Scribble Your Way to Mastering Yourself
How a Simple Game Can Boost Your Creativity
Introduction—The Drawing Game
Hi! How are ya? Great!
See that video?
It's a game I sometimes play with my kids. One person creates a squiggle, a bit of a scribble, and the other person has to try and draw a picture from it. I sometimes do it with myself. It's a cool creative exercise. It gets you to see things in ways you might not have considered. There are no hard and fast rules, nor should there be. It's supposed to be a creative activity, not a limiting one.
Give It a Try
Share your creation with us. Don't overthink it. It's best if you go with what your gut tells you. Learn to trust that gut instinct. Sometimes you'll make something awesome; other times, not so much—it is what it is. Enjoy the process and understand that every time you practice or do activities like this, you'll be boosting your creativity and getting better at drawing at the same time.
On with the Rest of the Article!
Are You Good at Drawing?
Is drawing something you're good at?
Is drawing something you think you could never be good at?
What does it even mean to be "good" at drawing?
Think about all the great artists.
Who did you think of? I'd bet at least one of the following crossed your mind:
Michelangelo
Leonardo da Vinci
Rembrandt
Vincent van Gogh
Some bloke you met down the pub
One of these is not like the others. That's right, Steve, the bloke you met down the pub, is the only one with an 's' in their name. Bloody Steve. While everyone else is getting plastered by downing schooners of Tooheys Gold, old mate Steve is drawing up a storm on anything he can get his hands on. Coasters, napkins, even the bar itself—nothing is safe from the creative genius of Steve.
The Tale of Steve—Curiosity and Persistence
There's no such thing as tipping in Australia. You see, service workers in Australia get paid a living wage—ha, be funny if that was true. This doesn't stop Steve from tipping the waitress with a cool little doodle—it means drawing, ya weirdo.
Ever since Steve was little, he's always had a knack for drawing. Or has he? When he looks back on all the drawings and paintings he did as a kid, he thinks they're just as "rubbish" as the other kids in his class. What gives? He never felt like a gifted artist.
He racked his brains, then it finally dawned on him. Why had he not seen it earlier? Here he was, sitting in the middle of a pub—a place where copious amounts of beer are consumed by a plethora of patrons, and here he is drawing the people sitting at the bar. On a napkin no less! Steve had two things all the other kids from his class didn't in terms of drawing—curiosity and persistence. Had he given up like the others, he'd be downing pints and schooners just like them instead of drawing cool stuff. Let's not get it twisted, he still enjoys drinking with the lads, it's just he's able to draw a mean dragon as well.
Stop Looking Outside Yourself for Validation
So many of us wish to be better at this or that. The problem is, we tend to look externally. We don't spend enough time on introspection. This lack of clarity hits us in more ways than one, and we likely don't even realize it's happening.
Remember at the beginning of the article, I name-dropped some famous artists? What do you think when you see their works?
I wish I could draw or paint as good as them.
I will never be that good at painting or drawing.
They're so lucky they were born with the artist gene.
Why does it even matter? Are you living in the same time period as these people? Will you be competing with them for work?
If we spend our entire existence wishing for things we don't have, or trying to be someone we can never be, we will spend our whole lives in misery.
Focusing our energy externally can often be a form of procrastination or distraction. It allows us to avoid confronting what's inside ourselves. It ”gets us off the hook.” The problem is, it really doesn't. It simply delays the issues. Like many writers rightly point out, stop thinking and just do!
The Paradox of Creativity—Clarity Comes After Action
That five hours you've spent ”planning” and painstakingly deliberating over what you want to do is four hours and thirty minutes longer than necessary, perhaps even longer.
Take this article, for instance. I'm writing this literally with no plan. None. I drew a picture, recorded it, and edited it. Then I thought, I should probably write an article to go with it. You wanna know the absolute beauty of the whole thing? The clarity about what I wanted to write only came after I began writing the article—what a paradox!
This is meta content stacked on more meta content. If you want to get better at writing—write! If you want to get better at drawing, you guessed it—draw! That was the original intent behind this whole thing. I was practicing drawing. I'm not considered great at drawing, though at the same time, I don't really care. Sometimes I like what I draw, sometimes I don't.
The Ups and Downs of Creative Work
And that's the crux.
We see the fluctuations in how we feel about our work. We see them because they're front and center, at the tippy top of our brain. Sometimes we focus way too much on this. Then what happens? On the down days, perhaps it reaches the point where we want to give up. Then we do, like the other kids from Steve's class.
Oftentimes, what we don't see are the incremental improvements we make every time we practice. You may see many people posting about this using math imagery—which is great at visualizing the concept, don’t get me wrong. However, simply seeing it in this way is only really benefiting the people posting. You might feel inspired for a brief moment while the dopamine is surging. Once that dopamine hit subsides, you'll go right back to doomscrolling, searching for your next hit.
Shift Your Mindset—Embrace Incremental Improvement
It takes a mindset shift. You need to bring the idea of incremental improvement to your conscious mind. Tear it kicking and screaming from your subconscious until you think about it every time you're on the verge of giving up.
Then choose not to give up.
Choose
Commit to Your Goals and Keep Creating
Stay committed to your goals.
That’s it for now!
As always,
Good luck,
Stay safe, and
Be well.
See ya!
It's wonderful how you advocate for creativity and loosening up about art!