Note: This is an article from my first cjmorgan website way back when — probably 2004 or even earlier. It still gets readers, thanks to Wikipedia, so I’m reposting it here.
What is Automatic Drawing?
"Automatic Drawing" is a kind of yoga for artists. That is, it's the key to becoming centered, whole, and flexible. A brief session of automatic drawing makes a great start or end to the day.
Regular yoga practice loosens the body and relaxes the mind and spirit. Automatic drawing, or "free drawing" as I like to call it, does the same for the artist self. It's both relaxing and freeing.
Best of all, free drawing or automatic drawing is a direct line to the center of the self. It's a way to help yourself make all your art from that center. This means your development as an artist proceeds in a natural way, true to your inner being.
“Personal Power” (NFS) - © 2004 Catherine Jo Morgan
How to do an automatic drawing
The key is to make a conscious decision not to control the drawing. Take a blank sheet of paper, pick up the pencil, and just watch the marks your hand and pencil make. You're the observer, not the controller.
If thoughts come to mind as you watch, notice them but let them pass through. Don't dwell on any of them. If necessary just repeat something to yourself like "Whatever comes out is fine."
Keep drawing till you have a sense of completion. Then set that drawing aside and pick up another blank sheet of paper. Start again. Let the pencil move freely.
How many automatic drawings to do?
I usually do a minimum of six in a row. Often this is enough to get some sense of completion. Sometimes it takes several drawings for me to let loose enough to allow the drawing to get chaotic and messy. When I allow this "lack of harmony" then I can clear out the inner "mess" and go on.
The later drawings in that session usually have a grace and harmony that I enjoy. But they won't come unless I allow the "chaotic mess" drawings to emerge when they want to. I think of this as a kind of natural "clearing out" process.
The wonderful thing is that it's so natural and easy. There's no effort or strain involved. You don't have to do anything special. It's as if the self has a natural self-cleaning, self-maintaining process built in. The automatic drawing "turns on" this process.
I've done as many as 30 or 40 drawings in a row, too, if I felt like it. It can be exhilarating to do a big stack like this. It's very freeing.
What if it's just scribbling?
Well, that's good. That's how it needs to start. Just let go.
When this is what’s inside — better to get it out on paper!
Often you'll look back at some of your first automatic drawings and think "how contrived!" You thought you were really letting go and scribbling wildly, when really you were controlling the pencil. At first, the part of you that Tim Gallwey calls "Self One" just won't believe that you can even "scribble" without its firm controlling guidance. (More on Self One below.)
How to Look at an automatic drawing
Looking at four automatic “free drawings” in 2004. This was in the 8x10 studio I call The Nest, still used for oil pastel paintings.
After I'm finished drawing, I prop up a sheet of gray foam board and use push pins to tack up four to six drawings at once. This makes it easy to see the development of the drawings during the session.
Sometimes I just notice which ones I really like. I usually scan these into the computer. Later I can correct any smudges in photo editing software. I can also "erase" the holes left by the pushpins. Then I make archival giclee (inkjet) prints of these drawings to sell. (Note: It’s been a long, long time since I sold these on eBay!)
If my purpose has been primarily for personal growth, I might take time to free write about each drawing. This means, writing without trying to control the writing — just watching my hand write.
How do I feel as I look at it? What does the drawing express about my state of being? Often if I look at a series of 6 to 10 automatic drawings in the order in which I drew them, I can see a theme. It’s wonderful if I notice that a gradual inner unity developed. Here’s an example:
“Time to Play” - Automatic drawing © 2004 Catherine Jo Morgan
Sometimes it’s just the opposite. A superficial peace is disrupted as a deeper conflict or turmoil gets surfaced.
Years later, I learned that the same kinds of unpredictable results come about in Centering Prayer. You might end with more peace; you might end a session with unpleasant feelings surfaced. And of course the same is true in painting. It all requires trust that the process is creative and constructive.
If my purpose for automatic drawing practice has been primarily to "clear myself out" and get ready to do other artwork, I might skip looking at the drawings — and just start right in painting (or, back in 2004 — forging iron sculpture.)
Empathic Responses
For maximum progress in artistic development, put up each drawing separately. A gray background is helpful, but any background that lets you see the drawing well is fine. Then relax and let the drawing enter your awareness. Make it your goal to accept the drawing exactly as it is. You want to feel the world as the drawing feels it.
You may want to make some notes about what you notice. Or just make the empathic responses and let them go. What's important about this is that you're becoming one with the work, in a completely nonjudgmental way. Oddly enough, this gives you a sense of detachment.
Spontaneity and Empathy
It’s this rhythm — the alternation between "free working" and empathic responses — that makes for optimum artistic development. The automatic drawing, or equivalent "free working" in any medium, gives you a way to create straight from the center of yourself. Then the empathic responses give you a way to relate to your creations.
Criticizing your own creations usually leads to a more tense, rigid, and artificial way of working. In contrast, empathic responses lead you into a natural, relaxed, free way of making art. The "corrections" tend to make themselves, without special effort on your part.
In turn, this makes it easier to do automatic drawing and any other kind of spontaneous work. Oddly enough, "letting go" and working spontaneously is one of the most difficult things to do in art. Some people believe that it can only come after years of education and practice.
I believe this is only because the initial education and practice usually create a problem. Basically "the problem" is a tendency to criticize work. Then the "rules" and self-censorship have to be unlearned, in order for the work to flow spontaneously.
Ideal art education - or a cure for "critical" art education
If you can avoid this by starting your art education with automatic drawing plus empathic responses, you'll save a few years. If it's too late for that, then the same "cure" applies. Do some automatic drawings every day. You can do this anywhere because it's so portable and takes only a minute or less per drawing.
Then practice empathic responses. If you can't bear to look at your own artwork empathically, start with other objects to which you have less attachment. Do empathic responses to a dish or cup. Try empathic responses to a plant. Move on to someone else's artwork. Keep practicing till it's easy and natural.
Recommended materials
Soft drawing pencils
Any pencil or pen and blank paper will be better than not doing any automatic drawings at all. Ideally,use a very soft pencil. I like the Ebony drawing pencils, as well as the Cretacolor Monolith Woodless Pencil in 8B. Regular black Prismacolor pencils make the blackest marks. Any soft drawing pencil will be better than a standard #2 office pencil. I used 4B pencils for years, before going with the Ebony, which is more like a 6B. Now I alternate between the Ebony and the Cretacolor pencils, sometimes adding a black Prismacolor.
Inexpensive paper with a little tooth
I've used the Wassau Exact vellum bristol paper for many years. It has just enough tooth to grab a soft pencil mark. The size is 8.5 by 11 inches (Letter or ANSI) size, so if I use a 3-hole punch on it, I can keep the drawings in a binder. This size is also handy for making my own sketchbook, using any 1/2" binder. One pack has 250 sheets.
This is the paper I still use for automatic drawings. I’ve also used it in 11 by 14 inch size. (Note: If you buy something from an Amazon.com link here, I receive a small commission as an Amazon Associate.
If you decide to use a 9 by12 inch paper, you have a wide choice. A good, inexpensive choice would be Dick Blick white sulfite drawing paper. It comes in 500-sheet reams. Dick Blick also sells inexpensive spiral-bound sketchbooks in various sizes. (Note: I receive no commission if you buy at DickBlick.com.) The newer Strathmore spiral-bound sketchbooks are very nice indeed.
Newsprint is tempting, because it costs even less. It’s also ideal for large automatic drawings for big gestures — very freeing! Choose a newsprint pad with a nice rough surface for extra tooth. Just be aware that newsprint does turn yellow as it ages.
The key to choosing paper:
What matters most is that the paper be so inexpensive — to you — that you can make as many drawings as you wish, with no thought of cost or “waste.”
If you tense up at the thought of buying any paper at all for automatic drawings, then use the back of paper that would otherwise be thrown away. There was a time when I'd go by my local hospital once a week to collect paper they were recycling from their photocopy center. For a few years, I did all my writing and free drawing on this free paper.
Fixative?
For years I sprayed Krylon or Blair fixative on each drawing. Finally I got lazy and stopped doing this. It's messy, and should be done outdoors or with a respirator. It made automatic drawing too much like a chore.
Without a fixative, the soft pencil drawings do smudge a bit. But handled with reasonable care, it's not a real problem. If I like a drawing enough to scan it into the computer, I can easily “erase” such smudges before making any prints.
Variations in materials
The pencil drawings are basic. Start with those. Remember — for automatic drawings you need no erasers!
Then you might want to branch out into other materials. You can use crayons, soft colored pencils, oil pastels, and markers. Brush markers are especially suitable. My current favorite markers for automatic drawings are black double-ended Zig calligraphy markers.
In 1990, I did hundreds of gouache notecards on Strathmore paper, as a way to train myself to work spontaneously in forging iron. It was also the beginning of my lasting love affair with color and paint. That’s what eventually led me into painting iron, then to becoming simply a heart painter.
Gouache note card © 1990 Catherine Jo Morgan, All Rights Reserved
Sumi brush with India ink
This is my favorite variation. The size sumi brush to use depends on the size of your paper. I have quite a few, for I use them with 24x36" paper as well as 8.5x11" paper and sizes in between.
These brushes are usually quite inexpensive. The standard bamboo handle is fine. If the brush has a little loop for hanging, so much the better. If possible, select your sumi brushes in person at a "hands on" art supply store. They vary quite a bit in softness and spring. Some brushes are almost too soft for my taste.
Sumi brushes do need gentle care. Keep them wet, not letting any ink dry on them. Wash them with an extra gentle touch, for the hairs can pull out easily. Hang them to dry.
The Dick Blick "Black Cat" india ink is inexpensive and fine for automatic paintings. It's very inexpensive. A pint costs a little over $8 and will last a long time.
I keep a separate Jack Richeson brush washing basin just to use with India ink. That way I have no worries about the black getting on a brush I'm using with paint or a clear varnish. (Note: I’ve tried many different brush washing basins designed to keep the brush bristles from bending in the rinse water, and this model is by far my favorite for all painting.)
Surfaces for drawing
For years I used a clipboard for automatic drawing. Then I moved up to the kind of clipboard that has a built-in storage area. This is convenient because the pencils, sharpener, and stack of paper are always at hand.
You can also outfit a binder with punched paper and a binder pencil envelope. I haven't found this to be quite as convenient as the clipboard arrangement. But a half-inch binder or a larger zippered binder can make a nice portable sketchbook.
More recently I've been using a standard lightweight sketch board in the studio.
Large vertical surfaces for sumi ink painting
The reverse side is plain gray or silver colored, perfect for pinning paper in place.
For messier, drippy sumi ink painting, I use push pins to tack large drawing paper to a sheet of foil covered insulation board. The board comes foil covered from a local building supply store. It stays sturdier if the edges are covered with duck tape. I keep a sheet of plastic tacked to it so the ink doesn't build up on the board itself.
I just prop the board up against a wall and go at it. I have extra foil-covered boards that I can prop up around the studio to use as display boards. That way, I can look at a large number of analog paintings at once and pick out the ones I like best. I can also pin up a white or gray background and photograph a painting.
Of course, a regular easel would work fine. You could just tape or pin the paper to a drawing board on the easel. Folded, a portable easel would take up less space too.
You can also lay the paper flat on the floor for the sumi ink painting, then hang the paintings up to dry where you can look at them. It’s pleasant to hang them on a clothesline outdoors in good weather. The outdoors can make a fine art studio.
Resources on automatic drawing
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“On Not Being Able to Paint” by Joanna Fields
This is the classic book on automatic drawing or "free drawing." Although my instructions should be enough for you to do this, you may find the book inspiring. It certainly motivated me to begin this process. I read it in 1983 and have been free drawing ever since.
Joanna Fields was the pen name of a British psychoanalyst, Marion Milner. Working fulltime as an analyst, she was a Sunday painter. But she was frustrated. She would start a painting with the intention of making something beautiful. (Does this sound familiar?) But despite her best efforts, her artwork wouldn't turn out beautiful.
It was only after she stopped trying to direct and control her artwork, that anything fruitful happened. By letting go and free drawing, she entered a natural process of artistic development. This led eventually to beautiful artwork - but only after she'd released control.
Note: You may now rent or buy “On Not Being Able to Paint” on Kindle.
“Writing Without Teachers” by Peter Elbow
This is the best guide to both "free working" and empathic responses. This is the book that got me started with empathic responses, though my training in therapeutic responses had given me some groundwork. (Note: This is now also available on Kindle.)
The book also gives detailed guidelines on how to start a writer's group that really helps each member develop as a writer. I helped start such a group around 1976, that was a tremendous experience for all of us.
Later, in 1990, I started a weekly group for artists based on the same principles and methods. It ran for two years and proved essential to my making my first forged iron bowls.
At each weekly meeting, we brought finished work or work in progress, and gave each other empathic responses to it. The advantage is that our feedback wasn’t based on personal taste or on any established ideas about what makes good art. So each artist could simply judge whether the responses matched her own aims for the work.
Free writing is also a useful skill overall. It frees up any journal work you do. And this book shows the value of alternating between spontaneous work and empathic responses to it. The guidelines for a group are unmatched. I would never join a critique group based on others.
“If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence, & Spirit” by Brenda Ueland
This is one of the most encouraging books ever written. The author talks quite a bit about free writing. It’s easy to apply this to automatic drawing as well. And if you ever have problems with writer's block or artist's block, this is a good book to keep at hand.
Note: “If You Want to Write” is now available on Kindle for a very low price.)
“The Inner Game of Tennis” by Tim Gallwey
This is the classic book on how to learn to do anything better by getting Self One out of the way. Self One is the part that thinks it has to control everything, criticize, give conscious instructions.
While the book seems to be about playing tennis, the same principles apply to learning anything. They also apply to any kind of natural development - including artistic development.
When I first began to learn basic forging skills, this book helped me realize the relevance of sports psychology to learning any skill requiring hand-eye coordination.
“The Inner Game of Music”
Co-authored by Tim Gallwey and music teacher Barry Green, this book many specific processes for applying the Inner Game methods to creative endeavors. The focus is on skill development in music, but the processes are readily applied to visual art — or any other creative medium. This book proved invaluable in my learning craft and art skills, and in taking artistic risks.
The book description begins “The Inner Game of music is that which takes place in the mind, played against such elusive opponents as nervousness, self doubt, and fear of failure.” If you’re doing creative work in any medium, you’ll recognize these opponents! This book offers superb processes to defeat or bypass them.
One of the best things I learned from this book was to head up a notebook page titled “When I do [whatever I’m starting] six months from now, I’ll….” This sets my expectation that as I start this new work, I’ll be learning things. I won’t be doing it perfectly, or with exquisite efficiency, right from the start. The learning will be important too. (Reviewing those notes later can also be a big help!)
Mess Painting - Creativity Mobilization Technique
I’ve done this six-week program twice myself, and coached another in doing it once. This is a demanding program that produces amazing results in this short a period of time. I based my work with it on the original book, Creativity Mobilization Technique, by Wolfgang Luthe, founder of autogenic training. If you can find a copy, I recommend using that. (My link leads to Google Books, which lets you search a bit inside the book.)
There’s a more recent book, Mess-Painting, by , that’s a bit easier to find. The Creativity Mobilization program requires setting up a special space, buying a lot of tempera paint, and four to six two-hour sessions a week for six weeks straight. So it hasn’t been popular. I remember suggesting to a local art teacher that she add it to her class offerings. She said “No one would do it! Too much trouble!”
If you’re serious about learning spontaneity — which means not just “a lot of trouble” but also, bringing surprising feelings to the surface — then I wholeheartedly recommend this program.
“Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art” by Stephen Nachmanovitch
This is the most deeply spiritual of the books I’m listing here. When I first read it, I was moved to tears by the Prologue and the Japanese folk tale recounted there. I recognized at once: “This speaks to my condition.”
Read this if you dare! And you’ll be glad you did.
GOOD NEWS:
You can read the Prologue and many other excerpts at Google Books: Free Play, by Stephen Nachmanovitch.
(Note, once again: If you shop at Amazon.com from one of my links, I receive a small commission as an Amazon Associate. I post these links primarily to show the book covers and to make it easy to read excerpts of the books — as well as customer reviews. I really don’t care where you do your book shopping.)
Catherine Jo Morgan with bowl “Breaking Free” © 1992 Catherine Jo Morgan, All Rights Reserved
Although this long article was first published around 2004, I’ve revised it in 2020 and done my best to make the links current.
It makes me realize that although my art medium as changed from forging iron to painting hearts, it’s all been the same journey, with the same core values and beliefs.
In many ways I’m still the artist pictured here, from an interview about my ironwork bowls.