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Practical exercise

Fill an A4 sheet with marks: lines, dots, scribbles

Most people freeze when given a blank sheet because they think it must become a 'good drawing'. The fix is to make so many marks that the page is no longer blank, no longer precious, and you no longer freeze. This is the first warm-up every art school in the world uses. Today you will fill one A4 sheet with marks of every kind your hand can produce, with no plan, in fifteen minutes.

15 min·starter
Mimi the mascot, encouraging you

Now try it

Fill an A4 sheet with marks: lines, dots, scribbles

Stretch

Repeat the whole exercise with your non dominant hand on a fresh A4. Compare the two pages. The non dominant page is usually more honest because the brain cannot pretend to control it.

Goes into your portfolio

The filled A4 sheet (front and, if you did the stretch, the second sheet too), with the back showing your answer to which quarter wins your eye and a one sentence note on what felt different in your hand by the end.