Creative Exercises for the Quarantined Brain — Part 4

© Nick Bantock

For those of you who have been reading along for all these years now, it comes as no surprise to remind you that fine visual artist, author, unofficial apprentice to “The Trickster,” and now my dear friend and colleague, Nick Bantock, has likely been the greatest artistic and creative influence in my life.

In his book “The Trickster’s Hat” dedicated to an “apprenticeship in creativity,” Nick Bantock writes:

“If you want a shortcut to originality…this isn’t the book for you. On the other hand, if you’re willing o be led hither and thither down unlikely paths by fellow of dubious reputation, if you’re prepared to keep a sense of humor and not be fazed when he plucks the unexpected out of a mischief-studded hat, if you’re ready to zigzag, detour, and wander in search of a better understanding of your artistic core, then please feel free to slip-slide further into these pages.”

And slip, you absolutely should.

What I have come (both in reading and experiencing first-hand) to understand about Bantock’s remarkable take on the creative force, is that he does so in the spirit of a slightly naughty child— the place where all best play gets done if you think about it. The question “what can I get away with” is as crucial to breaking the shackles of creative bondage as any skill. Giving oneself permission to break the rules and be led by, if not become, the “Trickster” as he calls it, is over half the battle.


*

1. Exercise #3: Add Up a Series of One-digit Numbers…FAST! 

Adding up small numbers in your head quickly (4+7+9+3+2+2+8+5+8…) compels you to continually change the information that you are having to work with and remember. As you’re adding up the numbers, your grand total constantly changes and to arrive at the next total you have to focus solely on your current total and the next number you are adding.

There are very few mental exercises where focus and continually evolving information play such an important part. Which is why this one is so helpful in training the mind to remember essential information while deleting other data or details when they are no longer needed.

So the next time you’re standing in line at the grocery store and you’re tempted to whip out your cell phone and send a text, why don’t you instead whip out a dollar bill and add up the serial numbers as fast as possible!

2. Forbidden Joys

Another exercise from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

To quote her directly:

“One of the favored tricks of blocked creatives is saying no to ourselves. It is astonishing the number of small ways we discover to be mean and miserly with ourselves. When I say this to my students, they often protest that this is not true—that they are very good to themselves. Then I ask them to do this exercise.

List ten things you love and would love to do but are not allowed to do. Your list might look like this:

1. Go dancing.
2. Carry a sketchbook.
3. Roller-skate.
4. Buy new cowboy boots.
5. Streak your hair blond.
6. Go on vacation.
7. Take flying lessons.
8. Move to a bigger place.
9. Direct a play.
10. Take a life-drawing class.

Very often, the mere act of writing out your list of forbidden joys breaks down your barriers to doing them. Post your list somewhere highly visible.”

3. Turn Your World Upside-Down

One infallible way to really shake things up in your clogged-up creative mind is to literally turn your world (or drawing) upside-down.

Directions:

- Locate a picture of a person’s face (it can be a conventional photograph or something more abstract)
- Now turn the image upside-down, and re-create the images that way. Try to ignore the fact that you are drawing a “human face—” that concept comes with many preconceived notions about what human faces are "supposed to" look like, and it puts our brain on automatic pilot, robbing you of valuable observation skills!  Instead concentrate on the basics: shapes, lines, angles, and patches of light and dark. You’ll be surprised at what your eyes are missing in the every day when you view the world with less scrutiny!

Based on concepts from Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, this exercise is used to strip us of our conditioned perspective to look for recognizable features that make up the face. Instead of seeing, “oh this is where the nose is supposed to go, this is the place for the eyes,” we begin to see the face for how it actually is.

Now, this can be applied to anything: writing, photography, lyrics to a song, reading a play out of order. Take the concept and run with it.




4. Finishing Lines.
An exercise from Bantock’s own book.

“The standard way of writing fiction is to plot a story line, then flesh it out as you go along. Once begun, some authors like Joseph Conrad would work on one page at a time for eight hours a day. Others, like George Simenon, the creator of the French detective Maigret, would spend weeks mentally developing a storyline, then explode onto paper with 200 pages in 48 hours. Their speed may have been vastly different, but their linear approach was similar.
However, that is not the only way to write.
[…] The next exercise is meant to be a springboard. I’ll start you and then you take it from there" 

Materials: pen and notebook
Time: 30 mins
Instructions:
- Add to the following starting points by writing down whatever comes to mind.
- Don’t stop to think— just go with your stream of consciousness.
- Complete this sentence:  

the horse felt obliged to express itself by…

- When you’ve done that, write down the sentence that might come BEFORE that sentence.
- Now add another sentence to finish:

She could not help herself, the date was waiting…
… The horse felt obliged to express itself by…

- Same again.
- Write the preceding sentence and the following one.
- And again complete and add the before and after:

…Elvira looked at her brother’s fast-growing…

- You should now have three sets of sentences.

- See if you can find a way to link these sets together in a vaguely cohesive fashion.

- Once you’ve done that, you can go back in and edit it, changing a few words here and there to help bring it together. By then it should have some life of its own. Try expanding it further, developing any characters or themes that have begun to show themselves.

- Just write— keep going until your 30 minutes are up. Then read it aloud to yourself.”

© Nick Bantock