick and don’t think too much.

peace/tranquility
anger
nervous energy
joyful energy
hope
depression
illness
fear
loneliness
femininity
masculinity

Done?
Now here’s another thing for you to do. Take a moment to decide which one of the two shapes seen below should be named “takete” and which one should be “maluma.”

I’ll explain what these shapes represent at the end of the article.

Words dominate our worlds, and even more importantly, our thoughts. We can’t even think about thoughts without using words. This dominance of the word is one reason art, craft, pure design and music are so vital in our lives. We need the balance that wordlessness can provide. Marks—the kind that you used to do your drawings—communicate on a non-verbal level.

This little exercise is meant to increase your awareness and give you the experience of the fact that non-representational marks carry meaning that can be *read* by others.

Below is a series of drawings that roughly correspond to the ones you did. Scroll down and look at each one. Notice the energy or lack of it, the placement, direction and movement of the lines. Think about how it makes you feel or what it reminds you of. Look for similarities between your drawings and mine. Then scroll back through them and try to match them up with the list of words (some of them are used twice).

peace/tranquility, anger, nervous energy, joyful energy, hope, depression, illness, fear, loneliness, femininity, masculinity

Here they are with labels (on top):

anger	loneliness
fear	anger
tranquility	depression
nervous energy	femininity
illness	hope
joyful energy	masculinity

The interesting thing about these simple drawings is that they tend to be so similar between people. Betty Edwards in Drawing on the Artist Within shows many examples of these drawings done in her art classes. They are not all the same—we wouldn’t expect or want that, would we? And, that’s not the point. The point is that they are amazingly communicative.

You might disagree with some of my labels—maybe what I call hope looks more like femininity to you (I was interested that my joyful energy and femininity looked so similar ), or my nervous energy might look like your anger. Come to think of it, my loneliness looks pretty fearful. I trust, though, that you can look at these and at least narrow the choice down to two or three. Sometimes we don’t communicate that explicitly when we’re using words!

If I did these drawings on another day, they would likely be different. If I were feeling especially lonely or fearful or angry, the marks would be even more communicative of that feeling. The fact that my loneliness drawing incorporates a feeling of fear is interesting to me. I probably am fearful of being lonely. That it came out in a drawing that took less than thirty seconds illustrates my point in a way that my words cannot.

I’ll be posting more about what you can do with simple non-representational drawings, but in the meantime, I suggest that you play with lines, marks and the expression of emotions.

In terms of other art that you do, remember these tiny drawings. Placement on the page, the energy and speed with which lines are drawn, the direction of the lines, whether they are straight, sharp, angular, wavy, curvy, upturned—all of these things and more carry information to your viewer. Whether you work in paint or clay, fabric or pencil, make sure that you know what non-verbal message your art is delivering. Harness this information so that you can use it in your work and in viewing other people’s art.

Most of my understanding of R-mind thinking, the meaning of marks and much of the rest of what I’ve come to understand about creativity was informed by the books of Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and Drawing on the Artist Within. I consider them essential so do consider looking more closely at them when you get the chance. (I’ll be posting a full review of Drawing on the Artist Within soon.)

So what about takete and maluma, the drawings at the beginning of this article? These nonsense words and two similar drawings were used in an experiment done by Gestalt psychologist, Wolfgang Kohler in 1929. 98% of respondents labelled the angular drawing “takete” and the curved one, maluma. This was strikingly similar across cultures. We can project why this is so (the letters of takete are more angular, the sound is sharper and so on) but it continues to be a fascination that there is this kind of brain universality associated with abstract shapes and sounds when so much of what human beings have trouble with is communication. According to Wikipedia it is known as the Bouba/Kiki Effect

Other posts about Marks:
Mark my Words - a graphic reminder
Making your Mark - essay about self-promotion

[-cartoon-]

by Nancy Waldman

Read the rest of this entry »

[-interview and art-]

an interview with artist Rupert Kirby about his drawings

Rupert Kirby does fantastically detailed drawings and we thought it would be fun and instructive to hear his thoughts about the process of making them. Read the rest of this entry »

[-quick tip-]

For more information on drawing, check out this tutorial on negative space.

The Graphic Reminders in The PCQ are the playful fault of
Nancy SM Waldman © 2005 - 2007, all rights reserved

Originally published in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces

[-art, tutorial-]

Here’s a drawing tutorial for anyone who’s ever actually uttered the words, “I can’t draw a straight line” as well as for others who know they can, but who are out of practice.

HOW TO DRAW

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

Becoming aware of Negative Space will help you to be able to beautifully reproduce anything you can see.

What exactly IS Negative Space? The easiest way to think of it is the space around whatever solid object you’re trying to draw. Here’s an example. In the photo on the right we’ve pointed out some of the negative spaces.

See the spaces between the back rungs (the yellow arrows)? That is negative space. The spaces in-between the rungs at the bottom of the chair (green arrows) is also negative space. Around the edges of the photograph - outlined in purple - you can see that the total space around the chair is also negative space. Seeing it in a photograph is easier than if the chair were sitting in your room. Then, you would have to imagine the edges of your paper as the outer edge of the negative space around the chair. See below for a hint about how to make this easier.

Notice that each one of those negative spaces has a specific shape. This is what you would need to tune into if you were going to draw this particular chair in this particular position. Does this feel too complicated?

Here’s another example. The second photo has some of the negative spaces outlined. Anything you can see that isn’t candle or candlestick is negative space.

Now look what happens when we put the candlestick in a more natural setting. What you notice immediately is that the background is more complicated and one object overlaps another. That is precisely why paying attention to the space around objects is so important.In drawing what we see, we must overcome the part of our mind - the L-mode - that tells us “this is too hard!” Entering into a state of R-mindfulness will help to stop thinking about how we aren’t up to the task and will, instead, allow our eyes to take in what is actually in front of us and translate those lines, edges, shadows and colours to our paper.

When we SEE the space around what we’re drawing, the 3-dimensional picture in front of us flattens out.
Take a look at the candlestick still life again.
Some of the negative spaces are outlined so that you can see them more easily.
Look at the curved space showing through the back of the chair (outlined in purple). If you began there and drew that space, then allowed your eye to travel to the next space - say the space that is made by the edges of the window, chair rungs and table just below the curved space (outlined in yellow) and so on to the next and the next space without worrying too much about how it was turning out, you would be doing several important things at once.

First, you would be paying attention - truly seeing - what’s in front of you rather than thinking, “There’s too much! What do I draw first? How do I show that light edge? I can’t do this!” — all of which would be worse than useless to what you’re trying to do. Getting away from L-mode wordiness is an important step.

Second, you would be transcending your L-mode and getting into your R-mode, the creatively friendly part of your mind.
The reason this happens is that the L-mode is confused by paying attention to what isn’t there. When the L-mode gets frustrated that’s a clue to you that your R-mode can kick in. Once you become familiar with that frustrated feeling, you’ll begin to welcome it - it means you’re on the right track!

Third, you would be seeing what’s in front of you in a new way… more as puzzle pieces than as objects with 3-dimensions. In order to draw what you see, it’s necessary to flatten out the picture.

In this way, it is actually easier to draw a complicated picture with many overlapping details - such as the second candlestick still life. The candlestick with the white background has such a large negative space in comparison to the object that it’s easier to lose your way than it is with the smaller negative spaces of the second candlestick. Here’s something very complicated for you to imagine drawing:

Can you begin to see the negative spaces? Remember from our candlestick example that the seemingly more complicated scene became easy when we looked for the spaces around the objects and thought of them as puzzle pieces. Let’s move in closer to the plant so you can see that the same principle applies.

Look at the beautiful negative spaces! When drawing something this complicated, an artist does make decisions about what details can be left out.
You can do a magnificent drawing of a complex subject like this without drawing every single leaf or space. However, what never works is to allow your L-mode brain to instruct you while you’re drawing as to what a Swedish Ivy looks like. If you do, the end result will not look like the plant in front of you. It will look generic at best.

In order to draw faces, people, plants, hands, landscapes, interiors, trees - in fact anything you can see - using negative space will make you believe in your own artistic talent! Of course there are other skills in learning how to draw what you see but learning to use Negative Space is an essential tool to have under your belt. Have fun!
Picturing Frames

Make yourself a picture frame in order to envision the edge of your drawing and see the negative space more easily. Out of stiff piece of 8″ X 10″ cardboard, cut a rectangle out of the center, leaving a 1″ to 2″ frame. There’s no magic to the size of the opening.
In fact, try two, one with a 5″ X 6″ opening and another with a 4″ X 5″ opening. Hold them up to the scene that you want to draw in order to picture those outer edges of your negative space. This is also a great tool for getting the best composition before you begin.

© 2005 - 2007 nancy sm waldman; all rights reserved

Originally published in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces

[-essay, inspiration, cartoons-]

Item number 24 in an amazing, amusing amassing of help
by guest writer and artist, Hugh MacLeod

Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.

One of the reasons I got into drawing cartoons on the back of business cards was I could carry them around with me. Living downtown, you spend a lot of time walking around the place. I wanted an art form that was perfect for that.

So if I was walking down the street and I suddenly got hit with the itch to draw something, I could just nip over to the nearest park bench or coffee shop, pull out a blank card from my bag and get busy doing my thing. Seamless. Effortless. No fuss. I like it.

Before, when I was doing larger works, every time I got an idea while walking down the street I’d have to quit what I was doing and schlep back to my studio while the inspiration was still buzzing around in my head. Nine times out of ten the inspired moment would have past by the time I got back, rendering the whole exercise futile. Sure, I’d get drawing anyway, but it always seemed I was drawing a memory, not something happening at that very moment.

If you’re arranging your life in such a way that you need to make a lot of fuss between feeling the itch and getting to work, you’re putting the cart before the horse. You’re probably creating a lot of counterproductive “Me, The Artist, I must create, I must leave something to posterity” melodrama. Not interesting for you or for anyone else.

You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.

Conversely, neither should you fret too much about “writer’s block”, “artist’s block” or whatever. If you’re looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing comes to you, then go do something else. Writer’s block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you SHOULD feel the need to say something.

Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. In the meantime, you’re better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures and refilling your well. Trying to create when you don’t feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation. It’s not really connecting, it’s just droning on like an old, drunken barfly.

about the author/artist:
Hugh MacLeod is a UK-based marketing and advertising consultant who helps his clients apply what he calls “The Hughtrain” to their own businesses. How To Be Creative is a collection of essential tips that Hugh says have worked for him over the years. He has been drawing art on business cards for many years. Now, the originals are drawn on either business cards or bristol board cut to the same size i.e. 3.5″ x 2″. He says, “I use mostly a Rotring 0.25mm rapidograph pen. Occasionally I’ll use other things- pencil, watercolor, ballpoint etc, but not often.” You’ll find his unique art & writing at his website gapingvoid.com.

Published by permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration