✏️ The Sketch
Pick a personal object and try these three simple (yet challenging) sketches:
Sketch A: One Liner
Sketch the object in one single line. Avoid lifting the pen!
Notice where your hand hovers over. Let it go back and forth. Don’t worry about omitting some bits of information from the object. Draw what’s essential to communicate and do it in a single stroke.
Sketch B: Non-dominant Hand
Sketch the object with your left hand if you are right-handed, and vice-versa.
This is a great exercise to gain confidence in drawing. Because we are drawing with our non-conventional hand, we know beforehand that our drawing won’t be as good as it would be otherwise - a great way to silence our inner critic and to let go of the focus on the outcome1.
Sketch C: Eyes Closed
Now shut your eyes, and draw the object you have in front of you.
You’ll see this object in your mind, but you won’t see it in your drawing. This will force you to strengthen the coordination between the inner visualisation of your object, your hand, and your drawing.
💡 Some Ideas
Constraints are a great framework to overcome any creative block.
Most of the resistance to draw comes from the fear of producing a poor outcome. Focusing on the outcome and not letting go of controlling the result is the biggest creative block for artists and designers. To create we need to trust the process.
The sketches above are great exercises to let go of these fear and obsession to produce the perfect outcome that is stopping you from drawing.
Creative freedom is overrated: constraining your practice will increase your creativity.
As a designer, I find constraints exciting. Having absolute freedom in creation tends to, firstly, increase my chances of creative block and paralysis as the options are multiple. Secondly, it makes me go back to the same answers, styles, or designs that I find familiar and have done before, because of the infinite possibilities I end up recurring to the known ones.
One of the biggest lessons learned in my experience as an architect and designer has been to set up constraints in my creative process if they are not placed there by default. Having systems and frameworks helps you focus on specific matters, build iterations, and, therefore, unlock more creative responses to similar problems.
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Cheers and happy sketching! 💫✏️
Ana
I shared these exercises with my colleagues during the very first Sketch Club session we did online back at the beginning of the Pandemic. Some of them found, to their surprise, they enjoyed the style their non-conventional was giving to their drawings!