Collabra-doodle!!

Last year while reading a book 'Active Imagination' - Carl Jung, I began doodling more often without thinking or planning in an attempt to tap in to the sub-conscious parts of my mind. I thought I might possibly look back at them one day and see some progression with symbols to understand hidden/buried feelings etc (this could still happen) but I was instead inspired to challenge others to do it too, but add an element more to take away control & preciousness, to challenge restraints although in large groups I put in constraints to keep it exciting & flowing.

To begin with I tried this with family & a friend who hadn't been regularly making his art in a long time, he felt he'd lost touch with it somehow.. so I invited him to join us to 'play' (he was a little sceptical to begin with but wanted to play!) so along with my twin sister, daughter & me, we began doodling on our own, then passed it to someone else when ever we were ready. The end results where vey interesting ...they almost always are, you can turn them everyway round to see new things.. the combination of styles/techniques gives the viewer so much to explore.

These were our final pieces from that day, early May 2012:

I've gone on to try this and variations of it on groups of artists & general public with amazing results and great feedback. The best two so far being at Dr. Doodley's Drink and Draw during the 1st ever Romsey Arts Festival which I ran with more of a framework to challenge aspects of control & restraint in art through play (Photo's of the event by Martin Leys can be seen here) & the other being a collaboration with Iris Rainbow, a community-unity building version we held along with picnic for

any passer by to join at a local park..one of the participants said 

 

"Hi, thanks for doing this, there are some wise thoughts in collaboradoodling about not being precious about your pictures, sharing, talking and meeting new people. Some of which I'm usually quite timid about. So thank you. Keep sharing the love." - Carla

 

 you can see photo's from that day on Patrick Widdess's Flickr page > click here < 

We have been doing collabra-doodles continuously since, it's spreading & evolving in many ways, my friend is taking it to Portugal & does it everywhere she goes now on her travels. I asked a stranger in a café if

 he'd like to try it as he was already scribbling away in a notepad anyway...that was great fun!

Here I've picked 4 of 47 images that are results of these collaborations during the Romsey arts Festival by local artists:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I discovered another similar technique used by art therapists, I'm thinking to merge the two to see what I can come up with...watch this space!