Many years ago I took a continuing education course entitled something like “Accidental Watercolor”. As each class began, students taped watercolor paper to the table and wet it. Our instructor played soft music and invited us to relax and enter a meditative state. Then we brushed light washes onto the wet surface, simply allowing the colors to flow and blend. As time passed and the piece began to dry, we were directed to observe the paper and begin to pick out or build up or in some way respond to what we saw emerging. The course, in which I created some pieces that still challenge me with a standard of expressiveness and freedom, changed my approach by engaging me more deeply in the process and discovery of applying paint to paper.

In all the physical art forms - dance, acting, singing - few artists would think of performing, even in practice, without warming up the related muscles. Perhaps this is because these forms use the body, and the body is quick to express its displeasure if it is forced to do something it isn’t ready to do. Certain moves, gestures, notes and tones just can’t be reached effectively if the part of the body that produces them isn’t adequately warm. Stretched and warmed, performers experience a liquidity in their muscles and their energy which greatly enhances the capacity of their expression. Many writers also believe that warmups are key to the flow of words, if the plethora of books and workshops on writing exercises is any indication.

What if we were to imagine that warmups are also essential for producing the highest quality visual work? In figure drawing classes, it is standard to do a handful of quick gesture drawings before moving on to longer poses. Why not in illustrating? In rushing to create a picture, I don’t experience the discomfort of a strained muscle, but I have had plenty of pieces simply fail to come to life, lying there flat and dull no matter what I did. Visual work uses the body, too, and perhaps what needs warming up in order to reach the fullest possible expression is the eye-mind-hand connection. To that end, here are some visual warmups to get your flow going.

1. Closed-eye drawing. Nina Wise, author of A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life: Self-expression and Spiritual Practice for Those Who Have Time for Neither (the title alone is worth the price of the book!) recommends this exercise as “a way to defuse the strategies of the censoring mind”. Find something to draw on and with. It can be the best sketchbook and paint sticks in your studio, or a napkin and pen in a restaurant. Close your eyes. “Without peeking, draw...by letting the hand move freely on the paper, dictated by freedom and inner energy...let your current disposition direct the movement of your hand so that you bypass the intellect. Instead of attempting to ‘draw’ your feeling, let the feeling draw.”

I have a small sketchbook which from time to time I carry in my bag, with a set of colored pens. Sitting waiting anywhere, I do the closed eye drawing, then open my eyes and begin to respond to my lines with color, wetting and smudging the ink as I apply it. The process adds a dimension of discovery and the satisfaction of creating something to any ordinary day.

2. “Breath of God”. This exercise is from Freeing the Creative Spirit: Drawing on the Power of Art to Tap the Magic & Wisdom Within by Adriana Diaz. Gather brilliant water colors, also called watercolor dyes (or any liquid ink or paint you have available), with eyedroppers, watercolor paper, India ink, straws, water, and plastic containers for diluting and mixing colors. Put on music and take the time to move into a relaxed state before you begin. “With the eye dropper place a small amount of color on the paper and blow it around on the page with the straw...Continue adding the various colors in response to the mood and rhythm of the music...You can also add a drop of water from time to time, blowing it, or tilting the paper to let it run and blend colors in different directions...Blowing the watercolors with a straw gives a great sense of freedom, and the lack of control relieves you of any preexisting expectations you may have of yourself...This is a free-form exercise, a time to be playful; it has no goal other than the pleasure of doing it.”

3. Contour drawings. These are most famously described in Betty Edwards’ classic Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Choose an object readily available - your non-drawing hand, a crumpled paper bag, a shoe. Tape your paper to the table so it won’t slip around. Looking only at the object and not at your paper, gaze at the object until you can see it as angles, relationships, horizontal and vertical lines. “As your eyes move slowly along the contour, your pencil draws the contour on the paper at the same slow speed. Move from contour to adjacent contour...Your pencil will record all of the edges, noting every slight change of direction and undulation of each contour...Glance at your paper only to locate a point or to check a relationship.” (Or, for a pure contour drawing, never look at the page.)

These are just a few of myriad possibilities. Invent your own. Grab a sketchbook and head to the playground to do gesture drawings of children in motion. Fingerpaint. Doodle. Any visual activity can function as a warmup if it has some of these qualities: repetition with a certain mindless, rote quality (like scales, stretches, etc.); an atmosphere of play, spontaneity, and joy; a lack of judgment or attachment to product (“It’s just an exercise”); a sense of freedom, risk taking, and letting go of control; a practice of doing first, evaluating later. The point is to get out of your head and into your body, into the physical act of making marks on a page. Take the time to warm up regularly. Then see how the practice and the limber muscles begin to affect the process of creating finished illustrations.

Published in newsletter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
(Reproduced with permission.)