2 illustrative exercises to get you perky again when you're feeling creatively flaccid
Keen to draw or create but no idea what to do or what you are doing is not getting you anywhere? You’re limp and lacking mojo? It happens to all of us from time to time :)
Maybe there’s nothing in the idea bank or nothing’s turning your creative brain on. At times, I’d be more than happy to do nothing and get away from my desk for a while. But there are times too when I want to do something. The blank page is just too inviting sometimes and that’s where these 2 exercises come into play to get me creatively going again.
One: Draw and explore a single object
You may have seen recently that I explored ‘bananas” as an object of choice. Below are further examples where I have explored cups and wine. The exercise is simple: imagine what else the object could be or become besides its obvious “personality” and draw it in as many different ways as possible. Explore shape, play with its original function, turn it into something new… whatever… There's no rules as such, just have fun and see where your imagination can take you and the object.
“Explore shape, play with its original function, turn it into something new”
Two: Fill up a page with doodles
One of my favourite things to do is to doodle random things and fill up a page. I generally use a standard black Sharpie, Posca Pen or marker as it forces me to keep my doodles and ideas simple. Again there’s no rules… personally I tend to doodle song lyrics and phrases, objects with faces and there’s nearly always a coffee cup or two in there also. If you know my work then you’ll know coffee is a definite theme! Again there are no rules except let your imagination flow with your tool of choice. If you need a prompt to get you started maybe find a lyric of something you’re listening to or even a quote. Random stuff on Google images or Pinterest always help get me going also.
So there you have it, two exercises that help me massively when my creativity has gotten a bit droopy and hopefully some inspiration for you also to get your mojo back when your not at your best!
Thanks for reading :)
Pete