2 Wicked Cool Ways to "Draw" and "Write"
Using Streams of Consciousness and Gibberish to Fuel Your Creativity
Automatic Drawing and Asemic Writing
Expressing yourself through art is, for many of us, not a gift, but a need. This post is aimed at folks who want to free up their art, let go of their hard-learned skills, and go a little wild. For you non-artists: do you ever doodle while on the phone? These exercises are similar.
What is Automatic Drawing? (Also known as Automatism)
According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica “Automatism” is a “technique first used by Surrealist painters and poets to express the creative force of the unconscious in art.”
From Wikipedia (with edits): “Automatic Drawing is an artistic technique in which the hand is allowed to move randomly across the paper. In applying chance and accident to mark-making, a drawing is freed from rational control. Hence the drawing produced may be attributed in part to the subconscious and may reveal something of the psyche, which would otherwise be repressed.”
Before you say, That’s just doodling…
Yes, it’s kind of like doodling, but here’s how the two differ: Doodle art requires conscious decision making. Even though it’s an unplanned drawing, a doodle requires you to be in complete control of what your hand is doing. In other words, in a doodle you’re thinking about each move you make, and therefore it’s your conscious mind that helped make the lines, shapes, and objects that appear on the paper.
When practicing Automatic Drawing, the aim is to suppress your conscious mind as much as possible so that there’s very little thinking involved— which then frees up your subconscious mind to make the decisions. The result, when done properly, is a sort of visual representation of thoughts and feelings below the surface of your awareness.
It’s like drawing in a sort of wakeful dream-state. You’ll be surprised by what comes out of your own pen.
That’s when the wild stuff happens. (Sometimes!)
Twentieth century surrealists loved this exercise. It gave them the opportunity to literally doodle themselves into a realm where unique images, symbols, and visual associations could be discovered, and then implemented in finished pieces of art (or have the experimental drawing itself be the final piece).
Although I do like the one above, my own experiments are not as successful as I would like. It’s downright hard to suppress your conscious mind when you’re wide awake. I also find it difficult to suppress every bit of training and muscle memory I’ve developed and honed as a comic artist. My hand/pen naturally does things without my thinking anyway— but is this just muscle memory, or is it a movement made by my subconscious? I’m afraid in most cases, it’s the former. Ah well, I’ve only just begun, and so these are baby steps into the practice. Who knows, maybe for my next attempts I’ll just take a hit of acid and go at it. Couple of ‘shrooms, two fingers of bourbon, yeah, that would do it.
I’m kidding! (Just wanted to freak out family members who might be reading this.)
Letting the weirdness happen… (when do I not let the weirdness happen?)
Can regular doodling lead to automatism? Absolutely. I’ve experienced it myself a number of times. It happens now and then when I’m just doodling normally, and suddenly i feel myself entering into a no-thought kind of state, or “deep flow”. I’m thinking this state might be the gateway to the semi-conscious state needed for Automatic Drawing. I don’t know. But it’s a fun and intriguing exercise, and it certainly will be interesting to find out.
Asemic Writing
I swear it has nothing to do with conjuring spirits. Unless it’s spirits of the cocktail type— that is up to you.
So, what is it?
Asemic writing is a non-logical, open-semantic form of abstract mark-making that uses the same lines and shapes as real writing, but with its meaning open to the viewer’s interpretation.
At its core, Asemic Writing is non-representational, and has no syntax. As in abstract visual art, the “reader” provides the meaning. In other words, it’s pure bullshit gibberish.
Another notable thing about Asemic Writing is that it’s used for doctor’s prescriptions. If you take this to your pharmacy, they’ll give you whatever medication it says you need.
ha.
I use Asemic writing in artwork when I want a visual gesture that alludes to something written, but is completely divorced from actual words with concrete meaning. The abstracted “words” and symbols are meant for the viewer to interpret. Look at it as a visual representation of conventional writing, only without restrictions to logic and meaning.
These two exercises, Automatic Drawing and Asemic Writing, can be used to break through creative blocks. If you’re creating stuff on a regular basis, inevitably there are times when you experience staleness and stagnation in your art. These exercises can encourage you to almost literally “dream up” fresh and dynamic ideas.
The ideas are not “out there”, they’re inside you!
Below is a finished piece in which I’ve implemented imagery that I generated through Automatic Drawing and Asemic Writing exercises.
How to begin?
Grab a pencil, pen, or a raven’s feather dipped in goat’s blood (seriously, I’ll stop) and begin making lines. I find having some calming music in the background helps to “let go” and get into that deep flow state. Try not to draw “things” intentionally— just let the pen go where it wants. (I know, what the hell does that mean, right?) I think most of you know what I mean, and how to go about doing this exercise in your own way. If you have questions, or tips, please let me know in the comments. One tip: I like to have tea or coffee when working, but I’ve found that having a mug of tasty strawberry tea with almond milk and cinnamon sticks is not conducive to entering exotic realms of the subconscious mind. Or maybe it is, who knows? We’re all probably living in a simulation anyway.
Seriously, though, pausing to take a sip of a drink will distract from the exercise. (As far as I know.)
Let me know in the comments how it went! And as always, thank you for reading!
This is fantastic. Love the pieces you shared. Can’t wait to try this myself!
You're talented even when you're not consciously trying!