Gather Materials:
- An artist’s journal, unlined notebook, or piece of paper
- Pencil set
- Pencil crayons
- A timer
Today’s Exercise
Mind’s eye walk
- Sit comfortably with your pencils in front of you. I sit cross-legged on the floor.
- Before you begin, choose a place you can easily walk to in your neighbourhood. I chose to walk to the mailbox, something I do so rarely these days.
- Close your eyes and relax. Imagine a string is pulling up from the top of your head elongating your spine. Take several deep breaths here. Stay here until you feel calm and centred.
- Continue with your eyes closed, put a pencil to the paper and begin to draw your route, slowly walking the steps in your mind’s eye.
- When you arrive at your destination spend a moment there, take a deep breath in and let it out. Then turn around and take a different route (or not) back home. If it’s a beautiful day you may want to take an extra trip around the block.
- When you arrive back home stop and open your eyes.
Respond to the marks
- Set a timer for 5 minutes (I have to confess I forgot to set the timer)
- Spend the 5 minutes responding to the marks on the page
- Extend some lines
- Make some lines dotted and some dashed
- Add some spirals
- Colour in some shapes
- Use a blending stump to soften some of the hard lines
- add some straight lines
Reflections on the Exercise
- Slowing down is key to this mind’s eye exercise
- When I started responding to the marks, it was hard to get out of my head and not see it as streets in my neighbourhood.
- When I added dashes it took me into a place of play and I was able to be freer after that.
- I was surprised to see the blue envelope I had subconsciously coloured in the centre of the page!