Hello my fabulous, creative, incomparable GUT peeps!
Last week we wrapped up our Summer Drawing Book of Days—a month of daily drawing themes—finishing off with the always glorious GUT Doodle Game. The chat was alive with squiggles, scribbles, and blobs that you transformed into unexpected art. And many of us are continuing with a scribble a day. Love it. It was a great month of daily drawings all around, and that last Doodle Game is the perfect lead in to our new series: GROUP DRAWING GAMES.
Hosting DrawTogether Strangers at the National Gallery in DC this summer was a great reminder of how important it is not only to draw together, but to do so in person.
I am so grateful for the ability to connect through these magical screens at a distance. But connecting here is a starting point. The goal of DrawTogether has always been to get us off our screens and draw together with each other in person.
And so, few weeks ago, I brought the whole GUT team together in the DrawTogether Studio (aka my studio) for a game night—to spend time together in person and laugh and draw together for a couple hours. It was the first time we’ve all gathered together like this—DT kids included—and of course, it was a blast.
The goal of DrawTogether has always been to get us off our screens and draw together with each other in person.
That’s the spark behind what we’re about to start doing. For the next few weeks I am going to share drawing games, intended for two or more people, that must be done IN PERSON. They require you to literally draw together. So grab your colored pencils and paper and call over your family, friends, neighbors, and strangers on the street. Now let’s begin the….
GROUP DRAWING GAMES!
Warm Up: Collaborative Circles à la Daniel Eatock
We’ve drawn lots of circles together in our time at the GUT (shoutout to Hiroyuki Doi and Doi Dots), but have we ever drawn one circle together?!
I got this idea from Daniel Eatock, a conceptual artist based in London, who is always brimming with ingenious, clever ideas (like painting with rolling pins!). One of his brilliant projects was to gather folks around a piece of paper to draw one circle together. Each person has a pen in their own color and contributes their own segment of the circle. The moment I saw it I wanted to try it myself.
So we did.
Turns out it’s really fun! Everyone can do it, and it’s a great way to get your creative juices going.
Warm-up directions:
Participants: The more the merrier, but at least two.
Materials: Pens/pencils in as many colors as there are people, pieces of paper
Step 1. Position everyone’s hands with their pen/pencil in a circle. Space yourselves out.
Step 2. Decide if you’re all going clockwise or counterclockwise! Get someone to be the timer and give yourselves five seconds. Put the pen down and draw to connect your segment with the next person’s starting point in those five seconds.
Step 3. Look at the circle that just emerged! If you want to keep going or try drawing in the other direction, you can move your hands inward or outward to make smaller or bigger circles together! You can also speed it up or slow it down for variation. We both moved inward and sped it up!
We had 360 degrees of fun and it was a great ice breaker, too! Another pro-tip on the circle front: Order pizza as drawing fuel—bonus if you make a Composite Pizza, inspired by Daniel Eatock, too…
Ready to draw more together? Good, because that was just the warm up. Here’s the real group drawing assignment for the week:
Assignment: Drawing in the Round
Participants: At least 3!
