Scribble Buddies

Art Challenge

Time 10 minutes or more (I spent 20)
You need

• Your sketchbook
• A permanent mark-making tool of some sort (a marker, a pen, paint etc.). No pencils for this challenge!

What to do

1. Make 3 scribbles on your page. Try really hard not to think about what the marks are going to be when you make them.
2. Starting with the marks you’ve created, draw a character of some kind. Each of the original marks must be incorporated into the final image in some way.
3. Feel free to add a background, additional figures, words, colors, or anything else that feels like it should be there.
4. Optional (and awesome): Take a photo of your original scribbles and final buddy and post it on Instagram with #makeartlifescribble so we can enjoy it!

Scribble Buddies Reflection

Imagine how different this experience would have felt if the first step was to imagine the most interesting character instead of to draw some scribbles. If you’re anything like me, you’d still be stuck on step one right now, convinced your last 20 ideas are nowhere near interesting enough.

Scribble drawings are not about trying to figure out the end result. They’re not supposed to end up any particular way, and whoever your buddy turned out to be, whether it’s Sticky Eyes or Stick Figure Guy, is awesome! Embracing this is a great way to get past inaction and to produce some delightfully surprising results.

Another important point is that the key to scribble drawings is the scribble! Making that first mark moves you from “in your head” to “in the world,” and sets the process of creation into motion. And it doesn’t matter what kind of mark it is. Once you put something, anything, on the page it points you in a direction, it gives you something to work with, it builds momentum, and begs to become something.

Which leads us to our…

Life Challenge

What to do

1. Put something out there without knowing what the final outcome will be. Just like putting a mark on a page, this has to be something that gets the intention out of your head and into the real world where other people can see and interact with it. Some examples:
   • Send out an invite to those friends you’ve been meaning to hang out with even if you haven’t figured out the most awesome thing to do yet.
   • Stop waiting to figure out the perfect vacation or the best time. Just request some days off and figure it out later!
   • Been thinking about signing up for something, but having a hard time committing because you’re not sure how it will turn out? Just start telling people you’re going to do it!
   • Stop trying to figure out what your first 100 blog posts will be like and just write the first one already. (Seriously Jamie, post this already…)
2. Write down the action you’re going to take, and do it!
3. Then, just like your scribble drawing, keep building off your last move and enjoy being surprised by seeing the thing you’re creating for your life take shape.