Exercise: Free Association

Brief

This final exercise is an entirely playful one. For this you simply need to make sure

you have your sketchbook with you when you are bored or distracted and make sure you have something at hand to draw with.

The exercises you have done so far throughout the entire course have been based on a combination of observation and imagination. Doodling is a more automatic process - you draw without being self conscious. You may already doodle when you are on the phone in a relaxed environment, or when in high powered meetings that go on too long. Professor of Illustration, John Vernon Lord was a prolific doodler in the many meetings he attended when he was a head of department at The University of Brighton, and some of these drawings were published in Drawn To Drawing, published by Nobrow Press. What this work shows is that drawing in this way can lead to imagery that may be valid as a form of visual communication in its own right or lead to other ideas.The pieces may be decorative and include elements that are recognisable, or be made up of entirely abstract patterns.

Doodling

When I was ord but relaxed I doodled away in pen, choosing pen because that way I would feel like it wasn't precious, I started out with geometric shapes, however, I got really bored and turned those into little characters. As I doodled, I became more aware that I was drawing and started to doodle more structural things, and then I became too caught up on making things make sense and perfect.

Evaluation

This little exercise was to get me to generate ideas by doodling and to make me feel more looser with drawing, this was avery different exercise to do since I always have a reference for my drawings. Also, I like to have my sketchbook showing my best work too, so with my new sketchbook I forced myself to doodle on the first page.

This exercise made me go outside my comfort zone and I would reflect back on these doodles for character inspiration and ideas, it made me relax more and helped expand my drawing skills; since these doodles, my drawings have improved. If I had to be critical about these doodles-- even thought they're doodles, I would say a lot of them are just so awful.