Have you ever been sitting in a meeting at work (or in a lecture at school) and noticed yourself drawing in the margins of your notebook paper? Part of your mind is focused on the meeting, but another part seems to be acting on its own to control your pen. Without realizing it, you were participating in a form of automatic drawing. Simply, automatism is process of creating art without conscious control (Kleiner, 2015). It includes practices such as automatic drawing and writing. These tools were often used by artists in the biomorphic surrealist art movement. Surrealism drew inspiration from the principles of psychoanalysis and sought to unify elements of inner (psychological) and outer reality into single compositions.
Art therapists, psychoanalysts, and art educators have used scribble drawings in their practices to initiate the creative process or better understand their clients (McNamee, 2004). One formal application of automatic drawing is the annotated scribble technique which was detailed by McNamee drawing from the work of Betensky (1995). First, the artist practices scribble movements in the air. Next, they use felt-tipped markers or oil pastels to make continuous scribbles on 14” by 17” paper. When the scribble feels finished, view the image from a distance and look for shapes and images that emerge from the lines on the page. Outline, color, and add details to the shapes found in the drawing to complete it. Finally, reflect on the meaning of the individual elements in the image and their relationship to each other.
Winnicott (1964/1968) developed a technique called the Squiggle Game which he used in his consultations with child psychotherapy clients. Briefly, he would ask the child if they would like to play a game. He would tear a paper in half and quickly draw a squiggle on the page. He would challenge the child to see if it looked like anything to them or they could turn the squiggle into something. Then, he would allow the child to draw a squiggle and he would do the same. Essentially, this was a creative and playful exchange between the therapist and the child which helped develop rapport and provide a window into the child’s psyche.
Whether you call it automatic drawing, scribbling, or doodling, drawing without conscious control can have many benefits. Baweja (2020) summarized the benefits of doodling as:
Doodling helps the mind to be more focused and attentive
Doodling helps provide emotional relief
Doodling develops problem-solving abilities
Doodling helps improve learning
Doodling encourages creative self-expression
Your challenge this week is to do your own automatic drawing. Draw from your unconscious, alone or back and forth with a friend, and see what comes up.