Creating From Imagination! - A Pattern Recognition Exercise!

Hey Everyone!

Today, I want to share a simple exercise to strengthen your ability to draw from imagination. As I've mentioned before, creating from imagination is largely an act of recalling from memory. We can assume that our brains collect vast amounts of visual information throughout our lives, and this data gets triggered when we need to visualize something.

We have a natural tendency to simplify the world, which might not be super accurate in detail but helps us understand what's happening around us in an easier way - maybe good enough to survive. For example, when you're 4 you can draw a simple shape of a house, not the whole house in detail - just a symbol of a house. This idea of capturing and simplifying shapes can be a super handy habit. If you develop it well, it can be like learning a whole new language where you shape different real-world objects into stylized interpretations using your memory.

I don't know if this all makes sense or if I've made it clear enough, but simply put: if you pay attention to shapes in the world and then draw or paint them, you're learning a series of steps for how to create that shape even when it's not in front of you.

The easy way to do this is what we've been doing for years, "drawing from real-world references". But today I want you to try something different. Something I call the "Rorschach Exercise".

The Rorschach test, also known as the Rorschach inkblot test, is a psychological assessment tool developed by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach. It involves showing a subject a series of inkblots and interpreting their perceptions of these images to analyze personality characteristics and emotional functioning, often revealing underlying thought disorders.

Now, I'm not saying you're crazy (maybe you are); we're not doing this to diagnose any disorders. Instead, we're utilizing the chance to interpret the shapes that emerge from random creation. If you stumble upon anything disturbing, don't hesitate to share it in the discord - I can't wait to see

Brush:
I want you to use one of the brushes from my set, specifically "Aufgenommener Pinsel 1 1". This is one of the first 10 brushes in my set, and its shape is shown in the pictures attached to this post. It's from the Sergey Kolesov brush set, and it's one of my favorites.

Side note: If you look at Sergey Kolesov's process paintings, you'll see that his painting approach is organic. I guess he might not know exactly what he's doing at the start, but through the combination of strokes, he slowly starts to define shapes and volume with light and shadow values. It's a really cool way to paint but that's not our exercise for today.

Steps:
Step 1: Create a new white canvas and spend at least 5 minutes making strokes with the selected brush.

Step 2: Try to find familiar shapes, they can be anything: faces, bodies, animals, props, even landscapes if you're really into that.

Step 3: Create a new layer on top and draw that shape you saw. You might want to turn down the opacity of the stroke layer a bit to better see the outline of your shape.

Step 4: After 10 or 15 minutes, you can either develop that idea further or start a new one, beginning again from step 1. Try this for a fair amount of time, or at least 10 times.

If you try this and after several minutes still can't find any familiar shapes, just try to make the contrast between the black and white more complex. Try to mimic the style of a Rorschach Test - the contrast between the white canvas and the black strokes will eventually reveal some interesting shapes.

Conclusion:
This exercise will help you get in touch with that collection of visual memories you've gathered. It's like watching clouds and finding animals, but instead, you'll be trying to create the "animal" from memory. If you really like the idea, you could even search for a reference of the actual thing to make minor corrections that you might be missing.

This exercise can also be a great way to break through a creative block since you're not just staring at a blank canvas. Instead, you're looking at a canvas full of possibilities waiting to be discovered.

Give this exercise a shot and share your creations in our Discord sketch channel! I'm really curious about what's going on in your head when you're practicing. I might get scared o.o.

Tomorrow, I'll be sharing the process video and PSD of these works. If you want to take your illustration skills to the next level, don't forget to upgrade to the Mastering Maestro tier or even higher (why not?) ;)

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