10 minute scribble drawing

We tried something new in class and we got a lot of laughs out of it because most of the end results were pretty funny. Most of the drawings didn't look like much but they ended up having and impressionistic or crazy look to them and most of the students thought is was a lot of fun.

I put up 3 pictures of famous building and game the students ten minutes to draw the best version of it that they wanted to in that time.

This exercise wasn't necessarily to teach anything but a long while ago I ran into someone that is a lot better painter than I am and he said that he performs best when he gives himself some sort of time-limit on whatever he is working on.

There was no pressure here with the students and a lot of them were giggling as they noticed that they had made some mistakes. I always say to embrace your mistakes and run with them. Perhaps by putting the time limit on we skipped past some of the inhibitions and shyness that some of them may have had. We also didn't have a bunch of people looking at what other people were doing because they were trying to get their own done.

I noticed that a lot of the kids are starting to not focus on the exact features of humans in their pictures and this makes me happy. I have been doing this a long time and one of the things that I have noticed that irritates people the most is that they get frustrated when trying so hard to make a human look exactly like a human should. This really isn't that important in photos and other than famous portraits most of the greats don't focus on realism in their human representations either.

This exercise was a lot of fun and I encourage others to try it as well. Sometimes it is best if you don't even know what the image is going to be that you are meant to use as your inspiration as well. So if you try it at home I would have someone that you know choose an image for you without telling you what it is. It's helpful if it is something that is a building though because those are easiest to replicate quickly.

The end result might surprise you and it can be a lot of fun!