That’s not nothing

Description 

A playful scribbly art exercise

Finding things in other peoples scribbles

A collaborative drawing exercise.

Works best in pairs.

Aim

To creatively and playfully explore through mark-making

Materials

A4 paper

Pencils

Process

In pairs, make a random mark or two on your page.

Give your page to your partner while exclaiming “This is Nothing!”

Your partner replies “That’s not nothing… it’s ________” 

And then says what they can imagine the marks represent

For example:   It’s an ear!

They then add some new marks to make it not look like whatever they said - to make it look like “nothing”.

Then pass it back, exclaiming again “This is Nothing!”

The process continues back and forth

Until you agree to stop.

It’s about the process

It might be a metaphor

Try it.

example 1

“This is NOTHING”

“that’s not NOTHING it’s an ear”

(adds some marks..)

“This is NOTHING”

“That’s not NOTHING it’s an elephant eating candyfloss”

(adds some marks…)

“This is NOTHING”

“That’s not NOTHING It’s a character from South Park”

(makes some marks…

“This is Nothing”

“That’s not NOTHING It’s a Francis bacon painting escaping the frame”

(makes some marks..)

“This is NOTHING”

“That’s not NOTHING… it’s a Jellyfish at a disco…”

etc etc