A Fun Game to Spark Creativity: Play, Break Rules, Make Art

1. Introduction: "Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." That's one of my favorite quotes about creativity by Mary Lou Cook. In this class, I'm hoping to bring you an adventure, a fun little game where we're willing to be exploring all of those things. Hi, my name is Marie-Noelle Wurm. I'm an artist and illustrator, and in my own work I tried to create drawings and illustrations that are poetic, metaphorical, dreamlike and sometimes have a touch of darkness in them. I take a lot of inspiration from my fascination for the natural world and organic natural shapes, as well as the power of the imagination. In this class, I'd like to help you tap into your imagination by playing a fast-paced drawing game that is going to get you out of your comfort zones, breaking rules, creating rules, making a bunch of different drawings, and having fun. This class is called the Creativity in Action: Play a game, break rules, make some art. That's what we're going to do. You don't need to know how to draw to participate in this class. This class isn't about creating realistic drawings, but really to flex your creative muscle. I like to think about creativity as a toolkit that we can add to. In our artistic journey, we have this opportunity to gather different tools and tricks that are going to help us when we feel like we need a little creativity boost. Hopefully this exercise is going to be something that you can add to your own creativity toolkit. This is quite a different class from anything I've ever done, because I'm going to actually invite you to work during the video. In this fast-paced exploratory exercise, I want us to be practicing embracing the process. I want us to practice injecting fun, and playfulness into the drawing process. I want you to also be flexing your just start muscle so that you can get over the anxiety of the blank page. We're going to be working on expanding your sense of possibilities and also learn how to analyze your own work. We're going to do this in a step-by-step manner, so just follow along and you should be good. I hope that you have fun in this little exercise that we're going to be doing. Are you excited? I am. I'm nervous, but I'm excited. It's going to be fun. All right. See you later. 2. Materials: What you'll need for the class is some paper, some art materials, and openness to the experience, and maybe some compassion for yourself when you create a drawing that you don't like. You can basically use anything and everything that you have on hand. What that means is that there's not one specific medium that I'd like you to do the class with, it really is just up to you to explore whatever materials you're interested in exploring. I have a bunch of different types of graphite and pencils. I have these Neil colors. I could use some of my colored pencils. As you can tell here, I'm bringing out more drawing materials rather than painting materials because since this is a fast-paced exercise, you want to be able to quickly grab onto your materials in order to work on the next drawing. However, that doesn't mean that you can't have any sort of paint. I'm going to actually also be using some of my watercolors but what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure that it's all pre-prepared, ready to go. I might even add some water to each one of these in preparation for the exercise if I want to be integrating paints. But again, no obligation. It's really about just having a lot of fun materials to play around with and see what comes up in the moment. I also could take some markers, anything and everything that you think can be fun to play with. As for paper, honestly, you can use any kind of paper. The paper that I'm going to be using is a multimedia paper because I know that I'm going to be using a little bit of watercolor, maybe, possibly not; not a sure thing, but I might try it out. This is a slightly thicker mixed media paper that allows me to do that. But honestly, you could even do this exercise on printer paper. I don't know how many times I've done it using the cheapest materials possible, and actually, if you're somebody who really struggles with accepting the process and bad drawings and you're worried about it being a perfect result, then I would actually suggest that you go for materials that are maybe cheaper so that you have less attachment to the result. Because that's not what the exercise's about, it's really about what you're going to learn from the exercise. Feel free to use whatever paper it is. However, one thing that's important is I want you to have separate sheets. Why is this? Because we are going to be working fast, I'm going to ask you to switch from one sheet to another, and have a little bit of space next to you on the floor maybe or on your desk to put your drawings once you're done with them. We're going to aim for 10 individual sheets of paper. That's how many I'm going to prepare here. I'm going to have a nice little stack here of papers and I'm going to simply start with the first one. All right, let's get started. 3. First Rule + Three Tips: Let's get into the rules, of the game. I'm not going to get into all the details of the rules because, I will be telling them to you as we move forward in the exercise, and I think it's actually more fun that way. Of course if you want to go ahead and watch the entire class before doing the exercise, you can absolutely do that. But, if you want to have a little bit more fun and experience, a little bit more surprised then I invite you to grab your materials right away and get started as I'm talking to you. I know the first time that I played this game, I also had no idea what the rules of the game were before I played it. It was with, my mentor [inaudible] , who I learned a lot from when I was living in Montreal. If you're familiar with my classes, you might have heard me mention her name already, because she was so instrumental in helping me break past my own barriers. One thing that this game is not about, is about creating masterpieces, and I want you to remind yourself of that because that is not the goal. If you're looking to create masterpieces, maybe you should play a different game. This is really a game to get your creativity going, break out of your comfort zone and to do that in a fun exploratory way, if we're too attach to the idea of creating masterpieces or not even just masterpieces creating something beautiful, that can often be a block to our creativity. It stifles it and envelops it with stress and anxiety around performance. I would ask you, for this game to set aside those expectations, those goals of creating masterpieces and re-frame it as an exercise in flexing your creative muscle. There are a few little rules that I want to set up before we get started. The first one is that, as I may have mentioned, it is going to be a time-based exercise, and when I say time-based, it also means that I'm the one that chooses the time. Not, You, me. Who why because I mean, that's have the fun. I get it's good. I get to be the bearer of the time, and so sometimes it might be shorter, sometimes it might be longer. But the bottom line, is that I want you to be drawing or painting for every moment, of that time. But doesn't mean that your pen needs to be constantly stuck to the page, though that could be fun to do. But the idea is just that even if you think that you've arrived at the end of your painting. But I haven't said at the end, keep on painting. Or on the other hand, if you haven't finished your drawing, and I say, time's up. No matter, set your tools down, move on, another little tip here. Since this is a fast-paced exercise, sometimes it might mean that you might start rushing, and I want to make one distinction. Drawing fast is not the same thing as drawing sloppy. It's not because you are doing something in a fast paced manner. That it means, that you should go about it carelessly, whatever this is quick and fast and so am going to be quick and careless and not care about what I'm doing. On the contrary, this can also be an exercise in trying to find presence even as you're moving quickly. Really focus on what it is you're doing at that moment, and try to ignore, the fact that I am counting the time, feel into what it is that you're drawing. Try to enjoy the process. Find moments of presence and stillness, While you're working on your different pieces. Because that also makes the drawing process way more enjoyable. Take it as an opportunity, to practice that. Second or third little tip. Don't think too much. Just start. That's also the point of why I'm making this exercise fast-paced, to get out of our thinking mind and just put ourselves into action creating and moving forward. Third little or fourth little tip. Don't analyze too much what you've made and we're going to be making a bunch of different drawings, as I indicated with the materials that we're going to be using. Don't focus on what it is that you just made when you're moving to the next one. We're going to get to that later, at the end of the exercise. Don't worry, we'll get time to analyze what it is that you've made. But just when we're doing the actual core of the exercise, don't think too much. Move on, move forward with the indications. I think I've mentioned everything that I need to mention before we get started. If you haven't already, please feel free to pause the video right now to gather all your materials, your sheets of paper, and so we can jump right in all at the same time. This is super exciting because it's like a totally different class from anything I've ever made and I don't know, I hope, it'll be fun. Let's jump right in then. 4. Start here — First Drawing: Now that you have all your materials ready, I want you to pick something that you're going to draw. It can be an object that you have in your house or it can be something that you like drawing in particular, I don't know. It could be a house, or a tree, or your pet, anything that tickles your fancy and you want to use as your starting point. You don't need to draw this object or thing realistically, though you can if you want. Even if you don't know how to draw, doesn't matter, do your best. The point is just to use this as a starting point. That's literally the only goal of this object. Don't get too attached to it, but find something that you find exciting to draw. I'm going to be using an object that I have at home, but it doesn't necessarily need to be that. I'm going to show you my object, which is actually one of my favorite objects. It's a sculpture that was made by an artist in Illustrator called Natalia Savinova. I just find it really very, very beautiful and poetic and moving. You can see that there's a lot of little pieces of washy tape here, and that's because sadly one day I was in a rush and I shoved it off my desk without meaning to. It fell to the floor into pieces, I thought it was destroyed, and this is the way that I managed to fix it. So yes, it's not a perfect object since I broke it, but I still love it nevertheless. I thought it would be something fun to explore, especially because I don't often make characters and as you can see, these are two faces. This is the object that I'm going to start with, but it could be something as simple as a box, or a plant, or a pen. Really don't feel like your object has to be anything special. It just needs to be something that you're interested in drawing. I'm going to give you a little moment to think about that. You can pause the video again to try to figure out what it is that you want to do, and once you have decided, you can press "Play" again so that we can play. Reminder, this is not a perfect drawing contest, so no need to making perfect drawings. If it's an object that's in front of you, you can set it in front of you as an example or to refer to it, or you can just work from your imagination, let's say if you're thinking of a house or a tree or something like that. All right, time to get our hands dirty. I need my timer. I'm going to be using my phone as my timer. The starting rule for this game is to draw the thing that you chose to draw. You can use any materials that you want, and you will do this drawing for the time that I am going to be measuring, but which you don't know. Let's get started. Three, two, one draw. That means it's time to put down your tools and move on to the second drawing. But let me explain to you the next rule. 5. Main Rule + One Tip: Now is the actual start of the game, we're going to create another drawing so you can put that one on the side and one thing I want to make sure as we move forward is that you keep your drawings in the order that you've made them. You can make a mental note of it or you can just place them on the floor next to you or your desk so that you have a clear idea of which order you made these in. Now we're going to start in on the second one, and the basic rule of the game is going to be the same thing every time that I say time's up. What you're going to do is take a small moment to look at your previous drawing and decide on a rule that you're going to break. Whether or not you thought of it as a rule, when you did your drawing, you were following internal choices or internal rules and we're going to take the opportunity now to break those and what that means is that there's literally as many rules as you can think of and there is no right or wrong rules to break. It's simply what are you going to do in this next drawing that is breaking a rule from the previous drawing. I'm going to give you a few examples just in case this sounds a little confusing. Let's say that I use the color blue in my first drawing, then for this next drawing, I'm going to break that rule and decide I'm not allowed to use any blue in my drawing. I could also add on another rule, I'm only going to use two colors for my next drawing, or I'm going to use many different colors. Another possible rule, let's say I made my drawing in the middle of the page. Well, what if the rule now that I'm breaking is I'm not allowed to start the drawing in the middle of the page, I have to start it somewhere else. Let's say I used my dominant hand to draw. Maybe the rule that I'm going to break is I'm not allowed to use my dominant hand, I can only use my other hand, or I'm going to use both. Let's say I use circular shapes than I'm only allowed to use geometrical shapes. Let's say I made a drawing that actually looks like the object or thing that I chose. Now I'm going to break the rule of having it look exactly like the thing and make a more stylized version of it. I could also decide to completely break the rule and say, well, last time I drew this thing of it I was going to draw, and this time I'm not going to drop that thing. Those are just a few examples of rules that you could break, but like I said you're the one that is both breaking and creating the rules. There are as many rules as you can think of and again, since there is no right or wrong way to go about this, the fun of it is also figuring out what rules it is that you feel like breaking at that specific moment and of course, since the goal of the exercise is to explore a lot of different avenues, try to break as many rules as you can. You can even decide to break two or three rules within a specific drawing. Break as many rules as you want and they can be as small or as big as you'd like. I have one requirement though, have fun with it. That's the basic premise of this game. 6. Let's Play! : Okay, we're going to start on this, but again, don't panic. You don't have to think of a gazillion rules to break for this first one. Just find one and then go with that one. Are you ready? Find a rule to break and start when I say go. On my mark, 3, 2, 1, draw or go, whichever works. Stop. All right, set that one to the side. Take your third piece of paper and let's start on this third drawing. Quick reminder, when you're deciding on a rule to break, don't necessarily think of the first drawings that you've made. Look only at the previous drawing that you made. So decide on a rule that you're going to break, and let's get going. Three, two, one, draw. Stop. We're going to start in on the next one. Three, two, one, break a rule. Take your tools down. We're starting on the next one. In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, draw. Stop. That was a quick one. All right. Let's start on the next one. Three, two, one. Are you ready? Let's set, go. Getting changed. Get ready, and break a rule. Draw. All right. Ready, set, go. Stop. Next one, break a rule. 3,2,1, draw. The next one, 3,2,1,break a rule or two. Looks like we got to the end of the exercise. If you've followed along, then you should have 10 paintings or drawings at all varying degrees and levels of finitude, and hopefully, you've explored a bunch of different things. We're going to move on to the next part of the exercise, which is going to be analyzing these drawings and paintings, and seeing what there is to learn from them. Before we move on though, I just want you to take a moment to congratulate yourself for playing the game, because it's super brave of you to just embark on this without having any idea where you're going to go, and what I'm going to make you do. So just take that moment to congratulate yourself on doing this, and showing up, and being here and putting paint to paper or pencil to paper. That's already a huge step in your own creative journey, so congratulate yourself. All right. Let's get to the next part of the class where we analyze. I'm going to be giving you prompts, question prompts, in order to help you further your reflection on what there is to learn and to gain from this exercise. 7. Analysis: The first thing that I'm going to ask you to do is to set up your drawings. Ideally, I think it's on the floor is the best because that's where you have the biggest space available. Set them up in the order in which you made them. The first on the left side and the last on the right side, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. I want you to lay them out in a line so you can really get a global vision of each one of the works that you've made. The second thing that I'd like you to do is to erase everything that you thought about your pieces. As in, let's say there was one where you had an idea of where you were going and then I told you it was time's up and you weren't able to finish, set to the side what your initial vision was and simply look at your works as they are. What do they reflect back to you now? Without any idea of what they could have been or should have been or anything like that. Really, what is in front of you? What are the colors? What are the shapes? What are the lines? Then we're going to move on to the questions which will hopefully further your analysis of these works. Feel free to pause the video for each question if you want to take a little bit of time to think about each single one of the questions or you can just listen to me blab about all the different questions and then answer them at the end, that's fine too. Third thing before we move forward on the questions, approach these questions with curiosity not with judgment. There's a big, big difference between the two. Judgment has this connotation of being self-critical. Like, "This doesn't look good, this [inaudible]. " There's something really shaming about that notion of judgment, whether it's towards others or towards yourself. So try to be a little bit more compassionate. Approach this all with curiosity and openness and a willingness to absorb the lessons that each one of your drawings is offering you. My first question for you is actually independent of the actual paintings. The question is, how did you experience the process? How did you feel about this game? Were there moments where you were frustrated? Did you enjoy? Did you not enjoy? What were the moments that you enjoyed and what were the moments that you didn't enjoy? Did it get harder or easier as the exercise continued? What is it that made it either harder or easier or more frustrating or more enjoyable? Those are really important things to know because it gives you a little bit of insight on how you approach your artistic process. It's only in knowing how you approach your artistic process that you can actually grow from it and learn to have a healthier relationship with the process itself. Again, no judgment if it was really hard, then just accept that it was a hard exercise. Maybe note down what it was that made it very difficult so that in the future you can work on those different elements. Now we're going to get into the analysis of the works themselves. By looking at them each individually, then you can start to identify which ones you actually quite like and which ones you don't like. If you do identify some drawings that you really don't like, then try to identify what it is exactly that you don't like about it. Is it the shapes? Is it the colors? Perhaps there is also a drawing that you like, but there's an element of that drawing that you're a little bit less sure about or you think, "Well, if I had to redo it again, I would use a different color or a different texture." All those things are really useful bits of information to become more familiar with what it is that you resonate with when you're creating. Also, regardless of the actual result of the drawings, which ones did you enjoy making the most? Sometimes those can be the same thing so you can end up liking a drawing where you also enjoyed the process and then other times it can actually be different ones, so you actually enjoyed making something a lot, but the result you're less interested in. None of those are more valuable than the other, it's just interesting tidbits to note down for the future, for your future works. Is there something that you explored during this exercise that you never explored before and then you actually want to start incorporating more regularly into your artistic practice? What was the rule that you had the most fun breaking? What was the rule that you found the least fun to break? Do you feel like you really explored a huge range of different things? Or do you feel like you could do even better next time? I'd like you to find at least 10 things that you learned during this process. It can be anything; it can be something to do with the process itself, it can have something to do with the drawings, with the rules that you broke, with specific drawings or even specific tools. Identify 10 things that you have learned during this game, write them down and share them with us so that we can get a sense of what your process was like and what are the areas that you enjoyed, what you're still working on and what you're going to take away for the future. It's really fun to get insight into other peoples or processes because sometimes that gives us ideas for our own process. So please feel free to share your project in the project section, I know I'd love to see the range of different explorations that you did and everybody else will too. Last thing that I'd like you to do is pick a few drawings. In particular, if you had to pick one of your drawings as being finished, where you look at it and you're like, "Yeah, this is a finished piece, " and I'd like you to share in the project section which one of those you think that is. I'd also like you to pick one drawing that you think could still be interesting to work on. It's not finished, it's not there yet, but you're intrigued and interested to perhaps continue it. You might actually identify more than one that is finished or that you're interested in exploring in the future. If that's the case, that's awesome, but if you can't, I'd like you to at least pick one of each. Also, something else that you can do even for the drawings that you don't like is, I'd like you to find adjectives to describe each one of your works. What feel do they convey? How did they resonate with you? What are words or thoughts that come up when you're looking at it? That can be really, really fun to start identifying because then you can start to see how marks and moods interact with each other and how visually you can evoke different feelings or atmospheres. All these questions that I asked you are simply little tidbits that I'm throwing out as food for thought, so that you can really start to analyze your own work and see what there is to learn every time that you sit in front of your desk and put pen on paper, because that's what our artistic journey is about. It's about the process, it's about learning, it's about growing, and to quote Mary Lou Cook again, it's about breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun. So I hope that this exercise allowed you to experience a little bit of that and that you have something to take away from it. 8. Analysis - Demo: These are my 10 finished drawings from the first all the way to the last. Already there's one thing that I notice when I put them all together, is I actually think they work really well together as a whole, which is interesting. It can be cool to know that you could create a drawing made up of multiple little drawings and that could be the work in itself. That's, for example, a takeaway that I would take for something to experiment in the future. Looking a little bit more precisely at some of these works. This was my first one and I've really enjoyed both the making of this but also the result. In particular, what I liked is I was working with a pencil, which is a tool I haven't been using recently and I really liked how it was feeling on the paper. But more than that, what I like about it is that I feel like I was able to capture some of the mood of the object that I liked without necessarily being a realistic depiction of it. Obviously, the time ran out before I could finish it, but I like the unfinished look of it. Sometimes leaving things out can make your drawing more powerful and in this case, I really do think that it does, and brings a lot of attention to the face that I created here and the abstract shapes that drift off from that, 10 the question of which ones I liked and which ones I didn't like. I can already from the get-go say that one of them that I didn't like was this one. I was trying to break the rule of going from details to something that was more flat and more shape oriented. Honestly, I think it's a boring piece and yes, there wasn't a lot of time for me to continue with either. But all in all, I think it's not that interesting, and that's totally fine that everything that you're going to make is going to be an interesting piece. Another one that I don't think I like is this one though there are elements of it that I like. What I don't like about it is the colors. I was trying to get out of my comfort zone and explore colors that I wouldn't necessarily put together and though they are interesting, I do think that there's a unity missing to this one. This is one I would, for example, continue. However, even though the result of this one is not something I like, the process I absolutely loved. Because recently I've been working a lot in watercolor and so getting to something that was much more gritty and raw with these chalk pencils is something that I thought was really fun. That's really useful and makes me remember that. Why not pick up my chalk pencils a little bit more frequently. In terms of the ones that I do like, I would say that there are four that I'm very happy with. One of them is the first one that I was showing you. But then also this one which I think is a really interesting depiction and I like how I would use the side of the pencil to just evoke the shape of the faces and also use the eraser. I think there's a really interesting texture in that. However, I don't like the colors that I used in the chalk pencils here. That's something that I could, for example, do again with a different set of colors just to explore what I was exploring here a little bit more in-depth. Another one that I think though that is completely finished is this one which I'm very happy about. I used watercolor and it shifted as I was working with it. I'd initially made a second face but decided I didn't like that and so simply use the red to cover that up entirely but I think that actually strengthens the piece. I don't know, there's something that really poetic that I like about this one. I don't think I would redo it. I think it's pretty done as is. Another one that I think is quite finished is this one and I would say this is also one of my favorites. I really like the simplicity of it. The mix of detail line work with shapes, the use of negative space, and how the negative space invokes forms. That's another one that I really like. There are a few, however, that I think are interesting but are not yet finished results. This one, for example, I really liked having a lot of different faces and I think it creates something almost mysterious. The other thing that I really enjoyed is the fact that these were just lines and dots and yes, just lines and dots can create faces. But if you displace them like in this one where the line looks like it could be the profile of the face, but the dot for the eye is much higher, then you lose the sense of a face. There's something really interesting in that, personally, I think that's really cool, that just lines and dots can create faces entirely, but can also simply be that lines and shapes and if you know my work, you know that I like things that metamorphism and things that become other things. That's something that maybe I would explore in a further draw. This one I also enjoyed making because, like I said, I've been working in watercolor currently and there's a reason why that is, I really loved the field of watercolor and I particularly liked making these simple bold shapes with the watercolor, with the granulation. However, I don't think it's a finished piece and it would be something that I would like to continue exploring. This is another one that I also think would really benefit from transforming it further. In a separate drawing session, I could simply use this as my starting point and continue working on it, transforming it into something else. What I like about this one is the mix of the smooth watercolor and the greediness of the chalk pencils, and that's something that I don't do very frequently. That's something that I could explore in the future. Finally, this one which I didn't really talk about, where I was using the brush pen. I have very mixed feelings about this. I don't like it. I don't think it's a finished piece, but I do like it because somehow there is something that I like in the minimalism of the lines and the white space around it. This is one where I have a little bit less of a clear idea of what I would do with it, whether I would continue it or not. That since it isn't a finished piece, then maybe one day I would just decide, I'm going to pick this up and decide to completely transform it. Maybe I would add a ton of stuff moving away from that minimalism. But knowing that like the minimalism of the piece is something that is useful for me for future artworks. All in all, I'm really happy with my explorations and had a lot of fun with a lot of different techniques and ways of looking at this object. In particular, one thing that I really enjoyed is that I don't often paint characters. If you're familiar with my work, I do a lot of abstract work inspired by the natural world and people and characters is something that is largely absent from my work. It was really interesting to push myself out of my comfort zone and try to see how I can create characters that are still me. I learned a few things about maybe doing more mixed media pieces, which I've moved away from recently. But also that simply using a pencil is something that I really like and enjoy. Perhaps I could decide to work more on some pencil work in the future. I really enjoyed the process, of course, some of them I enjoyed even more than others and there is one thing that I would say overall on all of these, is that compared to other moments where I've done this exercise, I perhaps feel like I didn't explore as much as I could have. But again, this is an exercise that you can do over and over again. If you feel like you haven't explored enough, then you could do it again with a different object or a different thing. Those are some of the ways that you can analyze your own work. I really look forward to hearing what you think about yours and if you may agree or disagree with me, maybe there's one piece in here that you think is finished that I think is unfinished or one that you think isn't finished that I think is finished, that's also super fun to see how subjectively we can each have different visions of the work. 9. Ending: The biggest takeaway that I hope that you'll take from this class is that you can be the creator and the breaker of your own rules. Another thing that I'd like to mention is that this is an exercise that you can do again and again for different objects or things. I know that I've done this exercise a multitude of times and I'm always blown away by the possibilities that arise when you allow yourself to do this exercise. Especially if you're in a creative rut and you're feeling really blocked or really stressed, it can be a way to let go all of that anxiety and just get started, get your creative juices flowing again and make some cool art. Feel free to also share this exercise with somebody else if you think that it could be a fun thing to do. You could even actually do this with friends. You can invite your friends over and be like, "Let's do this time-based exercise altogether." When I did this exercise, it was actually in a group setting, in a live person class. We were all able to comment on each other's works, and sometimes you would see something as finished, then somebody else would say, "Oh, I'd like to see that continued." Or there are others that you're like, "I don't see that all is a good peace" and somebody else would actually really resonate with it. That's also something that you can do either with friends that you invite over to do this class, but also in the project section, you can comment on each other's projects and let each other know what images you think are actually really successful. It can be a different one than the person who created them. Please feel free to share and exchange. There's so much that we can learn in doing that. I hope you enjoyed that and I look forward to seeing you soon in any of my other classes. I have a bunch of classes from art challenges like the Fearless Art Challenge, color mixing with gouache, drawing plants and leaves, little secrets, tips and tricks to finding your voices and artist. Anything creative basically is stuff that I'm super passionate about. You'll always find some little flavor of creativity injecting exercises in all my classes. I hope that you've found this useful and fun. Please share in the project section if you haven't already, and of course I'm on all social media. I'm on Instagram, I'm on YouTube, I'm on Patreon. Where else to do live drawing sessions and fun little exclusive logs. I'm on Twitter, but I don't use that one so much. Here on Skillshare, click on the "Follow" button to see when my next classes are out. I think that's it. Thanks so much for joining in and I'll see you next time. 10. A Small Thought — On Presence: The amount of time that you spend on a piece is not necessarily what determines its success. Often, of course there are a lot of design principles that can participate in the success of the piece and that comes with experience, with painting a lot, with drawing a lot, with learning a lot, with making a lot of mistakes. But also, one of the biggest determinants of how successful a piece is, is the presence that you bring to it. How present are you with what it is that you're actually doing? Sinking into the feeling of creating something is one of the most beautiful feelings in the world. A lot of people will call that flow, and sometimes it happens more easily, sometimes it's more difficult to access. But practicing that presence will help you get into that sense of flow more and more each time that you draw. The nice thing with the sense of flow is that, the self-critical part of yourself disappears, it quiets down, everything quiets down and it's just you and the paper and the colors and the marks and the lines. I really hope that you get to experience the beauty of that aspect of creating.