When I was in grade school I had teacher who gave the class an exercise to do quietly while, if memory serves me, she graded papers and filed her nails. She called us up to the desk, one at a time, randomly made a line a piece of paper, and then handed the paper to us with the instruction to turn it into something. While other students worked hard on their drawings, I doodled, turning that one curvy line into another and another, until I’d created tangle of squiggly lines. I remember being done before everyone else, and when I brought my paper back to the teacher, the conversation went like this:
“What did you make?” she asked.
“A squiggle,” I said proudly.
“What’s a squiggle?”
Uh oh. This was a test. “It’s…a squiggle design?” was my cautious reply.
“That’s not good enough. Try harder,” she said, handing me another paper with another line, reminding me that I had to make some thing out of the mark. An actual picture. Of something real.
What I’d crafted with the squiggles was real to me. But even at that young age I was learning that the most important thing was to always obey the grown ups. So when she gave me the second page, I turned the mark into something recognizable. I seem to remember there being a house involved.
Squiggles moved on the pages; houses just sat there. But the teacher was pleased with attempt number two, reinforcing the lesson that if you give the people in charge what they want and keep the squiggles to yourself, you win their approval. This is just one of many chapters in the story of how people-pleasing became my lifelong coping mechanism.
In my current exploration of tools for adult creative play, I’ve recently rediscovered the joys of simple doodling. Much like pour painting, there’s no agenda. I’m just clearing my head as I let my hands produce lines and shapes and patterns, randomly combining colors, and then figuring out later what it is I’ve created. If it’s anything at all.
I was surprised to find that this kind of creative meandering is known formally as Neurographic Art, “invented” in 2015 by Russian artist Pavel Piskarev and now a widely recognized form of art therapy. What I was doing in a very simple form back in grade school now has science-backed evidence to support the neurological and therapeutic benefits of unstructured creating.
While the scientific evidence is fresh, the concept wasn’t new even when I was a child. Consider 19th century British artist Georgiana Houghton. Working with spiritual intuition and Divine leading, her works are meditative and inspiring. They predate the abstract art movement by decades and formal Neurographic Art by more than a century.
Neurographic Art and Houghton’s spirit-led works are more in depth creations than the casual doodling I enjoy, but both are working with the same ideas of letting the unconscious lead the artistic process.
Which brings us to a little piece I did last night. I pulled out a sheet of card stock, grabbed a marker and some paints, and started creating. When I was finished (finished being the moment I didn’t want to do any more), I had a soggy piece of paper dripping with watercolors accented by the stink of the marker I’d used to draw with. But since the goal was just to create until it felt done, I didn’t care. I did it. It was done. I set the page aside, opened a window, and went to bed.
This morning, with fresh eyes, I can see I was processing on the page some emotions and concerns I’ve been carrying – consciously and unconsciously – the last few days. The death of my dog last fall. Open windows for new business (but not doors, weirdly; I always see these opportunities as windows, which is something to explore). Water. Blinders over my eyes to things that need my attention. A laundry list of things that have been jumbled in my head, creating sadness and melancholy and hope and inspiration and rest and growth and relief.
And it’s still pretty enough to hang on the fridge.
Here are some suggestions if you’d like to try this form of unstructured doodling:
1. Get something to write on and something to write with. It doesn’t really matter what you use. Paper, cardboard, the back of an envelope. Pencils, pens, crayons.
2. Create a comfortable space where you can sit for a while without being disturbed, however that feels right to you. I find sitting outside in the sun with birdsong as my soundtrack to be the perfect setting when I’m writing or sketching. Maybe you enjoy soft music or silence. It doesn’t matter. Just sit and be present in the moment.
3. Without thinking about what you’re doing or why, make one long mark across the page, moving your pen however it feels right (squiggles, lines, etc), crossing over the lines as you feel led. You’re done when you want to stop or your pen leaves the page.
4. Look for places the lines intersect, and turn the sharp corners into rounded edges. This is one of the things that takes random doodling a bit deeper. You’ll find this task requires focus, and in that focus you’ll likely find you’re able to let go of whatever is flitting around in your head. (You may notice in my drawing I missed some sharp edges. Oh well. That’s the beauty of these kinds of art projects. You do you, my friend.)
5. Make a few more lines on the page; repeat rounding the edges.
6. Add some shapes to the page. Remember, you’re not trying to create something in particular. You’re just giving space for marks to organically come together on the page.
7. Using crayons, colored pencils, markers, paints, whatever you want, color in the spaces. You can even add patterns inside the spaces and color those tinier spaces. Do whatever you’re feeling, as long a you’re not trying to make something happen on the page.
8. When you feel done, you’re done. Take some time to really look at what you created. Notice how what you created without intention mirrors things you’ve been trying to process in your every day life. If you’re inspired, journal about what you see in the images and how they make you feel.
There’s no question there’s something therapeutic about just creating for the sake of creating, allowing what comes out – shapes, patterns, colors – to help you process what’s going on under the surface, and letting the squiggles escape into the world.
Happy creating!
Joanne
Notes From The Funny Farm 