One strategy surrealists used was automatic drawing. On a blank piece of paper, have students draw continuously for several minutes without thinking about what they are going to draw. Let their hands flow freely over the paper without self-censorship. Surrealist artists did this to let the subconscious take over. Hopefully by freeing yourself from planning and censorship, you true psyche can be revealed
Art Class Curator
Gather Materials:
- an artist’s journal, unlined notebook, or piece of paper
- pencil of your choice
Today’s Exercise
Automatic Drawing – Continuous Line – Blind
Put yourself in a receptive frame of mind, draw without thinking, and avoid conscious control over the image. Keeping your pencil on the paper can help the flow.
In fact, automatic drawing is a sort of accelerated or intensified doodling in which unexpected and unpredictable images can be made to
A Book of Surrealist Games Pg 49appear, and used as the basis forfurther visual play.
- Sit comfortably with your pencil and paper in hand
- Close your eyes and breathe deeply
- Draw one continuous line moving the pencil without conscious thought
- I drew until my pencil fell of the edge of the sketchpad
Reflections on the Exercise
- This was very relaxing
- I had little time today to do an exercise, this was a quick way to not get out of the habit.
I did this one three times in a row. I wasn’t drawing for very long with each. It was just nice to repeat the exercise. And I just stopped when my hand stopped. On the last piece, I decided to alternate between pressing hard and not pressing hard on the paper, to vary the strength of the expression of the line, kind of a combo of this exercise and the previous one of doing angry and quiet lines. I just didn’t focus on angry/quiet but hard/light pressure. So many possibilities!