Sometimes we find ourselves with some free time, or with the need for new ideas; for both cases, this exercise can help. What I can recommend is to add this exercise (and the many others we’ll propose you) in your routine since, as we already learned here, a little bit of creative activities in our lives can really help us to overall improve our life quality!
This exercise can be done by EVERYONE: any age, any experience with drawing, any profession.. From beginners to professionals, from elderly to kids, everyone can have fun with this easy game!
Also, feel free to invite your friends to come over and join you, and if you’re not able to see your friends right now, that’s not a problem at all! Schedule a chat room or a video call all together and keep yourself company while completing the task!
For example, I simply sent the image via WhatsApp to my friends, explained what they had to do and collected their replies later. We literally live thousands of km away from each other, so I’d say this was the easiest (and only) way.
Complete The Figure – How To Set The Game
As you can deduct from the title, today’s weekly challenge will consist simply on completing a random figure, creating a character or a whole illustration around it.
What I did to prepare this challenge for me and my friends was:
- Open my beloved iPad;
- Sketch a random line on Procreate;
- …. nothing else, that’s just it.
You can also just take a piece of paper, draw on a blackboard or basically wherever you want. Just, avoid your room’s walls since your mom or landlord, probably, won’t be too happy about it.
Anyway, after working hard on preparing this really difficult drawing, I sent my friends a message with the image and the task only: “You should complete this figure and draw the first thing that comes into your mind”. That’s it! Explain the task as soon as you send or show the picture to them, so you won’t look weird for sending random stuff and they’ll be prepared to think about something to draw straight away!
Don’t tell your friends what you see or what you will draw; let’s try to be neutral, to not influence your friends’ first impression. Remember, first impressions are what count more in this game.
To add something to the challenge, you can also try to:
- Guess what your friends thought about and drew BEFORE showing the drawings, and see who got it right and who didn’t (you can add prices, penances etc.);
- Set some limitations or rules, for example “no faces” or “only animals”, just to make it a bit more challenging;
- Add whatever rule or feature feels good to you. If you think about it, you’ll come up with more ideas that me for sure!
I decided to set no additional tasks to our challenge, providing you with just a base that you can personalise as you prefer.
The results of this simple game show how incredible the human mind and our imagination is. You’ll soon realise that what YOU see in a shape, might not be the same as what your friend sees. Also, others can see something in your own shape that you would never have imaged!
Let’s not forget that there are no rules, or at least, in my basic exercise example. Or better, there’s only one: rigorously respect the shape as much as you can.
Tip: This is the main reason why I made my initial shape in digital and not on a piece of paper: like this, my friends had the opportunity to easily draw on the image I sent them, or to open the image with their iPads, instead of copying it by hand, and eventually changing the shape by mistake.
Note that you can move and rotate the figure as much as you like, but I advise to keep at least the same dimension. It will be funnier when comparing the results!
And last but not least.. have fun! And practice as much as you can, to get better and improve your creative skills even more!
Anyway, if you need some inspiration, this was our challenge.. Enjoy!
I really hope you liked this game/challenge idea, and remember that you can both do it with your friends and family or by yourself as a daily practice to stimulate and improve your creative skills.
Tip: I used to do a similar exercise when I was still in art school and I had no idea what to do in a new project.. Setting some random lines always helped me to warm up my hands and wrists, and to come up with some concepts to work on!
Special thanks to my friends and to my boyfriend who participated to this weekly challenge with me and created this masterpieces for Sciupp.com only! Feel honoured guys;)
Also, I’d love to see if you and your friends have done this challenge too! So, if you did, share with us your results and we’ll be happy to see and share them as well!
Latest posts from Sciupp.com
Sciupp 