Automatic Drawing as Imagination Exercise
December 11, 2019
This video below shows a graphic comic artist demonstrating automatic drawing. I learned to do this in the late sixties when I was studying art. Although the artist says, “let your brain” do the work, I actually experience it as letting my body/mind do the drawing while suspending any conscious, deliberate attention. (I imagined that the energy for the movement of the drawing come directly from my heart through my arm, bypassing my head. I felt like an observer to my own drawing process.) While following along as an observer I was always surprised at what emerged. At some point late in the process I would notice an object emerging from the markings. At this point I would redirect my attention and apply deliberate action to bringing out the newly discovered object. This process of automatic drawing has been very rewarding, both as a meditative process and a way to discover new images heretofore hidden below my conscious awareness.
More on Creativity, from a Master
August 3, 2018
Here is a very good article on creative flow from an angle from which you may not be aware. Enjoy.
How to Unleash the Great Perfection of Creativity
By Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
From Lion’s Roar; Buddhist Wisdom for Our Time, July 2, 2017
Informed by the profound teachings of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal tells us how to unleash powerful creative energy we can use anywhere, from the office to the art studio.
Photo by Jennifer Pack.
Eye Movement Exercise Increases Creativity
November 16, 2009
A new study has shown evidence that creativity is boosted by an intervention of bi-lateral eye movement designed to increase hemispheric cross-talk. Some of you may be familiar with the use of Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) which also uses bi-lateral eye movements. This article from the Research Digest blog of the British Psychological Society discusses eye movements for increasing creativity. Interestingly, the outcomes are affected by which hand is the stronger- as in right- or left-handed.
Are you wondering why the picture is of a brick for this post? So did I when I saw the original. The article will reveal all.
Fellini’s Imagination
October 24, 2009
"For me the world of my imagination is always closer to the truth than is the truth."
"If I wander around the world looking at things, it is only to reassure myself that the world I have invented is true."
Frederico Fellini (1920-1993)
Every issue of Life Magazine until the end of 1972 is available on Google Books for free. I did a search there for imagination and found this entry: From the July 30, 1971 issue of Life is an article by Dora Jane Hamblin on Frederico Fellini , the great Italian movie director. This piece is about the creation of his made-for-tv film, The Clowns. If you are familiar with his films you know how imaginative they are- perhaps some of the best examples of imagination in filmmaking. The Life magazine article has sketches made by Fellini as studies for this film.
Apparently, Fellini was greatly influenced the Jungian analyst Dr. Ernst Bernhard and by the autobiography of Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
