Prompt #31 - Speed Drawing your Friends
Nothing brings us together like intensely staring at people
Hello my creative friends!
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that there a still some spots left in my online workshop this weekend:
Messy Painting for Stress-Relief Workshop
This Sunday at 3pm CET. Join me and a few others for a nice Sunday afternoon, where I'll show you three different messy painting techniques you can try at home when you're feeling a bit wired and stressed out.
You can paint along, or simply have a cup of tea and watch. Obviously, you don't need to be able to draw in order to enjoy this workshop.
Tickets are free or on a donate-what-you-feel-like basis! I'd love to see there!
Now, on with the show…
If you've following this newsletter for a while, then you know that building and maintaining strong relationships in our lives is a major contributing factor to our mental health.
Whether it is your family, close friends, or colleagues, being physically and emotionally close to others makes us feel like we're not alone, like we're part of something bigger, like no matter what happens we have someone there to catch us.
And nothing brings another person closer, than staring intensely at their face for an extended period of time 😆.
The Activity - Draw speedy sketch portraits of your close ones
Version 1 - In a Group
This is a great activity to do in a group - maybe at the beginning of a team-building workshop, or at the next party with your friends.
Divide the group into 2 lines of people, facing each other. Each person should sit opposite a person from the other group, with some art supplies at hand (paper, pen, crayons). Think Speed Dating!
Set a timer for 5 minutes. Once the timer starts, each pair has 5 minutes to sketch portraits of each other. Of course, the portraits should not be too detailed, there isn't enough time for photo realism! Just draw what you see, including some of the more stand-out features of the person in front of you.
Once finished, one row of people will move down a seat and draw the person they are now sitting opposite of.
You can continue this until each person has drawn every person from the other group. Or until your drunk friend (you know the one) proposes that it's time to go streaking instead!
Version 2 - By yourself
Of course, it's not always feasible to get a group together on short notice. If you want to try this activity you can also do this at home.
Get yourself some paper and pens/pencils/markers. Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes. During each set, sketch a portrait of one of the important people in your life. You can try sketching them from memory - the upside of doing this activity alone is that nobody will see what you draw - or bring up a photo of the person to use as a reference.
Feel free to share your sketches with the people you have drawn. I'm very sure they'll appreciate it.
My Example
Here are some quick sketches of some of my nearest and dearest. I sketched one person from memory, and the other three from photos.
I hope you enjoyed this activity and that it brought you a bit closer to the people in your life.
Have a great weekend, and I hope I'll see some of you on Sunday.
Love, Lorena