Lines per Minute
This is a straightforward exercise that serves (at least for me,) as a way to obliterate a creative block. It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally, I just don't have any decent ideas for something to draw. This activity normally fixes that nicely, and by the time I'm finished I have at least two or three new ideas for interesting or fun drawings, plus, sometimes the doodle itself turns out to be decent.
No special equipment necessary for this, except a pencil, your sketchbook, and something to play music on. An iPod or mp3 player works great if you need to shut out external distractions, or if you're the type that likes to draw outside in a park or in the woods or something.
Start by making yourself a playlist of just a few songs, probably no more than 5. If suffering from a creative block, I find it helps a lot if all of the songs are as varied as possible. You should make sure you have a minimum of 20 minutes of music per list, there is no max. If you wanna go from Stairway to Heaven to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida to Freebird to Bohemian Rhapsody, that's your call. I like to try and get around 25 to 30 minutes. For the Example below, my playlist was at just under 27 minutes, and I went ahead and included the songs, so you can see what I was hearing and how it translated.
No special equipment necessary for this, except a pencil, your sketchbook, and something to play music on. An iPod or mp3 player works great if you need to shut out external distractions, or if you're the type that likes to draw outside in a park or in the woods or something.
Start by making yourself a playlist of just a few songs, probably no more than 5. If suffering from a creative block, I find it helps a lot if all of the songs are as varied as possible. You should make sure you have a minimum of 20 minutes of music per list, there is no max. If you wanna go from Stairway to Heaven to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida to Freebird to Bohemian Rhapsody, that's your call. I like to try and get around 25 to 30 minutes. For the Example below, my playlist was at just under 27 minutes, and I went ahead and included the songs, so you can see what I was hearing and how it translated.
If you're suffering from creative block, or just warming up, chances are you'll tend to gravitate towards things you're more comfortable drawing. In my case, that means human forms. It's important to let the mood of the music influence the design because, after all, that's kinda the point.
This is what my sketch looked like at the end of the song.
The song for this part was Digital Bath by the Deftones.
This is what my sketch looked like at the end of the song.
The song for this part was Digital Bath by the Deftones.
The sketch after the second song, about 10 minutes so far. There's not much noticeable difference in the picture itself, but my loose idea of where it should end up is changing according to the music.
The song is Beautiful Way, by Beck.
At this point, the design is solidifying, and the changes caused by the influence of the music is mostly in the strokes of my pencil, and more subtle aspects of the sketch.
This is what I had after song three on my playlist, Release by Blackalicious.
At this point you should be trying to bring the picture to a rough conclusion, defining and darkening, adding detail and shading where ever you think it should be.
When the music stops, the exercise is over, and you should have a couple ideas for other things to draw. If you were using the activity as a warm-up, by this time you're good and ready to go.
My finished sketch after song four, The Tempest by Pendulum.
Now, because I was actually pretty happy with my sketch, I cleaned it up a bit and added color with Paint.NET. In about the same amount of time it took me to do the sketch, I'd added accents and colors to match the rough look of the raw drawing. I can't stress enough how useful Paint.NET is for being a free and easy to use digital image editing program. I use the ever lovin' crap out of it.
Hhere's what Ophan came up with, listening to the same playlist as the one I used for the example. She even stopped and took pictures in between each song to show the progression!
I recently got a few friends to try this exercise. Everyone used the same playlist, but know one had heard it before they were ready to start drawing, and no one had any idea what the others were going to be drawing. It's always fun to see the different things people's imaginations come up with, even when presented with the same stimulus. You can hear the playlist here.
This one was me.
This one was Ophan
And here's another one by me, to this playlist: Electric Meth
Just the lineart...
...and with color