Eight Ways to Learn from the Weirdness

Over the past almost 2 years we have been living an experiment. Imagination and dreams during Covid have led to some interesting insights. What happens to your imagination when your day-to-day life is limited? There were times when I was restricted to my nearby surroundings for long periods of time. I didn’t see many people in person and I didn’t go out except for hikes. I read a lot of books and worked in my studio even more. I am lucky to live in a place where I could be out on the trails.  I noticed that my dreams would sometimes be absent and other times really wild. The stories of all the novels I read and shows I streamed began to blend together in a weird mash up with my daily life. Going to the grocery pick-up in my dreams got mixed up with time travel in Star Trek. It was more interesting than simply cruising the aisles for peanut butter.

What purpose do the weird dreams serve and how do they enhance your imagination and creativity?

Think of dreams as offline learning. Your dreams may reflect day to day activities but with a weird twist or a little different bent. The dreams are just different enough that you recognize it as a dream and not reality, so you don’t have to store it as a memory. But it is not so different or wild that you don’t know what to do with it. Learn from the weirdness.

We need novelty, a way to break up the routine or imagination and creativity suffer.

How can you bring freshness to your art? Repetition and same-ness dull your senses, and you automatically jump to conclusions about a situation before seeing everything. Even Artificial Intelligence programs need novelty to learn or they too succumb to this problem. Perhaps the wild dreams are a way for your mind to break up the monotony and insert randomness into the brain that is trying to make sense of the day. There have been some studies that show that weird dreams create a purpose in learning. So how can we create “weirdness” in our waking lives to stimulate the imagination and enhance creativity?

I have come up with a few of the things I like to do to shake up my weirdness level. I used to stand on my head to gain a new perspective. I still do that if I am really in need of shaking up but explore these as well.

Try a new medium

When presented with materials that are unfamiliar your imagination kicks in. Many of my Mixed Media Soul Sparks videos share unusual materials from dryer sheets to vinyl tiles to leftover packing materials. The video I loved making the most was using packing materials for collage composition. I even gold leafed corrugated cardboard and stitched together package wraps. Your imagination will kick into high gear looking for new materials. Before you toss something into the recycling bin ask yourself, what could this become?

Limit your resources

Having too many choices is like analysis paralysis, you stop in your tracks with overwhelm. I have a n exercise I do when cleaning up between projects. I usually work on 3-6 pieces at a time and when I finish I put everything away. It is like cleansing your palette before tasting the next course or wine. As I put things away there is always a little pile of collage papers and assorted ephemera. I create a piece using only those papers and a couple of colors. I don’t have to use all the papers, but I can’t bring any more into play. This is a great design challenge. Try doing this in a journal or keep a sketchbook handy just for these clean-up projects.

Work on a limited series

Working on a series is another way to limit ideas so you can focus on the elements of painting or composition. An example of a limited series is working on 6 small squares using a single idea like only using squares or circles. One of my classes has you doing that, and each piece builds upon the previous one. Think of it like building blocks or book chapters.

Break up the patterns of limited series

The next step to a series would be to limit it again. Work on a series using only 2 colors and 2 markers.

Limit your palette, limit your resources and work in series. Maybe a landscape series using only 2 colors plus black and white. It is amazing what a vast color range you can achieve with shades and tints of a couple of colors. Each piece in the series uses the same colors but with varied values. Add some pops of color with a paint or gold leaf marker.

Use a viewfinder

Using two L shaped pieces of matboard to create a viewfinder is the visual equivalent of limiting your resources. If you are painting outside you can use the viewfinder to capture an interesting composition from the landscape. I like to use the viewfinder on a larger painting to find little compositions within the larger piece. I photograph the imagery within the viewfinder and this jump starts a whole new painting, or series.

See the detail below the surface

Paint the cells and patterns of the trees instead of the forest landscape. I grew up in a home of both scientists and artists, so I have always had a quirky outlook. As a kid I would look through my dad’s microscope and paint what I saw. My mom kept a few of my cellular oil paintings and they are intriguing abstracts especially for a five-year-old. I have been entranced ever since with both the micro and the macro view of the world. Take a peek online at some electron microscope scans and get inspired.

Reinterpret a Master

In the recent past aspiring artists would go to museums and copy the masterpieces. My great aunt who taught me to oil paint at a very young age had been instructed by her teacher to copy famous paintings. An advantage to this method is that you learn skills without being concerned about composition, colors and values. They are right in front of you to copy. To reinterpret a master, study some of their work and their history. Decide on how you might combine a few of the pieces and make your own version. Throw in some new elements like collage to make it your own work. I did this in one of my online classes with Gustav Klimt as the master. My piece is called Raven on the Nile.

Tell a Story

A story has a beginning, an introduction to characters, a challenge, a goal, a disappointment and a successful conclusion. Introduce these elements into your art. I like to make collage books that tell a visual story, but you could add words too. Think of your characters as colors or shapes. The challenge may be to organize them into different arrangements with various scale and colors. You build a pyramid of shapes and then your pyramid is crushed, and you end up with new shapes. The new shapes are capable of combining into new forms. This same idea can be played out on a canvas too.

So may ideas to wake up your day-to-day world. Have fun and add some weirdness to your work.