Finish this drawing (and other sketchercises)

I an earlier blog I discussed a small experiment I called "finish this drawing". As stated before I did this experiment because I wonder what people will do if you give them minimum instructions and full creative freedom.

I've continued this experiment outside of our research team and also decided to start and research drawing/sketching further in different ways. I've decided to do some "sketchercises".

I'm doing these exercises in order to answer the following questions:

- What will people do if you give them minimum instructions and full creative freedom?

- Can you communicate solely through drawings?

- What does a sketch, drawing or doodle say about a person's subconscious thoughts and focus?

Finish this drawing (outside of our research team)

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In our research team this "sketchercise" already gave a wide variety of results. I managed to group those results into 3 main groups. Our team mainly drew: animals, faces/monsters and abstract zigzags. Outside of our research team people also tend to make faces in their drawings. To a certain extent this doesn't surprise me, because people tend to try and find or make a face in inanimate objects. Some people really made up a story around the floating zigzag.

Telestrations/Wat schets je me nou?

Nature 1

Nature 2

Going home 1

Going home 2

I believe drawing can be viewed as visual writing. Before there was written language, drawing was the primary way people communicated. I wonder to what extent people can communicate solely through drawings. The game "Telestrations/Wat schets je me nou?" is a game in which a person is asked to make a drawing based on a given word or a phrase. Afterwards another person attempts to interpret the drawing. It's almost like the "telephone game" but with drawings.

This "sketchercise" forces a person to minimally communicate their thoughts. Of course a lot depends on the initial word or phrase given.

Blind drawing

Blind drawing is a "sketchercise" where a person draws a subject without looking at the paper. I believe the interesting thing about this is that people are forced to draw realistically and trust themselves rather then think about what the drawing "should" look like or rather then relying on memory. This "sketchercise" forces a person to really depend on both sight and touch simultaneously instead of separately. Which I believe is often the case when a person is drawing. After doing this "sketchercise" a person can be more aware of what they are focusing on, because a drawing tends to become very minimal.