About Drawing Games that Prove Quantity is Better Than Quality
In the previous post, I mentioned that a couple of the most effective ways to create an original drawing is to prevent accessing our knowledge banks, as well as drawing using the tools of abstract art while creating that what is invisible.
In this post, I will describe in detail various drawing games that have yielded a good number of original drawings.
Quantity over Quality
Do you remember when I mentioned that my job as an artist is to create conditions for myself and children that would allow us to discover (rather than think of) as many original ideas as possible? Thus, in terms of creativity, quantity is valued more than quality. This means that spending a lot of time perfecting a drawing on a single sheet of paper provides a much lower chance of discovering something original than drawing a lot of quick drawings in a relatively short amount of time. Fortunately, quick drawings are a fun game for children.
Drawing Games
Doroteja and I really enjoyed a game with a timer: draw something in 30 seconds, in 20, in 10 or even 5. Ten seconds turned out to be the most optimal time.
Another great game: draw something in 10 seconds, then swap the drawings and complete them in a way what the drawing reminds you of.
In the first case – when drawing only with a timer – what the drawing will be depends more on chance, because 10 seconds don‘t give much time to think. That is not to say that the drawings are made entirely by accident and without any thought at all. There is lots of excitement and spontaneity when working with the timer. We draw the first thing that comes to mind, but on paper it turns out different than how we imagined. Since there is no time to correct or shape something more clearly, we simply have to react to what is already on paper and quickly come up with something new that would match (or contrast) well. Thus, such spontaneous drawings are like a dance between mind and reality, or a cocktail of physical and imaginative worlds.
In the second case – drawing spontaneously with a timer and then completing them as you wish – encourages to use imagination and associations that reflect our memories. It’s very similar to a psychological Rorschach inkblot test, and almost the same as guessing what you see in the clouds. It’s very easy for children to do that because they love a fantasy world as much as the real world. Moreover, their associations are not disturbed by the rational thinking (that develops in adolescent years), which in this case (see the collaborative drawing above of a bird by me and Doroteja) could argue that ‘birds don‘t look like that; proportions are incorrect’.
Once Domas also joined us, we tried out other drawing games:
- crumple the paper and then finish it somehow;
- tell everyone what shape or line to draw; then exchange drawings and say what to draw next;
- fold the paper into small squares, and into each square draw a thing that each of us have to come up with. First, it was a watermelon, followed by a bottle, a ribbon, a boat and an ear.
These last drawing games did not yield as much potential for originality as the first ones with a timer. Thus, they become valuable lessons for the future.
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