Squiggle Game 🖌️ 👀 🔄

Let your creative juices flow with this classic, low-pressure drawing prompt.

A couple notes today:

1. Remember, if you complete an exercise please click the “heart” button.

2. We’d love your feedback! Please respond to the 1-minute poll below the prompt.

What will I need? 

1. Paper.

2. Something to draw with.

3. Timer (can be on your phone)

Steps:

1. Close your eyes and draw a "squiggle" -- take about 3 seconds to draw a continuous, single line in any shape

2. Open your eyes and look at what you drew.

3. Turn it in all directions. What do you see?

4. Turn the squiggle into something else -- a recognizable drawing or an abstract shape. There is no wrong answer, just have fun!

5. Click the “heart” button for this post to track your progress and let us know you did this one.

6. If you’re up for it, share a snapshot in the Substack chat!

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We need your feedback to make Messier as valuable as possible to you!

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Tips, Guidance, Inspiration and Science

Want to keep going?

1. Do it with a group! You can trade squiggles with your family or friends and have them draw based on your squiggle. Kids love this one.

2. Use a range of art supplies to elaborate on your squiggle.

3. Do the exercise a few times during the day when you have a chance to doodle – say, on your most boring Zoom of the day.

Help! I’m stuck!

1. Don’t feel pressure to make your squiggle into something recognizable. It’s just as valid to make it into an abstract shape

2. Don't pressure yourself to see something immediately. Take your time and let your mind wander.

3. Try focusing less on what the squiggle should be, and more on what it could be.

What’s the science? 

Drawing – and the distraction it brings – can improve mood (Drake, J. E., Hastedt, I., & James, C., 2016).

Standing on the shoulders of giants

This one comes from the inimitable Austin artist Laura Lit, who learned it from her father.

"Every artist was first an amateur." - Ralph Waldo Emerson