Recently I was discussing playing as part of the art making process with a mentee, and she told me how a teacher in a class she’d taken recently told the students at a certain point to ‘just play’.
She said:
“All the other students seemed to be merrily getting on with playing and throwing the paint about, and I was standing there feeling so uncomfortable because that lack of structure was way too broad for me. I needed a container, or some guidelines.“
Have you ever felt like that when you’ve been encouraged to ‘just play’ with your art supplies?
I have; I just thought that there was something wrong with me for not knowing exactly what that meant, or for being ‘free’ enough to let rip.
I’m also guilty of having said it to people myself. {Not any more!}
If you think about it, when children play, their games have rules and boundaries within which the story can unfold. You have to stand here, no, HERE, and you can only say it three times, and we pour the tea like this, and if this happens then you’re out.
And really the very fact that we as adults have to be reminded to play is actually just a big signpost to the fact that we often don’t do it naturally!
Is it any wonder that sometimes we need a bit more direction than gaily being prompted to just have fun and play with it?
It reminds me of the idea that creativity flourishes within limits, something I’ve talked about before. And like so many things we encounter as adults, it does seem to come down to just giving ourselves permission.
Not just permission to play, but permission to define for ourselves what playing means, even if that means putting some edges around it.
For me I think it actually means I need to put in some guidelines for myself.
Since I discovered how much better my art is when I have a reference image, even if I deviate from it, I’ve been better at allowing myself to put a few boundaries in place before I start ‘just playing’.
Do you find it easy to just play? Or if not, do you think if you made up some fun and flexible ‘rules’ each time you made art, it might give you the starting point you need to really let go and play your heart out?
Need a little help to get started?
The Play Within Parameters workshop offers you ideas, insights, and ways to approach being more playful in your art practice, and it costs just $9.
I, too, have difficulty in “just playing”. That sense of lightness and joy was lost to me as a child, I come from the era of children should be seen and not heard. I also need a reference and am really good at copying but have difficulty creating things from my imagination, I think that has to do with a lack of self-trust and and a loss of inner connection or something. You mentioned these things before and I really appreciate it, I don’t feel so alone in my challenges. Thank you again for your great insights.
I’m not sure I’m convinced that needing a reference indicates a lack {of trust, connection, imagination, whatever} – but that may be because I make better, more satisfying art with one! 😉 Leone I’m so glad that what I write provides some relief; for me that can make all the difference so I’m always happy when I can offer it to others. You’re definitely not alone!
I am glad I am not the only one Leone! I often feel a bit of a fraud for being able to break down and recreate others projects but cant draw on anything myself.
Thanks for the post Tara, the art of playing always felt a bit empty to me, I definitely like structure and purpose, something I have to learn to accept as being part of my artist practise.
Emily
Hello Emily! Glad to hear from another person who doesn’t necessarily find play that easy! I do think the key is to allow ourselves to set it up exactly how we want it, regardless of ‘supposed to’, and ‘everyone else’. Not always easy but definitely worth it!
Wow, so it’s not just me! And now that I think back to my childhood, you are right. My play was still structured, that’s just who I am. But so often, play gets described as wild abandon. Not me, even as a child. I once heard someone say that play was any activity that is done just for the pure joy of doing it. That I get and opens up activities to the possibility of play.
It’s interesting isn’t it, the assumptions we all have around what play means and looks like. I love that definition – much more expansive, and allows you to put boundaries in if you want to without feeling like you’re doing it wrong! I think if someone’s joy comes from play that’s structured, that still totally counts. 🙂
I’m now in a place where I enjoy just ‘playing’ with any art materials that I lay out. I mix and match and just go at it. But somedays the blank page feels like a wall, not an entryway. In teaching (I teach elementary school and community art), and as a creative, we often talk about ‘enabling constraints’. We are more focused and creative when there are some parameters to our play. This doesn’t mean constraint; I think of it more as something to respond to or springboard from. For example, splash some watercolour on the page before sketching or collage some found papers into my sketchbook even if I plan to mostly paint over them.
Yes – I think you do get to a point where you feel confident to lay things out and just begin. ‘Mix and match’ – love that! So interesting to hear your perspective as a teacher Nicole; I talk about springboards a lot in my courses so that’s something I can definitely relate to. Thanks for explaining it in this way and giving examples – great to have another voice in the conversation!
Thank you Tara for another illuminating post, and the sharing of experiences by others. Play is vital for feeding my sense of myself as an artist – I can rest within a sense of freedom, allowing things to happen. It is a method of discovering colour, shape, space relationships etc. It works best within some form of boundary. A simple example is to cut up a magazine, toss fragments in a heap and select randomly to make a collage. Then I might use a coloured pen to act as a unifying linear element. Another is to choose 3 colours I don’t usually combine and make varied marks to music – in this way my focus/senses are reacting to the rhythm as well as the colour/marks, the experience is finite, so I stop when the music does. I like not having to make all the decisions.
These are GREAT ideas Mairim! And such easy ways in to play, which is something I always think is important. 🙂 They provide just enough structure within which to be free, and are playful within themselves too. Lovely.
Gah, I hate the “just play” instruction.
Not because I have a problem with not having constraints, but because I somehow understood from looking at what people are doing at creative workshops and online classes that this means you need to go all intuitive and expressive, and I suck at that.
I love creating figurative art. I love drawing people, faces, and I love *drawing* the sketch first, not just splashing the paint about with no aim.
If you hand me just a blank canvas and a paint palette, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Then I would force myself to splash the paint and try to enjoy the process, and I wouldn’t enjoy the process one bit. Or the result, because the result would look like something a 2 year old did.
And I don’t like my art to look like something 2 year olds do.
I know this is a heretic thing to say in the expressive arts circles, but I like my art to be aesthetically pleasing to me. Even when I draw raw, dark stuff, I still make sure that I like the end result.
Because to me, aesthetics matter.
I’m a double Libra damnit, of course I’m big on aesthetics!
Expressive, loose, “not caring about the result” play is hard. Play that involves sketching and drawing a million little details is easy. I should just stop trying to make my creative journal practices look like other people’s and embrace my strengths.
So, that’s was a little rant from me, I hope you don’t mind 🙂
Not at all, rant away! 🙂 Your comments make it even clearer to me that the key factor of the whole thing is to be very clear about what the word ‘play’ means to each of us AS INDIVIDUALS. There are way too many assumptions about what it looks like and involves to ‘just play’, and of course then it ends up being a messy and uncomfortable process for many of us! I definitely think that expressive, no-structure art has its place, but for me it feels more like a therapeutic thing than something that will create the type of art I want to create. Like you, I do value the aesthetics, and I don’t think that’s unusual. If playing means making a drawing, being careful, colouring inside the lines, paying attention to the outcome as well as the process, it’s still play if it’s what we really want and what feels the most fun. Isn’t that the whole point of play after all – that it’s fun?!
I love how you are expressing yourself lately Nela; it’s so interesting to hear perspectives that question the things we so often let slip by because we haven’t checked our assumptions.
Nela, you helped clarify my thoughts on this post…for one of my kids, “play” meant a zillion costumes and freedom to follow the storyline of imagination wherever it might lead. For another, it meant experimenting with this or that, just to see what would happen. For yet another kid, it meant hours and hours with the tiny, fine details of putting legos together to make an intricate creation. Seems to me that “just play” with art is similar: some will follow colorful imagination, some will experiment with this or that technique or medium, and others will have a detailed, well-executed project. So, yes, Tara, the important part definitely seems to be to figure out our own, individual definition of “just play!” And then…go DO it!
Jill, welcome! I love this – what a brilliant example of different definitions of play in action – from the masters, you might say! And absolutely – doing it is the most important part! Thanks for sharing this.
This stream is really helping me clarify my own creative play. I have been trying to force myself to paint the layers and layers and do it like other people. My own art is very simple, like chinese brush painting or art nouveau style. I felt like my stuff was boring but now i’m beginning to get it that it is my style and there is nothing wrong with that. I like clean and clear and uncomplicated. There is nothing wrong with that. Thanks for you continued insights.
That’s wonderful to hear Leone! I have to say it’s helped me clarify the whole thing for myself too. I love to hear that you’ve embraced you own style, and found a better understanding of what that is. Excellent!
Wow, what a great discussion! This is such a good point and I’ll definitely be keeping it in mind the next time I’m teaching or blogging. Thanks for reminding me of how important constraints are in creativity!
Yes it’s become most interesting hasn’t it! The constraints idea is something I forget frequently – my posts are as much about reminding myself of these things as anyone else!
Perhaps the reason we see child’s play as wild and unrestricted, is that their ideas and processes are not logical to us. They are not hindered by a vast knowledge about how the world is put together, so they jump from A to F to C to Q without any conception of this being irregular somehow. Just as it happens to us (me at least) when we dream, it all seems perfectly sane until we wake up and begin to evaluate it and compare to our day lives.
So perhaps it doesn’t have to be “intuitive and expressive” in the sense that the hand does things on its own while we close our eyes, but simply looking for those stray notions that do appear out of the blue and explore them rather than evaluating them “nooo, you can’t do brown over purple, that is NOT a good colour”.
That’s an interesting analogy Pia – love how you see this.
Interesting takes on play. I guess that is what I do most of! I often play the ‘what if’ game to see what will happen if I try something new or create something new to me. Such as taking tile adhesive, thinning it with retarder gel and adding colour. Voila! Texture paste which became cherry blossoms, rocks, mountains, grasses. Still exploring the uses but it has opened a whole new way of working. Senior beginner really but never to old to play. Enjoy your posts so much!
Sounds like you’ve nailed play Stan. 😉 Love that idea for texture paste!