Our activity of the week was to create an automatic drawing. First of all, what the heck is that!? was my first thought. “Automatic drawing is a drawing which is produced from a subconscious, and/or external and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.” –Automatic drawing and painting time-lapse
Surrealists embraced automatic drawing as a way to incorporate their subconscious into their drawings, freeing themselves from the traditional artistic conventions. The surrealists felt that this technique was a way to access emotions and information unavailable in the conscious mind.
I got my brother (Jason) to help me out with this activity.
Sitting in the middle of the living room, we had our blank sheet of paper taped to a board. Jason was extremely confused even after I explained it to him but I’m glad he went along with it.
After placing the pen in the middle of the paper, using each of our hands to keep the pen in place, it was time to close our eyes and relax. It did feel extremely silly and we kept laughing but after a while it became silent and our hands set out to drawing.
The pen began to feel like it was moving on it’s own accord. It felt mindless, like I wasn’t even doing it. There was a few times the pen slipped off the paper so we placed it back on the paper and started again.
This ended up being our end result
What I really enjoyed about this activity was that there were no rules. You just get your pen (or brush) and get drawing! I didn’t have to think about what I would draw or how I would draw. The drawing was what my hands wanted to do, not my mind. Like so many others I judge my drawing ability (or lack of). With this technique you don’t have to worry about making something good or accurate since there is no correct way to do it. It was a surprise opening my eyes to see the end result.
I decided to color it in!
odi et amo 