Deborah Howland-Murray   Self-Images 
PORTRAITS OF 2-LEGGEDS and 4-LEGGEDS

Materials you will need: Device for playing music, blindfolds (or keep your eyes closed), pencil, paper, markers, crayons, craypas, pastels, or colored pencils.

 

Choose a piece of instrumental music about five or ten minutes long. Find a piece that varies tempo and strength – fast and slow, soft and booming. Have paper and pencil at the ready, and blindfolds on (or close your eyes). Start music, and without seeing what you are doing, let your hand dance across the page in response to the music. Vary your lines depending on the tempo and force of the music. Feel whether the music inspires light or dark lines, graceful curves or jagged angles, long or short lines. Make sure your hand utilizes the whole page.

 

Stop the music, and turn your paper in different directions until some of the the lines and shapes suggest to you an object/s or scene. Using any colored medium, turn those abstract lines and shapes into a realistic drawing.